Hospital Militar

This week I've attended rotations in the surgery ward at Hospital Militar. In the recent past it was exclusively a hospital for military men/women and their families; but I learned yesterday that this hospital has expanded its services to all civilians, but still charges it's private fee prices. I have been under the advisement and teaching of Dr. Rene Vargas, a hip, kooky brilliant doctor with a passion for all sugeries gastro-intestinal. Each day begins with ¨"las rondas" which means a group of med students makes  "rounds" to each room to check in on the status of each patient whose case we are following. After we make the rounds, there is a group discussion of the "plan" (what´s next?.) Our group is comprised of 4 doctors,  1 nurse and 10-12 students of varying skill levels/accomplishments. In Ecuador, students who pursue medicine begin at an early age, during the U.S equivalent of high school. They basically get their undergrad out of the way by age 19 or 20 and are in residency by age 24- 25. It depends on each student´s area of focus/specialty, but it never fails to shock me when a 4th year med student tells me they are 24 years old. Today a student asked me my age and when I replied with " ¿Que piensas?", he guessed I was 25. I proudly declared that I was 29-almost 30- but somewhere deep inside me I questioned myself and my academic progress in this field. Here we are discussing case studies of people who are suffering from grave conditions, have needed endoscopic biopsies, drains, stents, and who are still suffering from fistulas, inflammation, infections etc. and all of the jargon used used is heavily drenched in anatomy and physiology (and discussed in Spanish.)  Half of my time is spent straining to understand the gist of what´s being said and the other half of my time is spent piecing together the patient cases.
Here is where Dr. Vargas comes in. Luckily he thrives off of the inquisitive student, and since it´s in my nature to ask questions and clarify, I get good results in the form of a doctor who engages my every curiosity. He loves to explain the form of posing questions, drawing pictures and gesticulating wildly to act out a function of the body. Pretty genious, he teaches at a private university here in Quito. Also because of him, I´ve had the opportunity to work with the head doctors in Sonography/Radiology and spent one full day watching Dra. Paez turn over 6 patients per hour while working in a  white lab coat, white skirt and spiked heels adorned with rhinestones. She is whip-smart and my current inspiration to further pursue my Ultrasound tech dream.
Here are some examples of Dr. Vargas in action and the rest of our crew this week only.
Next week I´m off to a different clinic, north of Quito, called Carcalen Alto. Stay tuned.......

The zany Dr. Vargas pretending to use a suture gun as pistol

his famous illustrations

students w/ Doc, notice how the boys on my left look like they´re 15

the day we got to watch a endoscopy of the esophagus and stomach, they found metaplasic cells in the fundus of the stomach

Mona, my CFHI partner and friend, holding a biopsy vial from the endoscopic procedure. next up: send it topathology

This tagger mixed politics with STD´s in this anti-Ecuadorian prez statement. shout-out to the PP crew!