Med Mission

Recently, two PCVs and I spent a week translating at a medical mission for doctors and medical workers from Creighton University at the ILAC center near Santiago. Their team of 40-50 traveled from the States, to treat hernia patients in the Cibao area of the Dominican Republic. The patients, mostly children, were Dominicans, Dominican-Haitians, and Haitians from rural campos or bateys who otherwise would not have had these surgeries. The medical team was great - a lot of just amazing, good-hearted people. Luckily, I had the chance to participate in their experience. This particular team of doctors travels here yearly to do hernia surgeries, so some of the patients had been scheduled last year during the 2009 trip, and in all, the final count for this 2010 mission was somewhere around 120 surgeries during their 5 day trip.

I’d never seen all sides of a hospital/clinic before, and watching a couple of the operations was pretty interesting. I spent most of my time in the Pre-Operation room, where patients came to wait after they had been checked in and approved for their surgeries. This room was pretty busy everyday, a lot of people waiting, some more nervous than others, and each time a patient was called into the Operation Room to start his or her surgery, we’d all applaud and cheer, “Vaya con Dios y Maria!” I chatted with the patients to fill out their medical history forms and mostly just tried to be fun for the little kids. In between waiting with the patients and coloring pictures though, there was work to do, claro - translating for the med students as they set up the patients with their IV’s, explaining anesthesia in spanish between the anesthesiologists and the patients, and translating for the doctors as they located, and marked the places for operation on their patients.

One time while translating to a patient for one of the doctors, we were having a bit of a tough time communicating English-Spanish, since this patient spoke only Kreyol (don't know much Kreyol...yet. ;) ). So I went out to the waiting area to find someone who could translate. Thankfully, some of the family members there could speak both Kreyol and Spanish. So we had a little language train going - the doctor asking the question in English, me translating it to Spanish, the caretaker asking the patient directly in Kreyol, the patient answering, and then passing the answer back along this line, eventually reaching English. A pretty cool moment; I love that sort of thing.

It was a great week, sharing with wonderful people. Enjoy the photos!

Pre-Op Room:

Recovery Room:

Waiting Area:

ILAC Center:

Roomies for the week:

The 2010 Hernia Mission Group:

Ok, that was a lot of pictures. But maybe not quite enough - check out this link and this link for more. :D

Thanks for reading; much love!

XO