Clinic 1 - Final thoughts

So like I said, we are at a different clinic every week. The first clinic which was just a public, primary care facility called Centro de Salud was pretty interesting. There were a lot of poor/uninsured patients waiting to be seen. I was there last week (6th-9th) then this Monday (12th) again. As of now, I've started working at La Hospital Civil which is quite a bit different, but I'll give you an idea of how my Monday went at El Centro de Salud first.

I saw patients with Dr. Anna--a very young looking, but extremely nice lady. She was in this little room and they'd just call patients out of the waiting room. They'd bring in a lot of their own medical records, and usually it was a family affair. Like I said, Dr. Anna was REALLY nice and let me ask the patients questions and would always explain anything I didn't understand. She spoke no English, but she liked to read through my notes and try to learn new words, which was kind of fun. Anyways, here's kind of an idea of the patients that came into the clinic:

The first patient was a little 5 year old girl that vomited 8 times the night before--just not feeling good. Dr. Anna immediately began questioning the mother about sanitation and preparation of food and learned that the family had live chickens that were often around where they ate. So this pretty much was attributed to contamination, which is a common problem in Mexico. She prescribed the girl amoxacilin and nimesulide, which is just a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory.

The next patient was a basic sore throat. No rapid strep test, but based on the the history and symptoms--she prescribed Amoxacilin and an anti-inflammatory. There is a lot of antibiotic resistance in Mexico, as many are available over the counter--so she did a thorough history of what the boy had taken to ensure he wasn't resistant to what she prescribed.

The third patient was interesting. She was a young pregnant woman, 20-24. It was her second check up since being pregnant, and she claimed her last menstrual cycle was July 1st... putting her overdo for labor. Her first time seeing a Doctor was '8 months' into the pregnancy, so the woman wasn't really keeping on top of things to say the least. Dr. Anna immediately doubted that July was the conception date, especially after doing a physical exam of the mother's stomach and seeing how small the baby still was. The mother was very indifferent to her pregnancy and that was cause for some concern. She ordered an ultrasound to get a better look at the baby's development and asked the woman to return in 2 days. Whether the woman actually did either of those things, I don't know.

Another patient that I can remember was a mother who's baby was constantly upset, due to bubbles forming in it's intestines from poor nursing. So Dr. Anna pretty much just went through how to nurse and get good 'contact/suction' and how to properly burp the baby to get the air out. Not overly exciting, but it just shows the variety of problems the Doctors address at the clinic.

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