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Hola, Ok, I'm terrible I've been here for 6weeks and I havnt written even one blog entry, que mal! I hated it at first, i should be honest, i was really homesick and it was a huge shock to the system but now i love it. I get to play full on doctor. I work in a tiny health clinic in the middle of nowhere its called Lacma. There I'm just a volunteer but they let me do everything, a normal day consists of writing prescriptions, a few pap smears, cleaning a wound and giving a few injections as well as the normal examinations. Today I had a really good day, I was surprised as the really nice doctor I was working with left but today I watched them remove a mans infected big toenail followed by being interrogated by a scary doctor who thought I was spanish and then thinking I was dumb when I just answered errr I don't know. Then I heard that there was an emergency so I excused myself to see what was going on. It was a little girl covered in blood, it was only a tiny cut on the head. She was only 6 though and screaming. So we all tried to reassure her, the doctor said that she was ugly with all the blood on her so could he clean her up and make her beautiful again, and she said through sobs, i don't want to be ugly, i want to be beautiful like her, and pointed to me. Wahey! Then she would only let us clean it with water and not iodine and she screamed at the doctor that she didnt want him to do it and that she would only let me do it. At which point he pulled off his gloves and walked off. So i abit hesatantly pulled on a pair of gloves and cleaned it up. It looked like she needed stitches but there was noway she was going to let us so instead we got a piece of tape and cut slits into it like makeshift sterry strips and stuck that on (we don't use sterry strips, there too expensive!). Then Lucy the doctor I normally work with came back and said that she was going to work in another hospital in cochabamba and that she was going to ask whether I could come and work with her there too. It would be cool as its alot bigger so I would see even more. I'm used to it now so you are prepared for anything but there are things which at first surprised me. We don't have anything, even gloves. The patients never ask questions about there treatment, they just accept whatever you say. You see some very strange things, like a kid with a fever who's mother washed him in urine to try and reduce it and put mushed up coca leaves in his nappy to get rid of the rash! Many people cant read and some only speak quechua the local language which only a few of the doctors speak. There really is no hygene at all, hardly anyone washes there hands and if they do its just with normal hard soap! I've been taught how to suture which is cool, Erick, my supervisor here and a lovely doctor in emergency medicine. Taught me, on his make shift suture board, I'm yet to practice though, we just havnt had a sutible candidate, it's be abit scary but cool though. This weekend I'm off with all the other volunteers to chapare, a local jungle town to paint a house. It sounds abit like the argentina trip but we'll see, we leave tomorrow morning and come back on sunday night ready for work on monday. It should be good though. I have been writing in my normal travel diary so i'll transfer some of those entries to here, maybe not the first ones coz there abit weepy! Anyway, since i'm now a medicine aholic, and everything i read seems normal and not like work i am going to search on this emergency medicine site, Ciao
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