Ping’s Blog 2

Ping’s Blog 2- Experience at Centro de Salud de Chitre, Panama March 13 - With Professora Meriela Villarreal
Early rise and shine, we arrived at the same clinic again around the same time as yesterday. The waiting hall is already 80 percent full. Today I’ve learned that the residents in Panama have a very good preventive care. They are up to date with their immunization schedule and there is a place for the nurse to asset the children’s developmental milestone. I spent my first part of the day at the children developmental assessment room and the children immunization room. It was a lot of fun playing with the kids and evaluated their development milestones. Despite of the language barrier, I was able to play with the kids and evaluate their alibies. For the nine-month-old babies, we watch for the skill to crawl, finger pinch grasping, and abilities to find the lost object under the cover. Also the nurse checked their growth rate and growth chart to ensure the baby is growing in optimal health. After that, the baby and mother go to the next door room to receive the immunization. One of the differences is that the live oral vaccine for Polio which we would only use the IM injection of Polio. Another other difference is the BCG vaccine and the rotovirus vaccine which we don’t use at all in the U.S. I was able to do a vaccine on a child before moving to the gyn/ob nurse station. In there, most of the woman came there for pap’s smear and pre-natal visit. The nurse there spent lots of time and attention with each patient and clearly educate them about sexual believes, self-breast exam, prenatal care, nutrition needs, health promotions and pap smear. I was able to perform a pap smear and collect a sample for STD test. During pelvic exam of my patient who is 20 weeks pregnant, I observed the Chadwick’s sign-deep blue color first hand. That was very interesting. We finalized our 2-day clinical with much appreciation to our nurses there and they are extremely helpful and friendly to us. Mucho gracias to all the nurses at Centro de Salud de Chitre!
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