Clinic Days

I´ve just finished my second week working in the clinic at Common Hope. I came in at 8am the first day last week, after two weeks of orientation to the rest of the project, expecting to have a few days of shadowing, further clinic orientation, and general advice on their approach to patient care. By 815 I was seeing my own patients.

It´s actually been going much better than I had expected. While I still find myself floundering at times with Spanish in the outside world, in clinic more often than not I understand what my patients are saying and am able (or at least think I am able to) make myself understood. The chief complaints run the gamut of primary care (my god, the guy using the computer next to me has been browsing pictures of women´s feet for the last 30 minutes) from endless coughs and sore throats to end stage colon cancer. The challenge is very similar to what I´ve seen in the states in that you have people who have so many stressors in their lives that it´s difficult to differentiate organic pathology from the psychosomatic. A patient comes in and tells me they have headaches, nausea, back pain, their legs hurt (but only in the front), they´re losing weight, and they want me to inject them with the contents of the two bottles that ¨some person¨told them would help them. One bottle contained intravenous B12 supplements and the other liquified liver.

The doctors who work in the clinic are incredibly helpful and take the time to explain things to me and give their opinions when I´m completely lost regarding how to manage a patient (which doesn´t happen infrequently). There´s still a steep learning curve in front of me and it still feels weird to walk around in a white coat and be addressed as doctor. The other day the doctors weren´t in the clinic and I asked the receptionist what we were going to do since we didn´t have any doctors that morning. She reminded me that I was there and that I should go stand in front of the bathroom mirror and repeat to myself ¨soy medico, soy medico, soy medico.¨ I´ve now incorporated this into my morning routine. Still not convinced it´s working.

But morale remains middling and tomorrow I begin anew. Onwards and upwards.