First thing, I absolutely love this city. It's warm and so friendly. It's much smaller than la Paz, so it's very common to run into people you know.
I spent my first week working in the clinic of Dra. Amanda Delgadillo. She works in a neighborhood here in the outskirts of Tarija. It has a relatively poor patient population and offers basic services such as consultation, vaccinations, dentistry, and a minor inpatient room if people need to stay to let stitches heal.
Dra. Delgadillo is a super nice doctor and the whole clinic in general has such a welcoming, family vibe. All of the nurses were hilarious and always joking about the "pretty new student." We all had coffee and snacks after the work day together and I really felt like I was a part of the clinic.
The one downside to this week was that Dra. Delgadillo already had a student in the final stages of her internship about to enter residency. Because of this, I felt like I was really an unnecessary third wheel in her clinic. She is a general medical doctor, so we had cases ranging from pregnant women, to a man with tuberculosis, and a lot of sore throats. The coolest parts of the week were the occasional moments I spent working with the doctor in the laboratory looking at fluid samples and diagnosing different parasites!
On Friday, I accompanied two of the interns on their community work. It was a lot of fun! It was National Children's Day, so we walked around farmland to different houses asking if they had young children and distributing nutritional supplements to help kids get their vitamins.
Overall, the week was rather low-key, but a super friendly environment to be working in!
