Centro de Corazon

It has come to that point in the semester when you know that there aren't enough hours in the day and you hate your body for needing that stupid thing called sleep. I have been meaning to write about the bit of volunteering that I did at Centro de Corazon. As I have blogged about before, I don't really get to follow any doctors around at Northwest Health Clinic so I asked Anna and she took me with her to the Centro de Corazon. I was surprised because the clinic was was very small and in the middle of neighborhood. I'm glad that Anna took me because I probably wouldn't have found it by myself. The people there were nice and they put me to work straight away. I worked on some spreadsheets, organizing some of their patient information and then Anna and I were able to follow one of the doctors while she made her rounds. The two that I really stood out for me where a teenager and a child. The teenager came for a regular check-up. Her mother wanted to get it done now that they had gotten some form of coverage. The doctor (I can't remember her name but I remember that it started with an A) did a full physical examination, asked many questions that I really don't hear from doctors - she was very thorough. The girl didn't have anything seriously wrong with her, just some slight walking problems that were due to her shoes that were too flat. The other patient was a child. She was very cute, about 4 or 5 years old. She had been throwing up a lot and the mother was worried about her becoming dehydrated. She was also concerned because she was afraid that her child might have gotten into some rate poison that her mother (the child's grandmother) had put out. The doctor gave her some medicines and they were able to go home. What I like about the doctor was that she took the time to put the child at ease. She talked to her and showed her some toys so that the girl wouldn't be scared. When we were leaving, she really encouraged us to go into the medical field because she said that there weren't many Spanish speaking doctors in the smaller communities. I really enjoyed it there but have been continuing to volunteer at Northwest Health Clinic.