September 22, 2010
Day 18
Today was my first full day at the clinic and I loved it! Today was the 2nd day of my rotation with the nurses. All of the patients must go to a certain room first where they are weighed, measured, etc. and that is where I spent my day. There are times when there are patients coming in one right after another and they are busy the whole time but there are also times where it is very slow and there may be only one patient every few minutes. I liked when it was busy because I was able to see how the nurses worked together to be both efficient and thorough. I think today was the day of the nebulizer because several babies needed to have treatments and boy, did they hate it! I understand why they hate it: the machine is loud, the mask is scary, they have to sit still, there is some foreign substance being blown in their face, and oh yeah, they are already sick. I learned that as long as you can get the mother to be calm, the baby will be calm as well. There was some calmness but only after long bouts of loud screaming/crying.
After the clinic I went to the gym at the Dominican Fiesta Hotel. I got there a little after 4:00 and was there until about 7:45pm. I think that was a little too long but I had to wait for Teresa to be done at the office to drive me home. Yes, I could have taken a taxi but I might as well work out longer and then have an even safer ride home. At school I ran all the time and also lifted weights so I thought I had a pretty good handle on the gym terminology. Oh wait, I am in another country where they speak a different language. Gym lingo here was IMPOSSIBLE. They never taught us all of the gym jargon in Spanish class so when the trainer tried to talk to me about it I couldn’t make a complete sentence. I just needed one piece for a machine and through pointing/bad Spanish skills I was able to get my point across. I now will look really dumb every time I am there.
September 23, 2010
Day 19
Today was my final day in the pre-consult room with the nurses. Before I arrived they had already seen 30+ patients and they had only been open for 1.5 hours. I guess am bad luck because soon after I arrived, it really slowed down. I am slightly offended that more little babies didn’t want to come play today. I had a refresher course on the charts and procedures from Ennie and it was helpful. She is a good teacher and I really enjoy working with her. I also like her because she helped coordinate my lunch order. Anyone who helps me obtain food is a friend of mine. Today I actually got home (or should I say, to Teresa’s home) very early and I enjoyed having a nice, relaxing afternoon/evening.
Today felt like a Friday because tomorrow is a holiday, Our Lady of Mercedes Day, so school is closed and we don’t have to work. I do not know what we are doing over the long weekend because I never know what is going on here. I like plans so that is really hard for me. I hate having to ask what is going on more than once so I will just wait to see what happens.
Fun Facts
1. Johnson’s Baby Wash is everywhere. I love it because it reminds me of home and my childhood. That stuff is just so useful and nice.
2. One of the guys who work at the clinic started speaking to me in English and I was so surprised. I only ever heard him speak in Spanish and then all of a sudden he was talking to me in English with only a slight accent. How fun!
3. Our Lady of Mercedes is the Patron Saint of the Dominican Republic and the island of Hispaniola as well. (Yes, I did some research)
4. There has been some violence in the neighborhood near the clinic but that isn’t a fun fact so I will write about that in another post.
5. Most of the people who use the gym at the hotel are members of the gym and not guests at the hotel.
6. I tried another new fruit, limoncillo and it was pretty good but too much work. You have to remove the skin and then there is a little fruit surrounding a big pit/seed that you need to discard of course.
Peace,
Jaclyn
Jaclyn
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