Clinic Day One

Monday we were off and running, ready to dig in and start working :D I went to the clinic in Calebasse. First day of clinic always has a few growing pains, trying to figure out how things flow best, where everyone fits best, and occasionally (usually) a little bit of mass hysteria. I'm pretty sure that's why they send me on the first day, I'm a fairly mellow person, easy going, and tend to be able to calm and reassure people. It's nice to be needed! But once we've got a rhythm things just roll on. As expected we saw a variety of pain complaints, generally lower back pain and joint pain, stemming from the hard labor they perform. Also lots and lots of hypertension. 200's/100's. For my medical friends, yup very high! And they walk around like that all of the time. It was a great day to start off the week though!

Working Hard

Don't tell Paul I said this but he did awesome. Seemed very comfortable and dived right in.

This being my third year I think I finally felt comfortable in my role. One thing I still have difficulty with is a somewhat feeling of inadequacy and helplessness. Yes, yes, I go Haiti to "help" and believe me, I do feel that I help. It's an overwhelmingly great feeling of accomplishment. The feeling of helplessness and inadequacy comes from the area of "follow-up." Not a very well known concept in third world countries. We do what we can, we give these people a month's worth of treatment; whether it be antibiotics, antihypertensives, analgesics, and the like. And then you pray that the medication works and that maybe, just maybe they'll be able to find some sort of follow-up or continuation of care. I've said this before but it feels as if you're putting a bandaid on a gaping chest wound, like a drop of water in a pool. But I've also been told that if you help keep someone out of pain or from having a stroke for a month then it was worth it. Regardless, I think that is a the part of this I will never get used to, and I suppose that's a good thing.