Pasantía Uno

Now for those of you who have actually been following my blog since the beginning you know the whole point of me coming to Argentina was to go on Co-op. For my none Northeastern readers please refer back. I actually began both of my co-ops, or pasantías as the are called here, about two weeks ago, which explains my slow and lack of posting on here. Luckily, I have decided that despite being extremely busy with one of my internships I am going to post about the other one. I have something special planned when I do the other one and I want to make sure that its all set.

The first pasantía that I am going to talk about is an internship at Hospital San Isidro with Dr. Puricelli. Dr. Puricelli is actually an oncologist at Hospital San Isidro and works as part of a team along side the director of the oncology department Dr. Campos. The doctors I work with are absolutely wonderful. They are truly doing a great job at teaching me the different things that they do on a regular basis.

In terms of what my internship actually entails at the hospital, it is more of a shadowing experience. I show up every Monday, Thursday, and Friday and sit in on the doctor's interviews of patients. In these interviews, which are done completely in Spanish, the doctors review the course of treatment, ask if there are any issues, and further explain the diagnoses. I actually have a lot to say about the Argentine healthcare system, but I am saving that for another blog post comparing the Argentina and United States health care systems.

Hospital San Isidro is a public hospital in Argentina. The hospital is located just outside of Capital Federal, or the main part of Buenos Aires in a community known as San Isidro. Basically the only way I can think to describe San Isidro is sort of like a mix between Cambridge, West Roxbury, and West Tisbury. I know that seems very odd but it makes for quite an interesting combination. It is probably the first place in Buenos Aires that I thought....I could live here.

Okay enough of my ramblings.....here are some pictures......

Let's start with pictures of San Isidro itself....

This is the train station that I come into in the mornings.

Just a street of shops in San Isidro.

This is the Hippodromo. So this is where all of the horse races  in San Isidro occur. Also On Thursday  morning syou can see an assortment of young business professionals all still dressed from the night before making a sort of communal walk of shame. That's right....the hippodromo hosts one of the all night dance parties in the middle of the week that last until it is time to go to work again the next day.

Next set of pictures is actually of the hospital.....novel idea right?

This is a picture of the hospital. This is one of the biggest hospitals in the Buenos Aires area. Yes....all of that.  Dwarfs MassGeneral doesn't it?? Whatever will I do in such a big place??

The entrance to the ED...

The Cafeteria.

The waiting room....which is oddly similar to the waiting rooms in Singapore with the take a number type of style . I think it must have something to do with Universal Health Care.

More of the Hospital.....

The back room....pretty unastonishing.

El Consultorio.

El Consultorio.

The Pink Ladies....yes when my nursing professor said just find one of those ladies with the pink jackets they're in every hospital she wasn't lying! Here they are the volunteer ladies dressed in pink.

And what South American hospital would be complete without a statue of the Blessed Virgin with offerings and flowers at her feet......

The People....

This is a picture of a lot of the people I work with...
actually most of the doctor Oncology team.
From Left to Right: Dr. Campos (director), Majo, Danielle (other intern), Me,
Dra. Veronica, and Dr. Puricelli (the man who is in charge of the interns)

Another Picture of everyone from Danielle's
goodbye dinner. I'm not renaming people.
You are all smart, figure it out.

And this would be me in a white coat. Yes as an intern I wear a white coat like the Docs. Not going to lie....I do feel like I am slightly betraying the pair of blue scrubs that I brought with me.

And that was all you really needed to know about internship number one....I promise a blog post soon on internship number two!