*Picture of my Panama mom and her family along with my roommate


Tuesday June 8, 2010

Today my roommate and I woke up earlier than usual to go to the next town over to spend the day at my Panama mom’s clinic. It was about an 30 minute drive and along the way we picked up other nurses that she worked with. At this clinical sight it was for insured and uninsured people and offered services like the clinics in Chitre like free immunizations, paps, etc. Our Panama mom showed us around the clinic and we meet everyone in the clinic even the doctors. Then just as we observed our Panama mom give her first blood glucose test on her first patient we received a call from the director Lynette who said because we were not in the town of Chitre we were not allowed to practice nursing (Yeah I don’t know why but that is what she said). So for the rest of the day we were only allowed to observe which was such a bummer because earlier in the morning our Panama mom asked us things we have yet to observe/do and one thing on my list was paps; so that meant that I was only able to watch and observe. This news was disappointing and even to our Panama mom so she came up with the idea to go with some of the other nurses and doctor who were going to a middle school to check the growth and development of the kids there and come back within a couple of hours and I would then be able to observe my first pap and maybe even more. So my roommate and I left with some nurses and a doctor that worked at the clinic and were on our way to the middle school. Once there set up our equipment (blood pressure station, weight and height and another desk for the nurse to make sure the teens are up-to-date with their immunizations and another private room for the doctor to talk to the teens privately). My roommate and my job was to take blood pressure height/weight. We did this and took turns for about 20 students then we listened in on the conversation the doctor was having with the teens and they talked about topics like grades in school, body changes etc. After about being there for about 3 hours our Panama mom picked us up and we went back to the clinic where she worked and this is when I observed my first pap! The time came when we had to leave to take a bus back to the town of Chitre to meet us with the University of South Florida nursing students to have lunch and do seminars.

June 10, 2010

Mrs. Paula fought for us and we got to sleep in and leave around 8 in the morning to drive to where our canoes were on the Chagras River. Once we were there about 8-9 people to a canoe were given a life jacket which became very useful later on and we were on our way. We were taking these canoes up the river to eventually go hiking in the rain forest, and later on in the day travel to go see the Embera tribe. We had some troubles along the way. My canoe flipped over (Juan said that was the first time in his 8 years of being a tour guide) and the day had to come to come to a short end because we got rained out (Juan said we were the first for that as well). But live and learn right and I learned to pack a poncho and why they call it a “rain” forest.

Once we finally made it to the rain forest we hiked to a waterfall and it was the most amazing view and the most refreshing feeling when I jumped right in. But not before long the rain started to come and we had to quickly hike back to the canoes. Once in the canoes on the river the rain stopped and we decided to still continue with our plans to go to the Embera village. Once at the village the Embera tribe prepared us a variety of fruits and fried fish and showed us part of their culture. For example the tribes men played instruments while the women danced for us. It was all very interesting to see and take part in. Afterwards we were able to explore the tables that were set up with different souvenirs that were available for purchase. It had things for sell like hand woven baskets, bracelets, necklaces etc. And the interesting part was every family within the tribe had its own table and a large percentage of their income is dependent on tourism. The rain came back and this time the rain was colder and a lot more of it and we promptly had to leave before we ended up having to stay with the tribe over night due to the rain storm that was coming. It was an interesting day to say the least.

Thursday June 3, 2010

It started off like any-other morning since I have been here in Chitre: I woke up on my three inch mattress, to a cold shower and the stinging sensation in my legs while I have to squat to see my reflection in the bathroom mirror. But instead of going to the community clinical sight today the University of Panama nursing students along with nurses from the clinical were going to an elementary school to give the students immunizations. We arrived at [Sukyo] bilingual school with coolers filled with ice packets that were keeping the immunizations chilled. We assisted the nurses set up an area in a classroom in which the students would come in and sit at the chairs and desks and would come up one by one to a nurse and the student would show the nurse their immunization record. At this point the nurse would look over and verify which immunization(s) the student would need and would send the student to the other nurse that was with the nursing students preparing/drawling up the immunizations that were requested. I noticed that compared to the US in Panama they differ in some of there ways when administering shots: in Panama they believe that using anything other than water to cleans the site where the injection would be administered would counterwork against the immunization and compared to what we were taught in the US to dart, the nurses of Panama prefer when giving a shot to a child go slow to make sure you don’t hit the bone. About 30 students would come in at a time and we as the nursing students would take turns preparing immunizations such as the flu, HPV etc and then administering it. A group of 30 students would come in at a time and there were about 4 groups that came in total so take that number and divide it by 12 because that was the number of nursing students taking turns and the sum is the amount of shots I got to perform in 5 hours. I wont bore anyone with boring details of what I amused myself with while I was waiting for my turn again.
Overall it was a good experience to see how the nurses in Panama do nursing as compared to the US. One difference that stood out to me was here in the US if the child is not up to date with their immunizations they are not allowed to go to school whereas in Panama they do the immunizations right there in the school setting.