ER Stories 12: Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA)

It's almost one.

12:35.

Uh.. it's sort of almost one.

Sigh.

We've stopped accepting new patients at this point. (That's the nice part about working in a health clinic in Ecuador: we can close up shop for an hour a day during lunchtime without much consequence.)

12:37....

ER Stories 11: Foreign Body (Eyes, Ears, Mouth & Nose!)

Note: These posts are intentionally vague (with no names, ages, or dates) so as to protect patient confidentiality. These stories are random and their publication dates have no correlation to the dates they occurred.

Many of these foreign body cases aren't even handled by the ER Doctor; they are often handed over to a physician who specializes in Ear, Nose, Throat Care. This post is not meant to be an educational how-to-treat these cases, but rather a blog post of my personal account of how certain, specific (freaking cool) cases have been treated. Really what I am saying to you here, is let's not try this at home folks.

Kids have a tendency to stick objects where they're not supposed to go.

Turns out, adults do that too.

Foreign Object in Eye

(http://www.surgical-tutor.org.uk/default-home.htm?specialities/ent/eye.htm~right)

ER Stories 8: Burnt Skin

[Entry from my journal on Wednesday, February 6, 2013]

[Only the first picture is mine. All other pictures included in this post are ones I found on the internet from patients with similar cases.]

Patronato was really busy in the morning. I did a lot! Lots of patients, a few shots and a really interesting emergency:

Denise (coworker) and Chanmi (Global Citizen Year 2014) in the office/waiting room of Patronato

Denise and I exchanged a funny look when we heard odd squealing from outside. We thought it may have been an injured dog. A few seconds later, a very frantic set of parents rushed into the clinic, carrying the source of the squealing -- a little boy.

ER Stories 6: Before and After - Amputated Toe

Another ER Story from Ecuador:

Short Background Story to these photos: On my first week working in the clinic, I met a woman who recently had a good section of her middle toe/foot removed as an eventual result to her diabetes. I cleaned her foot every day and after a few months her wounds heal. 

Long & More Interesting Background Story: http://everydayambassador.org/2013/01/07/looking-up-from-sympathy-to-respect/

I am humbled to see the drastic before and after. Our bodies are miraculous.

Before:

ER Stories 4: Medical Gore

I geek out over medical gore.

I find the human body absolutely fascinating.

It's crazy to me that our bodies are so strong and so fragile at the same time.

Anyway, let's get to the good stuff:

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE :)

ER Stories 2: It's a Boy!

Before I worked as an ER Tech in the States, I worked as a CNA in a little clinic in Puerto Quito, Ecuador.

We have a small Emergency Room and I got a lot of hands-on experience with the burning, the broken and the bleeding (and I loved it).

...........................

In this little clinic, we have a small room dedicated to giving birth. I knew about it, but in the six months I had been working at Patronato, we had never used it.

On February 7, 2013 I came into work to find that little room occupied by a doctor, nurse and mother in labor.

Um, what?

I stood outside the door for five minutes wondering if it was appropriate to knock on the door and ask to help. I tend to over think things. I finally decided it was an opportunity I could not pass up, and knocked.

"¿Quién es?" I recognized Dr. Rios' voice. "Sydni," I replied and he immediately opened the door, welcoming me inside; but not before he instructed me to scrub in.

palabras

¿Conoces La Pirámide de Alimentación?

Rainy season has temporarily brought a decline in patients, and I have a new cumpeñera, which means I have a lot more down time at work. In that free time, I have taken to doing little projects around the clinic, like this food pyramid poster I put in the waiting room:

 

By the end of my bridge year, I expect these walls to be filled with informational posters. I am currently working on a poster about taking care of your body when you’re pregnant. (We own the only ultrasound machine in Puerto Quito and the surrounding area, so many of our patients sitting in this room are excitedly waiting to see their unborn baby!)

All the “food” on this poster is velcroed on, so the idea is to take them all off, guess where they go on the pyramid and then check if you’re right. (It is geared to children, but I have heard many adult patients discussing food portions and how their diet relates to the recommendation of this Pirámide de Alimentación.)

(If you’re interested in humanitarian blogs, particularly about health care, I stumbled upon a really neat blog [while researching ideas for these posters, ironically] about a small organization trying to help maternal health care in Honduras here: http://darlaluzhonduras.wordpress.com/)

A Short Preview of My Apprenticeship.

 

This is the subcentro I am volunteering in for the next six months as a Nursing Assistant.

 

This is me in the subcentro with my over-sized lab coat which advertises a medication that probably has something to do with the urinary system. (I am investing in scrubs in the near future.)

 

All of the histories for the patients are paper.

 

There are over 12,000 of them and that number is rapidly growing. My job includes shuffling through the thousands of histories to search for the patients' history and to return the histories that the doctor(s) saw that day back to their proper place. 

Each of those binders holds 200 histories.

 

I sit behind that nice little window for a good chunk of the day and sort through histories, greet patients, and do all of the paperwork that needs to be done before the patient sees the doctor (which simply includes finding the correct history or making a new history if the patient is new to the clinic).

 

I check vitals before the patient sees the doctor(s) -- height, weight, blood pressure, etc.

 

 I also get to do cool things like cleaning wounds, taking out stitches and assististing/observing the doctor(s).

 

(Want to see the before and after to this patient? Check it out here.)

I´m getting lots of practice doing what I love, learning new skills and learning new ways of doing things (for example, in my clinic, we don´t get sterile gauze in packages on a regular basis, so we fold the gauze inside of paper and we put them into a machine which sterilizes them).



Next on my Ecuadorian adventure: Vacation to the beach - Video and Photos