Tuesday June 8, 2010

*Picture of my Panama mom and her family along with my roommate


Tuesday June 8, 2010

Today my roommate and I woke up earlier than usual to go to the next town over to spend the day at my Panama mom’s clinic. It was about an 30 minute drive and along the way we picked up other nurses that she worked with. At this clinical sight it was for insured and uninsured people and offered services like the clinics in Chitre like free immunizations, paps, etc. Our Panama mom showed us around the clinic and we meet everyone in the clinic even the doctors. Then just as we observed our Panama mom give her first blood glucose test on her first patient we received a call from the director Lynette who said because we were not in the town of Chitre we were not allowed to practice nursing (Yeah I don’t know why but that is what she said). So for the rest of the day we were only allowed to observe which was such a bummer because earlier in the morning our Panama mom asked us things we have yet to observe/do and one thing on my list was paps; so that meant that I was only able to watch and observe. This news was disappointing and even to our Panama mom so she came up with the idea to go with some of the other nurses and doctor who were going to a middle school to check the growth and development of the kids there and come back within a couple of hours and I would then be able to observe my first pap and maybe even more. So my roommate and I left with some nurses and a doctor that worked at the clinic and were on our way to the middle school. Once there set up our equipment (blood pressure station, weight and height and another desk for the nurse to make sure the teens are up-to-date with their immunizations and another private room for the doctor to talk to the teens privately). My roommate and my job was to take blood pressure height/weight. We did this and took turns for about 20 students then we listened in on the conversation the doctor was having with the teens and they talked about topics like grades in school, body changes etc. After about being there for about 3 hours our Panama mom picked us up and we went back to the clinic where she worked and this is when I observed my first pap! The time came when we had to leave to take a bus back to the town of Chitre to meet us with the University of South Florida nursing students to have lunch and do seminars.