Peru

Saturday morning I woke up early, packed up the rest of my stuff and headed to the streetcar in New Orleans. I arrived at Dr. Seeliger´s house a little bit early and ended up waking him and Tim up. After they had quickly shoved their stuff into bags we got a taxi and headed to the airport. We met up with some of the group in Dallas and more in Lima. We got in around midnight and spent the next few hours at the airport before boarding a regional flight to Cuzco.

Cuzco´s city center was beautiful with cobblestone roads, old cathedrals and stone buildings. I spent the first morning sleeping but ventured out that afternoon with some other group members to explore. We found a nice café, had some empanadas and got a tour of the cathedral. That night we had a really nice dinner before going out to an Irish Pub for a drink or two. The next morning I exchanged some money before we headed to Andahuaylillas, where we would spend the next ten days.

We are staying at a Jesuit-run community center that also functions as a school and playground for the children in the community. We have taken over three buildings located in the back of the compound. The first functions as our pharmacy. The second is being used by the optometrists and the third is our waiting room and clinic. Above the clinic are our romos. Each room has two bunk beds, lots of blankets and a shower. Down the hall are three shared toilets.

Most of our clinic days follow a similar pattern. We wake up between 7 and 8 and have breakfast, which consists of bread, jelly, ham and cheese. Half of the group stays here and sees patients, while the other half goes out to a near-by community to run a clinic there. Clinic runs from 8:30 until 3 or 4 with a break for dinner. In the evenings we have dinner and then sit around the bonfire drinking cervezas and listening to music.

I have mostly been working with a first year medical student named Eric. He translates and we work through the cases together before running it by one of the attendings or residents. He is great to work with and we have been some really interesting cases. Yesterday we saw a little girl with a burn on her foot, a man with otitis externa, and a woman in heart failure with pitting edema, pulmonary edema and a 3rd heart sound. Today we saw a woman with a bleeding stomach ulcer, a victim of child abuse and a man with possible Lamber-Eaton síndrome.

We have three more clinic days left and I hope to keep learning as much as I can. More to come.