Hato Chami

May 28, 2012

            Monday morning we were assigned to clinical groups.  I was in one with Laura, Bekah, Lauren, and David from my clinical group at USF and a girl named Chanel from another group.  We would be led by Jessica, a professor at USF who is also fluent in Spanish, and would be going to a village called Chami located about 45 minutes outside of San Felix.  At the clinic we were put into groups of two and assigned to various areas - two in triage, two with one of the nurses doing immunizations, and two with the medico (doctor).  Chanel and I were assigned to work with the doctor, Barry, who sees patients on an appointment basis.  Our first patient came in complaining of a headache.  Dr. Barry concluded that she probably has anemia, a chronic issue among these people since they lack access to rich sources of iron.  He also found that she was due for a pap/pelvic which we were lucky enough to perform for him with his help!  Sounds pretty mundane, but in the States it's out of our scope of practice, so it was pretty neat that we got to do it here.

My clinical group
(David, Bekah, me, Chanel, Lauren, Laura)

Rooster in the clinic

The clinic

             









                Following lunch at the clinic we went up the road to the school where we would be shown around.   This school has 700 students - those from kindergarten to the fourth grade attend in the morning, and the older students attend in the afternoon.  In Panama, it is only required that children attend school up until the 6th grade, so many do not continue their studies beyond that point.  The school offers students lunch, so the students each bring their own bowl and spoon and are given rice or crema (a corn-based cereal like cream of wheat) and little crackers for snack.  If they live particularly far from the school they can come on Sunday night and stay there through Friday, but most kids walk quite far, up and down mountains to get to school.

Kids at school

Boys playing baseball

Classroom

The kids LOVE seeing their pictures :)

             
















































             After seeing the school, we climbed back into the van and returned to San Felix.  We joined the rest of our group to tour the hospital which is right down the street from our compound.  If there is a patient with a condition that can't be treated in the remote clinics, he or she would be transported to this hospital.  I call it a hospital, but really it's just a slightly larger clinic with a few additional pieces of equipment.  We were also presented with statistics and brief history of the Comarca, which is the overall area inhabited by indigenous people in Panama.

Delivery room table
(complete with black plastic trash bag)

Delivery room table

           















               

ER in San Felix 

                Seeing what the staff in the clinics and hospitals in this area have to work with in comparison to all that we have available to us in our rotations in the United States was remarkable.  The stark difference between homes and schools here and those back home was also something I was not expecting.  They told us that we would be going into "rural" communities, which these are, but they did not tell us how poor these people are.  It has all been a very humbling experience.