Travel to Quito

Service Learning Visit at Hospital of Quito - By Robin Fillner - SALUD Program Guest blogger traveling in Quito. Buenes Dias! Como estan? Well, this week we started volunteering in the hospital. So, now our days are pretty full with volunteering in the morning around 8 until 12. At 1:00pm we have lunch at school and then study Spanish from 2:00 until 6:30pm. and we always have homework... The hospital is a teaching hospital and since 8 in our group are med students, the doctors that they follow give them homework such as presentations about certain diseases (yes, in Spanish!). And 2 people in our group have to be there at 7:00. The others in the group are in the areas of OB-GYN, surgery, oncology, infectious diseases, and pediatrics. I went into Urgencia, or Emergency. I was assigned to a nurse but she has me doing things like taking 1000 blood pressures, so I have been just observing the trauma cases that come in or attending the rounds or the med students. I haven't practiced too many skills as of yet just because of the language barrier. But, I am pretty satisfied with learning the Spanish medical lingo and observing the way things are done in Ecuador. There are so many med students in the hospital that there really isn't that much to do for me. Which I was a little disappointed with in the beginning but with the language barrier, it's really ok. The first day I was there, I met 2 med students from Colombia that showed me around the ER and talked with me for about 2 hours! Isabel, my house mom, is convinced they are into drugs somehow, but I keep telling her that no, they're really med students. How they had time to talk with me, I have no idea. They talked really fast but I was able to keep up. There are also a lot of residents there that are also extremely friendly and eager to show me equipment and introduce me to their instructors and other doctors. I am so amazed at how incredibly friendly all the staff is: nurses, doctors, and students.