This week at the clinic has been a little mundane with a lot of common cold cases. Monday was a slow day until the afternoon when a child was "hit by a car". No worries, the child only had minor scrapes, much like he fell off of his bicycle and slid a few inches on rocks. Dr. Cristian simply cleaned his scrapes, gave him some ibuprofen, and sent him on his way. The kid was either in a little bit of shock or was afraid he was going to be in trouble because he did not want to leave the clinic, even though he was fine. My favorite part of the day was the last two patients. The first patient was 32 weeks pregnant and Stella and I were able to listen to the baby's heartbeat. It was so incredible!! The next patient was actually one of the employee's 2 month old baby. We got to hold him for 20 minutes or so before his parents came in for the appointment. He was precious!!! (Obviously I have caught baby fever!)
Tuesday Stella and I arrived at the clinic a little earlier than normal, only to find out that everyone at the clinic was at a meeting in Santa Rosa and would not be at the clinic until 10. So we did our best to keep ourselves entertained with reading a chapter in Pharmacotherapy Handbook and/or Facebook. Then when everyone arrived, we realized that we did not have any nurses to prep the patients before they saw the doctor. All of the nurses were at another meeting that lasted all day. Needless to say, it was a little bit busy and chaotic due to the combination of a late start and 0 nurses. But we pushed through the several cases of gripe and pain and actually finished the day on time. Our last patient of the day was very interesting though. When she sat down to talk with us, you could see the pain in her eyes. It was obvious that she was dealing with depression, which was causing some secondary problems, like stomach upset and neck pain. Stella did a fabulous job counseling her about her disease state (I pitched in a little on the medications) and helped her understand that medications alone are not sufficient for treating major depressive disorder. I think she left feeling better about asking for help and talking with someone about her problems, and knowing that there were options available for helping her.
Today was another day of gripe. We did have one extremely terrifying case this afternoon with a 7 month old baby that was receiving approximately the adult dose of Tylenol in ~14 hours. When we heard how much the mother was INSTRUCTED to give her child by a DOCTOR, all three of our jaws dropped to the floor. The mother says she was told to give the baby 7mLs of the concentrated drops every 2 hours because her baby "looked a little fat". Stella and I were completely amazed that this child was not already dead or in liver failure. The only logical explanation for why this child experienced the miracle that he did, is that generics are not regulated as tightly as they are in the US and don't always have the amount of drug in them that they are supposed to. This family is extremely lucky.
The good news of the day is that we have half of the day off tomorrow and all day off Friday...So we have yet to have our last adventure!!! We will be going to a zoo near Quito on Friday and then returning to Santo Domingo for Maricella's wedding celebration on Saturday. We are very excited that our last weekend in Ecuador is going to be full of adventure just like all the rest.
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