Roatan - Day 4

Today I had the most autonomy I’ve had in my whole clinical year thus far.  What a day!  Turns out it takes a lot longer to see a patient completely by myself than I anticipated.  And my sloppy rusty Spanish didn’t speed the process along either.  I averaged about an hour per patient, and they weren’t easy cases either.  Take for instance the 18 year old girl coming in complaining of stomach pain and diarrhea… turns out she’s been having chest pain and passing out pretty regularly for the last 2 years with a recent visit to the hospital for the same a few weeks ago.  Challenging, but glad for the challenge!  Anyway, I presented each of my patients to the doctor/PA after doing the whole history and physical myself and after solidifying a diagnosis and plan, I finished up with the patient alone.  What I’m used to on my previous rotations is my preceptor briefly seeing the patient him/herself just to verify my findings.  That isn’t the case here, but if I want him to double check something on my physical exam, the doctor is available and happy to do so.  It’s excellent practice for coming up on my graduation in just 4 short months.

The rest of the day wasn’t very exciting… J and I stuck around the clinic for a few extra hours to take advantage of the free WiFi and to complete some school assignments.  By the time we got home it was time for a tuna-topped salad accompanied by a cheese crisp and a whole plate of mangos for dessert.  We don’t dare cook in this apartment.  The million dollar question of the night for J was if she would use the lonely cheese grater sitting up on a high shelf.  She replied “no way” without hesitation.  Looking forward to more mangos tomorrow!