Hospital Militar

I wanted to write about my day/this week before I forgot. This week I am in Hospital Militar which is the Military Hospital. According to Evon (a professor at the school I took Spanish classes and who gave us a tour the first day) this hospital sees and treats not only the men and women in the military but also their families. Matt, Julie and I are with Dr. Vargas in cirguia (surgery). Monday morning bright and early, we saw a cardio-thoracic surgery. A 27 year old male was beaten in the chest with a wine bottle and the shards of glass had puncture his lung and diaphragm. We did not scrub in but we pulled up stools so we could lean over and see the two surgeons working. Matt and I were on one stool and Julie was on the other side. Dr. Vargas told her to put her hands on the surgeons back so she could lean forward and see better and the surgeon told her the only stipulation was that she had to give him a kiss ever ten minutes. HA. Then Dr. Vargas asked Julie if she wanted to scrub in on an appendectomy (sp?). Of course she said yes so Matt and I stayed to watch the rest of the current surgery. I saw the heart beating, the lungs inflating and the diaphragm contracting and relaxing. Amazing! The surgeons were brillant and fixed this kid up. After about an hour, and the surgery was complete, Matt and I wandered over to the other OR (Quirofano) to check on Julie. We walked in to see the small intestines sitting on top of the patient. Apparently, they couldn´t find the appendix and it took them another hour and half to do so! The sigmoid colon was apparently overlapping on the appendix which made it tough to find. Sorry, that´s the science portion of the post :) Matt and I just watched but it was crazy to see the intestines completely outside of the body. It was easy to see, too, because the light above the patient had a camera which projected the surgery onto an HD TV located at the foot of the patient. It was the nicest, and cleanest, OR I have seen yet. Since it the surgery got complicated (and they had to make another incision around the bellybutton) Julie was allowed to leave around 12 when Matt and I did.

Today (Tuesday) we met Dr. V in the report room with a bunch of other doctors and med students. He told us we would only be doing consults today. And every single person we saw, post and pre-op, had a hernia. Most of them were not grave (pronounced grAv-ay or serious) and we watched the resident remove stiches for the most part. Dr. V is absolutely hilarious. He told us today the he studied in Paris for 5 years and knows French. He also did his residency in CHICAGO! He speaks very good English but told us the first day that we can speak to him in Spanish so we can improve and he will, occasionally, explain complicated procedures in English so HE can practice. That was our agreement. I should mention he is a general surgeon but mostly concentrates in the abdominal region. One of our patients was a FAMOUS SOCCER PLAYER who plays for the National League. I feel like I am completely breaking HIPPA rules but I´m pretty sure they do not exist down here. His name was ¨Michael Jackson¨and he told us that his mother was a huge fan of his so that´s why she named him that. He had a hernia as well but did not was to be operated on because he was being drafted by a Mexico team for more money. Dr. Vargas said that was fine because it wasn´t serious enough but he needed to be careful while working out. Then, randomly, Dr. V told us that he had a houes in Miami and one in Crucita (Little Cross) a beach town close to Chone, in Ecuador. Since Matt is going to Chone next week he told him he should come chill at the beach house!! Which includes a pool and sauna. This guy rocks! He asked us to write down our email addresses and he will send us pictures of his FOUR houses. I want his life. He´s pretty much a baller. He operated on the top soccer player for the national team here via laproscopic surger and he played in the championship game a month later and won. Yep, he´s pretty much the coolest doctor EVER. After consults, which ended at 11:00, we went back up to the 8th floor (we were on 1) via STAIRS. we had to stop at the 4th floor so Julie and I could catch our breath. He told us he never takes the elevator because he likes the exercise. He also runs. I honestly felt like I learned more about his life than abdominal surgery today. After arriving on the 8th floor, we took a picture with him and then left for the day. We´re back tomorrow in the OR and hopefully I will get to scrub in! Even though intestines gross me out. I would rather be delivering babies!! It´s time for dinner now so I better run so my host mom does not freak out on me. That will need to be an entirely new post. She´s a sweet, old lady but sometimes, ok most of the time this week, she drives me crazy! I can not believe I only have 3 days left here!! I am actually looking forward to coming home and seeing everyone. I love and miss you all!!

Love,
Hilary