After an awesome weekend and getting to see some beautiful places it was nice to get back to work today. We went back to the main orphanage/school in Santiago for the day. We worked with Dr. Pena this morning and Dr. Romero in the afternoon. Dr. Pena is a really smart guy and is very well trained. It was nice to be more of a student with him today and get to learn some very useful and resourceful tricks that I will be able to use back in the states. It is truly amazing to see his attention to detail in his physical exams and the things he keys in on to help him make complex diagnoses with very few tools and tests. Aside from precepting for us he also teaches public health at the medical school here so he is very in tune with educating the patients as well as what needs to be done if we do find an outbreak of parasites or another disease. We actually saw a guy today who clinically has a torn meniscus and his pain isn't being controlled by oral meds. Surgery isn't a real option here until the pain is unbearable so a steroid injection could be super beneficial as far as alleviating his pain. We didn't have the meds or needles with us today but we are getting them for when we go back on Wednesday and I get to do the injection because Dr. Pena will not be there and I have done several more than the other students here. Really looking forward to doing my first procedure of the trip and hopefully giving this guy some relief. He is the PE teacher at the school we are working at and his pain has really impaired his work over the past 3 months. We also may have seen our first case on dengue fever today. I felt so sorry for the little girl, she was in horrible pain and the fevers she had over the past five days were really high. Hopefully we will get her tests back by Wednesday and will be able to give her family some answers and her some relief.
Tomorrow should be another good day. We are heading to two different orphanages. In the morning we are going to an orphanage for children born with HIV. It should be a very humbling opportunity and really push me outside my comfort zone a bit. Hopefully we can go and show them some much needed love and attention. In the afternoon we are headed to an orphanage for special needs children. We were told to expect several children with Downs stndrome and some with Arnold-Chiari malformation. I really think I will be exposed to a ton of new things tomorrow and it will be a great learning experience.
I hope all is well in the States! Seven days down and 19 to go! I'm having a blast but I miss my beautiful wife and family too much to not have a countdown!
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