June 20, 2012
(PHOP has arrived in Chincha this week and we will be post in updates from Chincha and the Sacred Valley. For more information on the addition of the Chincha site to PHOP, click here.)
If there is anything more hectic than a schedule of fifty-something Spanish-speaking patients with a meager fifteen minutes allotted per patient, one M.D. (who requires a translator), and random appearances from patients past with questions and other referrals, please let me know. Today, as a recent high-school graduate and Peru Health Outreach Program veteran, I was fortunate to be the translator for the aforementioned M.D. Before I knew it I was thrust into the medical wild, sent to obtain histories for vague and often unrelated symptoms. Joint pain, back pain, and gastritis were recurrent complaints. So was depression. It’s said that depression is the ‘common cold’ of psychological illness, and I was shocked to listen to person after person who, upon receiving bad news or losing a loved one felt depressed far longer than ‘normal.’ As the day progressed, I became much more confident in taking histories and was able to gauge which systems to delve further into based on a given symptom. We faced all sorts of dilemmas, such as whether to conduct a given test based on a small suspicion, adding soles to the bill, or to use our best judgment and fill out an Rx. On one such occasion, we managed to use the ultrasound machine and do a rough abdominal ultrasound to confirm there was no aortic aneurysm in a patient. As a doctor on the team said, “If there is none, the patient is down a few soles, a couple of bucks. But if there is one, you have saved her life.”
(PHOP has arrived in Chincha this week and we will be post in updates from Chincha and the Sacred Valley. For more information on the addition of the Chincha site to PHOP, click here.)
If there is anything more hectic than a schedule of fifty-something Spanish-speaking patients with a meager fifteen minutes allotted per patient, one M.D. (who requires a translator), and random appearances from patients past with questions and other referrals, please let me know. Today, as a recent high-school graduate and Peru Health Outreach Program veteran, I was fortunate to be the translator for the aforementioned M.D. Before I knew it I was thrust into the medical wild, sent to obtain histories for vague and often unrelated symptoms. Joint pain, back pain, and gastritis were recurrent complaints. So was depression. It’s said that depression is the ‘common cold’ of psychological illness, and I was shocked to listen to person after person who, upon receiving bad news or losing a loved one felt depressed far longer than ‘normal.’ As the day progressed, I became much more confident in taking histories and was able to gauge which systems to delve further into based on a given symptom. We faced all sorts of dilemmas, such as whether to conduct a given test based on a small suspicion, adding soles to the bill, or to use our best judgment and fill out an Rx. On one such occasion, we managed to use the ultrasound machine and do a rough abdominal ultrasound to confirm there was no aortic aneurysm in a patient. As a doctor on the team said, “If there is none, the patient is down a few soles, a couple of bucks. But if there is one, you have saved her life.”
Speaking of life-saving, our CPR classes have been a real hit, and I don’t just mean a hit to the mid-line of the chest of an unconscious adult (I’m cringing at that one myself). High school and nursing students alike have been in attendance, gathering round the foyer of the clinic to watch a sack of potentially hazardous chemicals serve as chest and abdomen of an unconscious human. As brave volunteers come up to demonstrate, we have established a tradition of applauding enthusiastically. Passerbys assume the caliber of the class has evoked this response, and this contributes to its reputation of being popular and well-loved. Compression after compression, with the whole group counting the thirty pushes, we end up forming a sort of bond—the kind that only exists between those joined over the Heimlich maneuver and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Overall, the trip has been its usual whirlwind of organized chaos. We have scrambled to put together soles for patients requiring additional work-up beyond their financial means. We have educated and translated, diagnosed and treated. The city of Chincha is still being rebuilt, and it is such a pleasure to aid its people.
Ciao,
Vibhuti Krishna
Solon High School Class of 2012
Vanderbilt University Class of 2016
This is very cool and well-written! Glad to see that there are high school students that still care about doing good in the world.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post. Loved the sense of humor too. Glad you got the opportunity to go back.
ReplyDelete