Today started out same as always - breakfast, then waiting a bit for the tutors to arrive and take us to our next rotation. Today's morning rotation was Emergency dept and Intensive Care Unit. We were taken by van to a different hospital - the police hospital of Quito. Our tutor didn't actually meet us at the hotel - we met him here. We were taken in and got to change into some scrubs - we looked so professional now. The first thing we did was follow a doctor around who was examining some newborns. We remembered doing some of the things he did when we were in pediatrics. Soon after, we took a trip down to the emergency department. It brought back many memories since I volunteered in one back home for over a year. There were mainly usual cases here, but we did get to help with a few. Somebody came in who had gout and had popped a growth on his elbow... so pretty much all that was left of this elbow skin was a hole. Our tutor was recruited to help with a variety of things including bandaging this guy up, since the hospital was short staffed. We spent a fair little while here. After a bit, they wheeled a police officer in who didn't look too well. We learned that Ecuador also had a division of "mounties" and this poor one had fallen off his horse. They did a quick physical assessment of him in emerg before sending him off for tests. We decided to follow him since he seemed like an interesting case. We got to see his xrays done, and it seemed like no bones were broken - probably not more than some bruises and a sprain. We also saw some more xrays and CTs here before moving on to the most interesting part - intensive care unit. It feels a little weird to be glad about so many sick people, however we were really lucky to get to learn about so many rare cases. We saw pancreatitis (the pancreas gets inflamed and its juices start eating itself), type 1 diabetes, a brain hemorrhage, a different man recovering from brain surgery, pneumonia and the most interesting - a rare pulmonary embolism. With this case, a very major clot got stuck in a pulmonary artery. This caused one of the lungs to fill completely with blood from the rest of the artery, essentially drowning and killing the lung. It's a good thing you can live with just one lung because the other has to be removed. It was an interesting session overall. We had a quick lunch before returning to the hotel for an hour. Just a bit of rest before starting the next session - Sports Medicine. It was interesting, we did talks about caloric intake and BMR. We also tested a bunch of different vital signs of a person who was on a special bike machine. He was testing the limits of an average body by trying to reach his maximum heart rate. I was one of the volunteers who was in charge of poking this guy's fingers for blood samples, which a machine would use to test lactic acid levels. It was a cool test. We talked about a few other topics, then went for dinner around 8:30. It was a nice place where I ordered meat that was served on a little portable grill. The doctor that gave the sports med talk was also the owner of HLD. After dinner, I asked him a question - i've been itchy all over these past few days and he saw my arms and said i was allergic to something here. Probably the soap at the hospital or the bed sheets. Who knows, but at least i know to take my benedryl now. Anyway, off to bed.
Our tutor explaining some CTs
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