It was another successful day at all the clinics! The Nindiri group was able to begin treating in the new clinic location. Aldo Chavarria Rehab and Outpatient and Casa San Antonio all also had another successful day of work. Today was the Los Pipitos group last day at this specific location so keep on reading to find out what they have been doing all week!
We are the smallest of the project groups on this trip, with only 4 of us students and our amazing faculty member, Marcia. Rosa, the clinic director, was incredibly welcoming from day 1, showing us her home and teaching us the local folk dance. We were able to treat many patients while we were there and had many highlights including:
We were able to visit several patients in their homes. This experience was incredibly humbling and was able to help us treat them better as we knew what they had available at home. The families welcomed us into their homes with open arms and the experience has changed all of us forever. And on top of that we were able to use our van to bring these patients to the clinics in order to treat them better during the week.
We also had to get VERY creative at our clinic as we did not have much equipment available to us. For example Olivia and Marcia came up with cutting a stress ball to use it as inserts for kids who needed medial arch support (flat feet). And it was a success! With 1 stress ball we were able to give 4 kids arch supports.
Another great experience was when Katie and Eric worked with a little boy with a genetic disorder who did not walk. He came into the clinic in a stroller but after an hour of work he walked out of the clinic on his way home, blowing kisses to the ladies while he did it!
We have helped so many children at this clinic and gained so much valuable experience, which was great as only Eric came into this with any full time peds experience. But by the end of this week he had this to say about Olivia, Alex, and Katie:
As any new professional working with children for the first time knows, trying to manage & convince a child to perform difficult tasks for the first time is incredibly hard work. It takes patience, creativity, resilience, and above all, compassion. For me, it took a few weeks into my first pediatric clinical to have any idea & sense of what I am doing. For Olivia, Alex, and Katie, it took less than a day - in another country, with a different culture, and with a different language - to "get" it & positively impact the lives of these children through positioning & functional mobility. They crushed it.
Overall we were able to bring new paint, equipment, supplies, and of course treatments to the clinic. The biggest thing we took away from this location was the spirit that the families had. Every single parent had a smile on their face, the mothers were able to independently lift and move teenage boys that were dependent for transfers, they laughed with us and thanked us. We were sad at first but by the end of this week we feel humbled, gracious, and hopeful for the future for these kiddos.