El Hospital General

Hola! So sorry for my silence the past few days, we've been busy bees over here between clinicals, homework, and life with the families. It's hard to believe that our time here in Querétaro is already drawing to a close. I just came back from my very last day in a Mexican hospital, which was definitely bittersweet. The experiences we have had at the facilities here have been phenomenal, and I feel so thankful for all of the patients I've seen and all of the skills I've been able to practice.

We spent both Thursday and Friday at El Hospital General, a public facility that is used for patients without insurance. It is a busy, busy place in many of the units. When we arrived, the head of nursing at the hospital split us up and directed us to different floors. On Thursday, I spent my time on the Internal Medicine floor with a nurse named Conchita, who was an excellent teacher. We had two patients, one that was recovering from brain surgery and another with dementia. Throughout the shift, I was able to pass TONS of meds (mostly IV push) and also take a lot of vital signs. Conchita also let me do quite a bit of the documentation, which was great since that is what I am doing my final presentation on. What I enjoyed most about my time on the floor with Conchita was talking to the patients and their families. In most of the hospitals in Mexico, the family plays a significant role in patient care. For example, they are often responsible for repositioning and bathing the patient because the nurse has so many patients he or she does not have time to do it. For this reason, there is almost always a family member in a patient's room, leaving plenty of opportunities to talk with them. I had a long conversation with the father of the patient who had brain surgery, telling him about where I was from and how my experience in Mexico had been. For a short while that I was on the unit, our patient with dementia was lucid and I was able to talk to her a bit as well. All in all, I enjoyed my first day at El Hospital General.

Today I switched to a different unit, this time Trauma, which was basically a floor for people who had injured their limbs. I administered TONS of pain medicine and was able to spend some time talking to the families/patients. This floor was a bit slower, since the patients were less critical, but it was interesting to see how another unit operates. About an hour before we had to leave, Conchita, my nurse from yesterday, came to get me to take a few photos for a project she was working on related to patient care. As a way of saying thanks, she gave me a jar of all natural lotion that can be used for many different ailments. I was so touched by this gesture of kindness and am so thankful to have met this sweet lady during our time at El Hospital General.

I'm not quite sure what the rest of the day has in store, but I'll have an update after our journey to another "pueblo" San Joaquín!