I spent the last week working in a clinic near Santiago with some other volunteers. The doctors were awesome, and it was a pretty great experience. In the mornings we translated for patient intake, and in the afternoons we watched surgeries (and got to scrub in and help with a few).
They were doing bumps and lumps—hernias, sebaceous cysts, and lipomas. I learned how to do interrupted and subcuticle sutures, cut out lipomas, and some other stuff that’ll come in handy if I ever get into trouble in the campo.
This med mission was so, so much better than the first one I did. The doctors were all professional, they knew what they were doing, it was well-planned, and they taught us about all the procedures they were doing.
There was another group of med students doing gyno stuff, and I ended up translating for their pap smears and breast exams too. I think it was their first time ever in a room with patients before, and they didn’t know Spanish, so they did a pretty good job of looking freaked out. It was as if they were reading off a list of steps to do, and couldn’t remember what step they were on. So, while they were wigging out, I just chatted with the patients and kept them from fleeing.
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