Happy Thanksgiving From The DR!

Today’s blog post is brought to you by our four UCONN doctors and Maryam H.

Alvaro, Mythri, Ellie, and Amanda (UCONN Doctors) - While taking care of close to 500 patients in the last 4 days, we continued to treat many undiagnosed conditions. Patients presented with an amalgam of different conditions varying from infectious diseases to chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and hypercholesterolemia. Unsurprisingly, many of these patients require further care in the hospital, but sometimes diagnosis is not clear at all. Fortunately our portable ultrasound came handy in diagnosing potentially fatal conditions such as heart failure and pulmonary embolism. 

While we were busy taking glucose strips to patients with potential diabetes, Ellie was busy looking at kids ears, eyes and throat and even looking at a kid with polydactyly (more than 5 fingers) She also assessed a heart murmur with ultrasound and reassured the patient’s mother of his heart condition. Overall, another very productive day at the med clinic, we left the place feeling exhausted but with a big smile on our faces. Another day at the office someone would say.   

Maryam- The construction team, same as all previous days, returned to Batey Papita. Driving down the dirt road approaching the houses, young children could be seen jumping and clapping as they saw our yellow bus pull in for another day of work and fun. We worked on painting the outside and inside of concrete houses.

The residents had even helped to move their furniture for us to paint their rooms. As the day progressed, the kids had begun to surround themselves with us, wanting to blow bubbles and play baseball. There was one specific girl,Tiana, who was continuously around Kendall and me throughout our time at the Batey. The work day came to an eventful end, the bus being stuck in mud crossing a small river, but thankfully we managed to make it out.

The day concluded with a team Thanksgiving dinner at Casa de Campo, thankful to have the ability to help people in need.