Cory - Friday I made it up to the labor and delivery area of the Viedma hospital. When I got upstairs, I met up with Dr. Remy Urpona. He showed me to the area where a woman was giving birth. She was nearing the end of her struggle and slowly the child's head began to appear. Once the doctors had helped the child out of the woman, they carted him off to the newborn area. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Urpona asked me if I'd like to see a cesarean section surgery. He showed me to an operating room nearby to where I had been. Two residents in OB/GYN, one a second year and one a first year, performed the entire surgery. It took the two doctors about 7 minutes to set everything up and a little more than 55 minutes to perform the entire surgery. All in all, I got to see the birthing of two Cochabambinos. It was a great experience.

Pete-Yesterday I made the switch from the burn clinic and went into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Hospital Viedma. Inside I was greeted by a friendly chief resident and the director who was trained in Miami. The NICU is staffed by 3 interns, 3 residents, the chief and 5 nurses who operate the 8 bed facility. Currently, there are 3 babies in the NICU, 2 with pneumonia and 1 with meningitis. It was a great learning experience as we made frequent checks of all the babies and I learned the calculations for neonatal clearance of medicine, which is a measure of kidney function. I'm looking forward to being in the NICU again next week and learning how to care for these new babies.

Mark- Yesterday, I spent the day in the burn clinic once again. I spent most of the day playing with the kids and taking a lot of pictures. One of the most fun kids to play with is named Juan. Whenever any one of us walks into the room where he is staying he immediately starts smiling and talking. Both of his legs are almost completely burned, but he still smiles non-stop when we are talking to him.

Craig - Yesterday was my last day in the emergency pediatric department. I worked with Carla once again and our ability to communicate has definitely increased dramatically over the last few days. It was a busy day with more patients than usually but fortunately not too many serious cases, mostly runny noses and mild fevers. However, I did get the chance to work with Jhoel, a 1 year old boy who came in with pneumonia that he has had for the last 3 months. He was barely able to breathe and we had to give him oxygen therapy for about 20 minutes. When we took x-rays they showed a large amount of fluid in his lungs and he was quickly taken to the main hospital for admission. I will be in the delivery room starting on Monday and will also get some time with a gastro-enterologist next week as well.