Hospital Week 1

Our first rotation in the Hospital Clínico Universitario Lozano Blesa started Monday morning at 9:00.  There are 12 of us in the international healthcare internship program. We were each assigned to a different department in the hospital.

I was assigned to the digestive department. I observed doctors and residents for approximately 20 hours this week, averaging a schedule of 9:00 - 14:00. I started out each morning with Enrique and Pablo. They are both in the last week of their residency, culminating an 10 year education path. (6 years of school, no undergrad) and a 4 year residency. We started off each morning with a meeting in which we went over the new patients and ongoing updates of current patients. We passed by to visit each one, usually around 15 patients. There were patients with a wide variety of digestive issues ranging from excessive diarrhea to internal bleeding to cancer. One morning we had a patient that was completely out of control attacking and screaming at everyone because he wanted to get out of his bed but he wouldn't listen to the fact that he had internal hemorrhage and needed to stay in bed. Eventually they had to give him medicine to make him sleep so that he would stop injuring himself and others. Overall, I had a lot of neat experiences with the personal contact with patients (most were amazed that I could speak Spanish, and that I had taken courses on Spanish medical terminology). After visiting all the patients, we would formulate brief treatment plans for each, and then the residents would begin their charts, and they would take me to another section of the department so that I could see more procedures and observe other aspects of the digestive system. I was able to observe the following processes in the department of endocscopies: gastroscopy, rectoscopy, and colonoscopy. I also learned about cancer development and the identification of cancerous polyps in the digestive tract. I witnessed many surgical procedures where adenoma polyps were extirpated, including one procedure were an extremely large polyp was removed. Another day I spent in the digestive laboratory where the doctor was testing esophagus mobility and pressure through esophageal manometry after a gastroscopy did not reveal any information about the cause of a certain illness.

Overall, I had a great experience in the digestive department but I am definitely ready to move on to traumatology next week!