Day 3 (March 6, 2006)
First Day of the Clinic
The
masses descended on us today. By 7 am the bus had arrived bringing all the
morning patients, for appointments that started at 8 am. After a bit of a
slow start while we figured out registration procedures, we started seeing
patients and the lines just got longer and the buses kept coming as the
day went on. I was assigned to the OBGYN room with Vern & Deb. It was
a little slower than the other areas, but we still worked from 8 am –
7:30 pm with only about 20 minutes for lunch. We did 45 pap smears and saw
about 50 patients total. It took us about an hour to get a routine down,
but with the help of a few local volunteers we quickly became a pretty
efficient team. We started with only one exam room but by noon the local
volunteers had found us another exam table and rigged up a second, even
more makeshift, room. Our room dividers were plastic shower curtains hung
from the ceiling and our supplies were piled on empty plastic tubs that
were stacked up to form tables. I mostly interpreted for Vern, since Deb
speaks pretty good Spanish, and we got a good routine down after a while.
It was a great experience of interpreting and I’m starting to see why
its so important to incorporate interpreters into the health care team. So
many of the routine things are so similar that it doesn’t make sense for
the doctor to repeat them over and over. After just 1 day I have the
“breast-self exam speech” memorized and I could probably do the intake
process myself.
Food report: breakfast was eggs & tomatoes, bread, salty cheese and coffee. Lunch was spaghetti with meat sauce, cucumber & tomato salad and tortillas. Dinner was leftover spaghetti, yucca, cabbage slaw, and tortillas.