Day 9

 

This afternoon Raquels mother came by to visit so here is a picture of us.

Monday was hard, I’m not gunna lie. I think I got so comfortable speaking Spanish with Betty and MaryBetty that I forgot how much work it takes to understand at the hospital. That being said, by this morning I was understanding again, though after sleeping on the floor last night (not enough beds for people on call) I was too tired to really put forth the effort. That being said, I enjoyed NICU rounds. There is one baby who breaks my heart. He has hydrocephalus and his head is the size of two heads and he hasn’t has surgery because it is very expensive and his parents cannot afford it. His chance of survival is low and I just want to fix it, but can’t. It is something we see so rarely anymore because we can fix it…maybe they need a group that does hydrocephalus surgery that goes around like operation smile.
On to happier thoughs. Their NICU is incredible. They don’t have monitors on every baby, they have two big rooms so mostly everyone can be seen and they have monitors on the three that needs it (one gets turned on just as a spot check to not ware out the batteries). Its incredible how they save these 25 week premies without all of our fancy gagits. In fact, I wonder on some level if it isn’t better for the babies because our babies are so over stimulated by the constant beeping of the monitors. The other thing that is just incredible and I would do anything for our mothers in the US to be like this. Every day the mothers come in and manually pump their breast milk for their babies. It is an incredible commitment to your childs heath to do this and so much better for the babies than formula…here formula is only for the babies whose mother absolutely cannot give milk. A big shout out to these mothers and to the NICU staff who insist on and encourage breast milk.
Another thing I don’t think I have celebrated enough. These med students are essentially running the show and they are incredible. Now that they are more used to me and I’m more come comfortable with them they have all the answers and are happy to answer them. Plus they know their stuff…I wonder if the USMLE was in Spanish for them what their passing rate would be…I bet it would be good.