Volunteer Trip to Nicaragua and Costa Rica with Adrian College: Day 4

Buenos! The first day of clinic was a success. We served a total of 28 people through small diagnostic teams of 3-4 students, 1 translator, the patient and the doctor. After the home visits yesterday, we invited as many people as we could to come to the clinic today to be examined and it was great to see some familiar faces among the bunch. It was an awesome experience to speak Spanish and diagnose patients based off of our evaluations, vitals and discussion with the medical professionals and to follow up by prescribing the correct medications which were immediately available. Most of the little children were very scared of us and screamed the entire time, and it was especially frustrating to not be able to comfort them because of the language barrier, but we were able to help them in the end. Prognoses ranged from urinary tract infections to back pain to positive pregnancy tests, kidney infections, potential pre-diabetic patients and most commonly the common cold or cough. Surprisingly, alcohol and smoking are not very common but many people have chronic cough caused by their frequent use of fire wood to cook food. It is definitely noticeable how much smoke and dust is constantly in the air compared to areas in the main parts of the country. A lot of patients will return tomorrow to receive a second round of treatments for things that cannot be done at home, like nebulizers (breathing treatments). The second part of the day was a quick seminar on how to suture. We learned how to do the interrupted stitch, which means each stitch is separate. It was very fascinating to transfer what I see in my surgery observation internship to actually practicing the sutures.

It's an early night today, perfect to catch up on some sleep.