So, I've been at this one small private clinic in the town where I live for about 2 months, called Sierras Chicas. I worked mostly with Dr. Murqui, who seems to me like a general or family practitioner. He was in charge of all the hospitalized patients (we had ~20 beds), except for the ICU (7 beds), and the walk-in/on call clinic area called 'la Guardia'. We didn't have an emergency room of any sort. He and another doctor shared these duties. Mostly, I just followed him on rounds and observed him in the Guardia. Whenever he was charting, or didn't have any more patients to see, or just didn't have anything for me to see in general, I followed the nurses around. With them, I helped change patients, change the beds, and just watched them do stuff. And when they didn't have anything to do, I folded gauze, because they cut, fold, wrap, and sterilize their own gauze.
It was definitely interesting to see the range of patients that Dr. Murqui saw. A good portion of the hospitalized patients were older, and some were bedridden, either because of old age, or hip fractures, etc. So, I'm just going to make a list of some of the things I saw:
-pnemonia
-diabetes
-urinary infections
-bug bites
-gastroenteritis
-flu/cold/allergies
-laryngitis
-appendicitis
-hip fractures
-cystic fibrosis
-toenail removal
-putting in/taking out male/female catheters
-hernia
-colon cancer
-kidney stones
-putting in/taking out IV
-stroke
-car accident
-fell off horse
-work injuries
-sports injuries
-enema
-naso-gastric tube
-remove blood from catheter
-take blood pressure/pulse
-pinched nerve
-epilepsy
-pregnant woman with contractions
-bleeding during pregnancy
-various other small wounds
-dressing changes of wounds
-heart murmur
-bedsores, including removal of sore.
In general, it was a really good experience. I got to see all kinds of different patients, and the relationship between the doctors and the nurses. I got to actually interact with patients, whether it was helping the nurses change them, feeding them, taking their blood pressure/pulse, assisting the doctors with handing them gauze/saline/tape/syringes, and other random tasks. I got to listen to a heart murmur, and to hear the lung sounds of patients with pneumonia.
The doctors were really nice. Dr. Murqui spoke very clearly and slowly, so I could understand him, and was very willing to answer any of my questions. At first, I thought some of the nurses didn't like me, but it was sometimes hard to understand them and I often felt like a burden to them. However, in the end, I had a good relationship with them and really enjoyed my time there. I will definitely miss it!
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