We made it back from Sucre in time to finish our first rotations

Jen – Today was my last day at the burn clinic. I am sad to be leaving the kids. It is a little bit difficult to get used to one area and then have to move to a different rotation, but I am looking forward to Ob/Gyn tomorrow. I got to the clinic at about 9:30 since our bus arrived in from Sucre early this morning and we needed a little bit of time to recover. I said hi to the kids and went straight into the OR. The first surgery was a fairly routine cleaning and re-bandaging of a hand burn. The second surgery was on Joselin, a little girl who has been at the clinic for a while. Dr. Romero did a partial thickness skin graft taking skin from her thigh and putting it on her face. It was a really cool procedure to watch, but it was nothing in comparison to the next surgery. Alex Miguel, a little boy with an injury to his ankle had a skin flap made from the skin surrounding the injury. He couldn’t have a skin graft because his calcaneous bone was exposed, so the skin flap was used instead. Then after the skin flap was sutured in place, a full thickness skin graft taken from his pubis was used to close the rest of his ankle up. The entire surgery took about 2 hours and I was so excited to watch it. I even got to scrub in! I cut sutures, blotted blood, and held some clamps in place. Overall it was a really cool experience.

Celia – After surviving that harrowing ride back from Sucre, Jen and I ventured on our own to the hospital this morning. I went into the OB-ER with a little trepidation since the doctor who showed me around would not be in today. Fortunately the resident who has been the only one I see consistently was there and he kind of took me under his wing. I timed contractions of a uterus from a pregnant Quechuan woman today and felt for the fetal heartbeat by figuring out where the spine of the fetus is. I passed on measuring her dilation with my fingers. The intern taught me a little about contra-indications of “trabajo de parto” and of cesareans. I even finally learned in complete Spanish why it’s dangerous to have cesareans after the second time (of which I was immensely proud). What started off as a slower morning kind of blew up in our faces as patient after patient were brought in. Poor Dr. Marco. The last lady I saw was wheeled in immediately presenting as a pregnant 43 year old woman. Most of her teeth were missing and she could barely speak. She seemed to be in so much pain but we could barely understand her. Upon physical examination we understood why. Her labia majora and her clitoris were swollen to the size of half a big grapefruit. I left before a diagnosis was but wow, what a way to end OB.