Today I woke up excited - the real first day of med rotations was finally here. I got into my "formal" clothes (as formal as i could bring on a 3 month trip), then went down for another big breakfast. After eating, the group and I sat in the lobby waiting for the tutors to arrive and bring us to the right hospitals. They were on "ecuadorian time" of course, but we were eventually all filed in taxis. Our bus is broken down right now, otherwise we'd use that. Taxi rides are always a great adventure, and since this is a capital city, the traffic was pretty crazy. We made it there in good time though, and i started my first shift with the two others in my group - Pediatrics. The first thing we learned was how to preform a basic physical exam on a newborn baby - and these were real newborns (less than 2 days old)! We had to check for the grip reflex, the gaps in their skull, an intact collarbone, a soft belly and properly developed hip bones. There are many other tests, but these were the ones we did. I found it amazing how fast babies heal - if they break a bone, they're developing so fast that it only takes two weeks to heal without a cast. They also do a remarkable job at telling you if something is wrong. After this, we went up to where the less healthy babies were. We had to fully wash our hands and arms and even take off watches and such before entering. Here, there were babies that were born prematurely and others with different diseases and syndromes. It seemed to be fairly common for babies to have a disease that gave them a yellow complexion. They were under UV lights for about 24 hours. After seeing all of this, we talked with our tutor for a fair bit about different pediatric topics. By 1, it was time for lunch, so we met up with one other group and walked to the mall for lunch. We had such great pasta for a mall food court (why don't we get good food court food back home?). After this, we had an awesome coconut slurpee - slurpee really has to invent this one back home. We took taxis back to the hotel for a quick rest. I was hoping that my roommate was back too since he had the key. I was lucky, because just as i showed up, a maid was cleaning the room, so i snuck in. After a bit of chilling, i went down for the next shift - Radiology. The group was downstairs, however there were no leaders here. Turned out they had booked taxis for us and we had to get to this hospital on our own. I had none of this info tho, and it was pretty sketchy when a blue car showed up with no taxi signs and asked for 3 people to get in his car. He said our leader's names though, so we got the hotel concierge to confirm that this was our taxi. Turned out, it was. I got in with a couple others and explained our confusion (in spanish) to the taxi driver. But seriously, who doesn't put a taxi sign on a taxi? Anyway, we got there and he was asking to be paid, even though apparently he was already suppose to be paid. I talked to him and eventually, our leaders came to the cab to sort stuff out. I guess my spanish wasn't bad because he mistook me for one of the leaders initially. Anyway, we entered this hospital and firstly sat down to talk about CT scans. We were explained everything, then brought into imaging to take a look at some scans. A really cool one was of a pregnant mother - a skeleton inside a skeleton. We also saw a CT of a mummy from a museum. I'm able to take pictures but I can't post the pics from inside the hospital. After, we did the same thing with MRI. It's all so interesting - so much of this diagnosis relies on these tests. This whole section was also really cool since i volunteered at a hospital and got taught a lot about imaging from my uncle Rob that works there. After this, we had our final session where every group met up together - CPR. We were taught all the correct procedures for adults and babies. Finally, we ended the night off here by ordering pizza. I had my fill and we only paid $7 each for the full meal. A taxi brought us back to the hotel and now i have to get to bed, otherwise i wont have any energy for tomorrow!
The hospital
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