Today was our third day of placement. We were assigned to Dr. Sam however that didnt work out too well. We saw so many crazy things. Jenny was with us today. The first thing we saw was Dr. Sam perform a carpal tunnel surgery. All he had to do was cut into the wrist to relieve the pressure. It only took like 4 minutes! After that we went across the hall to see a doctor clean an infection out of a guys knee. The patient was a 19 year old male who had a massive tu...

Today was our second day of placement! We had a new mentor today. We got to see two ACL repairs and a total knee replacement. The first ACL repair was for a middle aged man who was having trouble playing soccer. He wasnt in a ton of pain but his knee was very week and would give out at times. Our mentor allowed us to feel how his knee popped out of the socket while it was moved. In order to do an ACL repair, they have to harvest a tendon from elsewhere. In this c...

Today was our first day of placement! I got to shadow doctors in the surgical orthopedic and traumatology departments at Buddhachinaraj Hospital in Phitsanulok. Also assigned to these doctors were Annie and LIana, who were so much fun to be around! When we went into the OR, we had to change from our Gap Medics scrubs to sterilized scrubs. They were very worn and had all kind of different lengths of pants and such. We wore sandals into the OR. Yes, sandals?! Nev...

Katiana and Ooo met us at the airport with beautiful flower rings, which is a Thai tradition. We arrived to the Gap Medics house around 3:30pm and were assigned our cottages (yay cottage 3!). Once we got settled in, I showered and wanted to blow dry my hair. However, I learned the hard way that the voltage in Thailand is different. Therefore, when I went to turn on my blow dryer, it blew up. Like fire and everything. But I threw it on the floor and managed to get...

It took me 33 hours of traveling to get to the Phitsanulok. (Chicago --> Dubai --> First Bangkok airport -->second Bangkok airport--> Phistanulok) I flew on Emirates airline to Dubai and Bangkok. The plane was amazing. The first flight was 14 hours and the second was 6 hours but it flew by so quick. I was in seat K (window seat!) both times and had the row to myself. Emirates provided us with dinner, a snack, and supper on the way to Dubai and dinner ...