Doctorita Kristin

So, I know it has been a litttttle too long since I have blogged--my bad. I had a busy few weeks with school and more beach vacations! I went back to Salinas for the weekend and had a fricking awesome time thanks to our friend Jack. I am constantly amazed by how I manage to find the most amazing people in the world. Anyway, after an amazing weekend, I was sent out to my new home for 2 weeks--Otavalo. Otavalo is a small city in the mountains that is populated with many indigenous folk, many of whom are artesians who sell their stuff in a giant market called Plaza del Ponchos. Right now, I am fortunate enough to be living with the mayor of the town and working in the hospital here. The mayor of the town and his family have been wonderful and they live in a beautiful home in the countryside. I am currently at an internet cafe just around the corner from the house, and there is a cow in the street just hanging out. Pretty funny, in my opinion.

My work in the hospital has been ummmmm...interesting to say the least. I have been following a doctor in the emergency room, which is literally a big room. There are no seperate rooms for patients and no privacy. On the first day, I got to see a necrotizing finger(it was completely black), as well as a plethra of urinary tract infections, stomach illnesses, and throat infections. It is completely amazing how this healthcare system functions(in a bad way). The doctor I follow is wonderful and talented, but he is given more work than he can handle. Here in Ecuador, there are subcentros de salud(neighborhood clinics) that are responsible for the care of their substituents. However, these subcentros often will not attend to patients and send them to the hospital ER. Consequently, the doctor(who has been the only doctor there all week), has more than 40 patients daily, often without any sort of urgent emergency. The patients must also purchase any and all injections, pills, IV fluids, urine containters(for tests) BEFORE they can be cared for. Before one man could go into surgery, the surgeon gave him a grocery list of crap to buy from the pharmacy before the surgery. Such a different system than I am accustomed to. Additionally, patients bug the doctor no matter what he is doing. If the doctor is doing an exam on a patient, other people just walk right in and ask him questions, ask him to sign things, ask him to look at X rays. Which brings me to another point. This hospital cannot currently issue xrays because their radiologist is on vacay. Ever heard of back-up. Oy vey.
So enough ranting about their healthcare system...I have gotten to see and do some cool stuff. For example, I have gotten to see sutures sewn(I get to do the next ones!!), and today I got to remove dead skin off of a burn victim. This may sound absolutely vile, and it was, but it was also very cool to help him. This man arrived at 8 am with about 40 percent of his body severely burned by a gas fire. He had decided to burn some trash with gas and it exploded all over his body. This man was indigenous, so he had dark skin. When we removed the dead skin(all over his face, neck, and arms), he looked like a white man. I have never smelled burning flesh before and it almost made me vomit. But after the initial disgust passed, I was able to help this man by peeling off his sheets of dead skin so that we could apply gauze. It turned out that he had to be sent to Quito for further treatment, but it was sure awesome to be a part of his treatment.

Well, I hope I provided you with a through dose of disgust and intrigue with my latest update. Hope you are all well! Hasta luego, mis amores!