santa cruz de quiche
friday, august 11th
first of all, happy birthday mom! i love you!
so, this week i got to go to the hospital in quiche (the official name of the city is santa cruz de quiche) for a couple of days and work with an amercian team of surgeons and medical people. it was quite the experience. this is the hospital that we usually send people to or bring people to when we think that they are in need of hospitalization. i was excited not only to work with the team there, but also to see the hospital itself.
we walked into the hospital through the entrance to the outpatient clinic; the best word i can think to describe that moment is "overwhelmed." there were people sitting anywhere that people could sit... people that looked like they should be in the hospital, not sitting in the waiting room. and we had to walk right through the middle of them all to get to the room that hannah was working in; i felt like i was reliving the dream i have where i accidentally forgot to put on clothes and realized it at that moment. i felt completely inadequate and unsure in this sea of needy people, all staring at us.
things started to get better as i found my place in the "makeshift" recovery room/pre-op room the american team had created. it was funny, though; there was little charting, no protocols, no lengthy reports for the next nurse. there were also no side rails on the beds, and i kept looking over my shoulder waiting for one of my nursing profs to jump out from the shadows and send me home with an "unsatisfactory" for not putting the side rails up. and, although it was frustrating that about half the team could not speak spanish (myself included), it was fun to be in a setting that was somewhat familiar (the hospital setting). i got to put in three iv's (and i got them all on my first stick. i've discovered i love sticking people with needles.... i know, sick.) and it was cool to pre-op the patients, go watch their surgery, and then recover them afterwards. hannah and i were able to talk to one patient who was scared and crying before her surgery also. it was a good reminder that in the middle of all the shuffle of things, we are here for the patients (not just their veins).
often times when we tell people they need to go to the hospital, they do not go. i am sure that lack of resources plays a huge part in this, but after spending just a couple days there, i understand a lot more of why. we had to take a short trip to the "pediatric department" for one of the kids we were doing surgery on. we walked up to an "intersection" in the hallway that consisted of the hallway we were on being interscted by two different hallways, creating four separate hallways that had rooms on either side. (sorry if this is really confusing). the main point is that i thought we had entered the pediatric unit when in fact we had entered the entire inpatient part of the hospital: one hallway was pediatrics, one hallway was men's health, one was women's general health and the other was for pregnant or post-delivery women (most women deliver at home by themselves or with a midwife, but if they need to be in the hospital, they delivered in one of the rooms that are a part of the operating room). each unit holds about 20 patients at a time, and there is not such thing as private rooms. in fact, the least number of beds i saw in one room (which was the pediatric intesive care unit) was 4. there is one nurse for the entire hallway, and there is no such thing as 2 hour checks or anything; if the patient needs anything, he can call the nurse. otherwise, the nurse sits at the front desk. the fickers tell the story that they brought a little baby into the hospital who was severly malnourished. they spent the night in the hospital room with the baby. the next morning they were asking about the baby that had spent the night right next to them, and the nurse informed them that that baby had meningitis.
this is the biggest and most advanced hospital in the department of quiche.
there is so much about this culture and these people that i cannot even begin to understand. it is so incredibly different than the states in many ways, and their medical system is just one example of a million that i am just starting to have a tiny bit of my eyes opened to. just as i start to feel like i am starting to "get" something, i am reminded that i have barely even begun.
first of all, happy birthday mom! i love you!
so, this week i got to go to the hospital in quiche (the official name of the city is santa cruz de quiche) for a couple of days and work with an amercian team of surgeons and medical people. it was quite the experience. this is the hospital that we usually send people to or bring people to when we think that they are in need of hospitalization. i was excited not only to work with the team there, but also to see the hospital itself.
we walked into the hospital through the entrance to the outpatient clinic; the best word i can think to describe that moment is "overwhelmed." there were people sitting anywhere that people could sit... people that looked like they should be in the hospital, not sitting in the waiting room. and we had to walk right through the middle of them all to get to the room that hannah was working in; i felt like i was reliving the dream i have where i accidentally forgot to put on clothes and realized it at that moment. i felt completely inadequate and unsure in this sea of needy people, all staring at us.
things started to get better as i found my place in the "makeshift" recovery room/pre-op room the american team had created. it was funny, though; there was little charting, no protocols, no lengthy reports for the next nurse. there were also no side rails on the beds, and i kept looking over my shoulder waiting for one of my nursing profs to jump out from the shadows and send me home with an "unsatisfactory" for not putting the side rails up. and, although it was frustrating that about half the team could not speak spanish (myself included), it was fun to be in a setting that was somewhat familiar (the hospital setting). i got to put in three iv's (and i got them all on my first stick. i've discovered i love sticking people with needles.... i know, sick.) and it was cool to pre-op the patients, go watch their surgery, and then recover them afterwards. hannah and i were able to talk to one patient who was scared and crying before her surgery also. it was a good reminder that in the middle of all the shuffle of things, we are here for the patients (not just their veins).
often times when we tell people they need to go to the hospital, they do not go. i am sure that lack of resources plays a huge part in this, but after spending just a couple days there, i understand a lot more of why. we had to take a short trip to the "pediatric department" for one of the kids we were doing surgery on. we walked up to an "intersection" in the hallway that consisted of the hallway we were on being interscted by two different hallways, creating four separate hallways that had rooms on either side. (sorry if this is really confusing). the main point is that i thought we had entered the pediatric unit when in fact we had entered the entire inpatient part of the hospital: one hallway was pediatrics, one hallway was men's health, one was women's general health and the other was for pregnant or post-delivery women (most women deliver at home by themselves or with a midwife, but if they need to be in the hospital, they delivered in one of the rooms that are a part of the operating room). each unit holds about 20 patients at a time, and there is not such thing as private rooms. in fact, the least number of beds i saw in one room (which was the pediatric intesive care unit) was 4. there is one nurse for the entire hallway, and there is no such thing as 2 hour checks or anything; if the patient needs anything, he can call the nurse. otherwise, the nurse sits at the front desk. the fickers tell the story that they brought a little baby into the hospital who was severly malnourished. they spent the night in the hospital room with the baby. the next morning they were asking about the baby that had spent the night right next to them, and the nurse informed them that that baby had meningitis.
this is the biggest and most advanced hospital in the department of quiche.
there is so much about this culture and these people that i cannot even begin to understand. it is so incredibly different than the states in many ways, and their medical system is just one example of a million that i am just starting to have a tiny bit of my eyes opened to. just as i start to feel like i am starting to "get" something, i am reminded that i have barely even begun.
posted by katie at 6:38 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home