Showing posts with label peru. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peru. Show all posts
Sunday, February 14, 2010

Up in the Mountains- Peru

Judith and the crew of Peruvian medical students sift through stacks of medical charts. We are doing a retrospective study on malnutrition, looking at the age, height, and weight of children less than 5 years old.

As Dr. Schnuth commented to me, the clouds are low! Or, depending on your perspective, you could say that we´re just really high up! Many days we could see the clouds hanging in the valleys much lower than where we are now at the top!!! There´s no experience similar to walking through a cloud, as it spits rain in your face ;)

Here is another family we interviewed from La Florida. You can see the adobe house in the background. And the layers of clothing are necessary, as it´s equally cold inside as outside.... especially when in the clouds and at night! Brrrrrrr.......

On a beautifully sunny day this is a normal scene.... impresionante!

Sometimes we had to hide from the rain. Even with umbrellas the wind could easily soak you from the side, especially as you ascend the mountains up serious inclines! We would just camp out and chat until the floodgates again closed :)

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Thursday, February 4, 2010

Greetings from Peru!

Greetings from Peru!


From left to right: Stefi (our peruvian medical student volunteer), Sarah (MSU medical student), Rosa (the clinic´s obstetrician), Judy (FIMRC Peru coordinator), Cristian (the clinic´s doctor) and Tyler (MSU medical student. This was taken in Paraiso, a very rural village at about 9,000 feet altitude.



Sarah, Tyler and Rosa in front of the Pregnant Woman Radar. Some women have to walk two hours while in labor to recieve medical care at this clinic. One of the priorities of the Peruvian Ministry of Health is to improve maternal morbidity, so this is how they track who is pregnant in the different villages.

This was a very sweet mother and her five children that we met while doing a survey in La Florida. This town is about a 20 minute walk from where we are stationed in Agallpampa. The survey is being done to assess the different medical and educational needs of the population so that we can create a mobile medical clinic.




Some of our friends in Agallpampa. These children meet us at our door each morning to see if we will be teaching english classes. They are vicious tag players, too.



This is a view outside of the place we are staying in Agallpampa. This building is the Posta de Salud, a clinic that acts as a referral point for many of the surrounding, smaller clinics.





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Monday, January 25, 2010

The Peruvian Schedule

I just realized that I´ve posted many pictures, but without explaining what it is that I do here in Peru. Honestly, it´s a question we´ve been asking ourselves down here for a the past week or so & it´s always a work in progress. But for the moment, it has taken the following form:

Mornings: Hospital Belén

Monday- Pediatrics
Tuesday- Internal Medicine
Wednesday- Surgery
Thursday- Pediatrics
Friday- Obstetrics

Afternoons: Hospital Regional

Every day- Emergency


Life will be extremely different in the mountains, once I arrive with Tyler in Agallpampa. We will be working on a research study, which will be published in a medical science journal here. And I would imagine it will all shift again when we come back from Agallpampa, as there will be 2 of us! Peru will keep you posted! At least this gives an idea :)

Sending hugs from the South!!!!

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My emergency room suturing! This 18 year old guy was assaulted in order to rob his motorcycle, and in the process he found himself stabbede 5 times in the back and once over the liver. As they need hands in the ER, I do a lot of suturing! Sunday night was a war zone!!!


This señor had a traffic accident (I´m not sure exactly what, as no one seemed to understand well). He entered the ER with gray matter hanging out, a shatter cranium, a broken patella, shattered right lower leg, and internal hemorrhage (undetermined at the time with the bare essentials of diagnostic apparatus at their alcance). He kept desatting down into the low 70s and I´m not sure he will survive. Honestly, I´m not sure how anyone survives the traffic down here... it´s chaotic and whatever rules there are, they aren´t followed to my knowledge!!


Dr. Juan is a family doc of 10 years who is just now going back for his residency in pediatrics. I spend as much time by his side as I can, as he has the most love for these children out of everyone I´ve met thus far! Plus, he loves to teach ;)


Half of my host family... they´re amazing!!!!!! I´m just missing my host mom, Diana (the FIMRC director here in Trujillo) & her baby, Mònica (the other sister), and their husbands.... we have quite the houseful!


Random chicken head in the road... I thought someone might appreciate that!! ;)



Here´s Janina, a 21 year old girl about to have her first baby! She´d been 1cm dilated for the past week, was having 2 contractions every 10 minutes, but wasn´t progressing. We spent 2 hours talking while we started the induction with oxytocin and when I went by later that night she still hadn´t dilated!! My guess is they did a cesarian, but unfortunately no one seems to know & I may never find out! She was amazing!!


Here`s the neurosurgery team after just having put in 2 CSF drains (including 2 peruvian medical students)! There`s nothing like watching someone drill through another`s head.....


Here`s a little girl with hydrocephalus. She`s been in inpatient peds for over 3 months as her mom put together money to return for her. In the parents` absence, the hospital put out requests on the radio for help taking care of her, so the community is currently providing her with diapers and food. Hospitals down here have to stock of supplies. People that need treatment must first get a family member to go buy their supplies. In the ER that can waste previous time.


CT of the girl with hydrocephalus. I´ve seen many of these images in my week here. It would be interesting to find out why the incidence is so high here.


Finally, another mom caring for her child with hydrocephalus.

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Friday, January 22, 2010

Images of Peru

The reality of Peru is so different and yet so similar to our own in many ways. This little girl above has an astrocytoma. I watched them put in 2 cranial drains to relieve the intracranial pressure. Now we wait and see if she wakes up.
This 8 year old has been in the hospital for over a month waiting for her burns to heal....
Here´s the new coordinator, Judith! She´s from Oregon and one of the most dynamic people I´ve ever met! Everything is changing and we´re taking it one step at a time, rolling with the changes and doing a lot of laughing in the process :)
(A little boy took this picture for us in the hospital Belén)
Street music in Trujillo.... it´s all in the family!
AND.... you can´t forget the typical dishes of the region!!!! On my first full day in the hospital, the pediatrician invited me to a birthday party for one of his friends, who was turning 79. Not only did it turn out to be a fancy feast with all of the traditional dishes (from papas a la hauncaina to pato and cabrito), but there was 5 hours of talking, laughing, singing, and dancing! I haven´t felt so accepted so quickly in a long time.

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