What I signed up for...

So, my first day at the hopital was muy interesante. More culturally interesting than medically. I was assigned to Doctura Tejerina. She's such a lovely lady. She specialises in pediatric pulmonology. So we were doing morning rounds in the pulmonology ward. Let me remind you, that I'm on a pediatric internship.. soo our patients were no more than 4/5 years old.
Everything was ok... till rounds started. I suddenly felt like I was flung into a different world- Medical Spanish. Obviously, doctors have no time to waste and Dr Selenas was speaking soooo rapidly I felt like my world was spinning trying to catch up. Lag time for each word- 4mins. There was no time to build my beautiful castles in the air, I felt like I late for a train! Dra Tejerina sensed my moments of panic and kindly said that she'll go through the patience one by one all over again when rounds ended. I was like... Praise the Lord.. LOL. It was also really helpful that a medical student knew how to speak english and was translating what was going on as much as he could. Very kind of him.

I won't bore you non medics with details about each patient.. as it would also take me ages.. but one thing I learnt from Dra T from my first day was that she had excellent rapport with the patients and their worried parents. She spoke to the parents one by one, moving from bed to bed, explaining their child's condition. She communicated with the parents on a human to human level so well. Something I definitely wanna take home with me. She held their shoulders and she spoke to them... gave them hugs... yadayada.. obviously, Bolivia's culture allows that kinda thing. I can imagine, one day, if I attain my dream of becoming a pediatrician and speak to like an ah beng father or something.. He'd be like "Eh whhaat. why u touch touch me? Don't touch me caan. Wait my wife see la!"

So anyway, by the time I've posted this, I would have already worked with Dra T with down syndrome babies (which is technically what I'll be doing my tmr as I'm typing this). I didn't find much information on spanish terms related to down babies in my Medical Spanish guidebook. So fingers crossed!

Lastly, something intrigued me otw to Hospital del Ninos.. I saw this...



Yes... La Paz hires ppl to dress in zebra costumes to work as "Zebra crossings"! This is because of the high rates of pedestrian related accidents within the last few years! How amusing is this idea!? Que mono! I believe the person in that costume must be roasting his ass off under the hot sun! Zebra meat anyone?