Team Costa Rica: Clinic Day 1

Subjective:
Costa Rica Day 2, Clinic Day 1
In the Pavas Community

We had breakfast this morning (6:45am) at the lovely Denny’s, many of us enjoying Gallo Pinto (rice and beans) with café con leche (coffee with milk)!

Our morning devotion, by Leigh, was about serving others as our equals, loving each other, and taking care of the patient both medically and spiritually.

After we loaded the bus with 11 large bins on the roof, and many other supplies, we headed into this urban underserved community. Spirits were high and everyone was energized for our first day!

Many of our patients had diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arthritis, and a few had fungal/parasitic infections. We consoled a crying widow, managed a hypertensive urgency, and sang songs to un amigo pequeño (a little friend). We looked in a bunch of kiddos ears, used our handheld ultrasound in a couple cases, measured mean upper arm circumference (MUAC), and climbed a lot of stairs!

We enjoyed a delicious lunch of rice and beans, tilapia, veggies, and pineapple! Dinner was a buffet style salad, pork, rice and beans, sweet plantains, potatoes, pinolillo (a sweet drink), flan and tres leches!

Objective:
Temperature 27 degrees celsius, partly cloudy
7 hours of clinic service (9a-4p)
27 volunteers
1 Team director
3 Registration teammates
6 Triage teammates
7 Pharmacy teammates
10 Provider teammates
22 translators
90 patients seen
1 three-year-old coffee drinker
Multiple dogs and one goat

Assessment:
Job well done! Everyone was positive, connected with their patients, and shared the love!

Plan:
(SFINC)
Smile, be flexible, improvise, no complaining!
Get some good sleep for another productive day mañana (tomorrow)!

+Julian Greer, Medical Student
+Katherine Olsen, Pharmacy Student