AN OLDER POST FROM MY FACEBOOK NOTES
A Trip to the Hospital!
A Trip to the Hospital!
Today started out like any normal day of schooling at Yanapuma.
I went in at 9am ready for classes. However, I found out my teacher was sick and was coming in a little late, so they asked for me to wait for a little while. So I waited...
In my waiting, I went on the computer and messed around, did some Spanish listening exercises... Then I started to think... I need to do something with my downtime. Previously, I had talked to Yanapuma about volunteering at a hospital, but they had no luck landing me anything. They said I could try going into the hospitals and asking myself... but I thought... that´s crazy. Me?... go into a hospital and ask to volunteer by myself... impossible with how much Spanish I know. So the last 2 weeks, I have either gone home, walked around, or did Spanish exercises at Yanapuma with my free afternoons.
Here is me one afternoon trying out a local soda...
However, today... I felt adventurous. I started to think, well... there's 3 hospitals nearby I could walk to and ask. So I left Yanapuma for the children´s hospital up the street - Hospital de Niños Baca Ortiz
I was able to talk enough Spanish to be directed to the Volunteer Office. Here I was able to communicate my purpose for being there (to volunteer, observe nurses at work, learn medical Spanish). She said I had a good chance, if I came back the next day with some papers explaining my purpose, etc. I was also able to talk to 2 pre-med gringos in the volunteer office. They said they enjoyed their volunteering but that they mainly handed out diapers and crayons... so I decided to keep looking.
So I took a taxicab to "una cerca hospital", and the taxicab driver took to
Hospital Ingles.
Here a nice lady directed me to the ¨Jefe¨de Human Resources. With the help of a translator named Pat, she told me I could return the next day to shadow if I brought a copy of my passport. This was encouraging because I felt like I could actually observe nurses instead of just hand out diapers (which is equally cool... no offense to people who hand out diapers in Spanish hospitals).
After Hospital Ingles, I decided to try one more place.
Hospital de Clinicas Pichincha.
I walked in, explained my mission in Spanish to the woman at the front desk. She directed me to the fourth floor Administrative Office. Within 30 minutes, I had met the Medical Director of the ER, Executive President of the Hospital, Chief Nursing Director, toured the ER, taken my picture for my ID, and given scrubs for the next day (I was given the Executive President´s new scrubs for tomorrow... I will have my own in the next few days).
Starting tomorrow morning, I am going to be shadowing nurses in the Emergency Room. Then if I want, I can shadow in the OR and ICUs the following 4 weeks.
How cool! And totally unexpected...
I hope I don't screw things up. I hope I learn lots of medical Spanish. And I hope I get to see a lot in the hospital...
You can see a virtual tour of the ER here:
http://www.hcp.com.ec/esp/
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