Day 5

Today was our first hands on experience in Panama. We started our day at 7 am and we split up into 2 groups - 10 students went to a clinic called Parque Lefevre with Dr. Johnson-Mallard and 5 students went to another clinic called Santa Ana with Dr. Cadena. Each of the clinics had different specialty areas that we were able to participate in. At the Parque Lefevre clinic we rotated through the OB clinic, Pediatrics, and an adult area doing a range of skills from injections, blood pressures, heights and weights, observing pap smears (2 students were able to perform one) and observing colposcopies. At the Santa Ana clinic the students had the same stations, but they also were able to go out into the community. They talked to people and familes in the communities, took blood pressures, and inspected their home surroundings.

There were many differences in the clinics here in Panama versus the clinics and hospitals in the States. One of the biggest things we noticed was that they do not use alcohol swabs before injections as we do. Instead they just use water to clean the area. Also, as far as the pap smears are concerned - here the nurses do the pap smear by themselves without even having a doctor in the room, whereas in the US the doctor performs them. Another difference is that they hardly ever wear gloves where as we wear gloves for everything. Mercury thermometers are also used here, as well as, the scale they weigh patients on is set for both kilos and pounds. Education is another major difference. Here in Panama the nurses seem to do a lot more education sessions with the patients one on one than we are used to.















We left the clinics around 12, and then stopped at Niko's cafe once again for lunch. We were able to come back to our Villa for some much needed downtime before we headed out to dinner.

We went to a dinner theater called Tinajas. We had a really great time. The dancers had beautiful costumes, the food was good, and we had front row seats! 2 of our students even got invited to go up on stage and dance with them at the end.















Tomorrow we will be going to Monkey Island for the day, and we are all looking forward to that!
~Melissa