For a very interesting ward in the second largest hospital in the district of Tarija, this was by far my most boring week.
I realized here what an immense difference in my experience the personality of the doctor I'm working with makes.
I spent my time here working with Dr. Victor Vilcaez.
Monday was Tarija's anniversary, so no one worked. So my first day was on Tuesday, and I arrived at the hospital at 7am. In Internal Medicine I asked if Dr. Vilcaez was there and they said not yet. After about twenty minutes I asked again and they said Oh yeah, he's in that room. I introduced myself but he told me to wait and then came out and said we were going to do rounds.
As per usual, rounds consist of the residents taking the doctors around to all of the patients and explaining their case and any recent developments. They're always the hardest for me to understand because the Spanish is so fast and mumbled.
After rounds, the doctor took me to his small lessons with some other residents where I sat for an hour and a half while he talked about anemia. Relatively interesting but I had a much stronger desire to actually get out and learn about the patients.
There were a few with bad cancers, two with diabetes, a man with an infection on his foot that was going through necrosis (his foot was slowly just dying and left rotting black parts), one with a blood problem, and a few that I couldn't understand.
After that we went to his consultation to possibly admit new patients. During this time, he didn't say a word to me, just observed the patients and talked with them. He never shared anything he was doing or thinking, so I was beyond bored.
I spent two more days just like this. One Wednesday I helped one of the residents change a bandage on a patient that was missing a large chunk of flesh on his abdomen due to cancer. On Thursday I got to accompany a patient for an endoscopy and watch the process of using a camera to examine the esophagus and stomach.
After this day, I asked the doctor if it was possible to come back for the nigh shift or even just for the next day (my last day her) and go to surgery or emergency. I had heard both of those had great, friendly doctors, and at previous rotations I had never had a problem freely moving about the hospital to observe different things
He told me no, because I was working with him and he wouldn't be going there.
So that was the end of that. I didn't have much desire to be paying money for a program that left me horrendously bored. So I called my director and asked her if I could switch placements. She told me of course and that she would start me early on my next weeks placement!
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