November 16, 2011
Hello again! I’m glad to see that my not-so-entertaining blog last week didn’t scare you away from reading my next entries! I’ll try to be more exciting, I promise!
This morning, for our second time this month, we traveled in groups of five to clinics around the city. In our Clinical and Global Medicine course we have been learning about patient interviews, mostly including pediatric patients and their parents. These clinical visits have been a great way for us to put this learning into action! Especially since ped’s is an interest of mine, being able to talk and interact with them has been a lot of fun!
Last week, our group visited the טיפת חלב clinic. In English this literally translates into “Ross’ Clinic”… just kidding… it translates into “Drop of Milk”. When we arrived we were greeted by a member of the first graduating class of our school, Dr. Eric Haas. We were first briefed on the types of patients that we would most likely be seeing. These clinics consist of well patient visits of expecting mothers and newly born infants, in order to do routine checkups and ensure that everything is going well. We were only able to speak with two mothers, but they were both very easy to speak with (partially because they spoke great English… always a plus!) and willing to answer all of the questions that we had. They both had really cute little babies, both luckily healthy for the most part. I was named the head of our group because of my level of Hebrew, but luckily I dodged the bullet (no, there were no more rockets if that’s what you were thinking) and was able to stick to just English this time.
This morning we combined with one other group and visited the Soroka Pediatrics Department. First of all, it was nice because we didn’t start till 9, so I was able to sleep in an extra hour! Sleep here is worth more than gold, or falafel (which are both legitimate forms of currency here), so I took advantage of every extra minute I got! Since we were in the hospital we wore our white Soroka physician’s coats and medical student ID badge, which really made us look and feel like doctors (at least in my eyes). Being the only Hebrew speaker I interviewed a shy little 4 year old girl and her father, who didn’t speak English. It actually went really well too! It’s surprising how much more of a language you know than you think, but I definitely impressed myself (yes, I am currently patting myself on the back and typing this sentence with one hand) and was able to have a great conversation with them! The little girl was very shy, but she told me that she didn’t like the color green so I think that was really why she didn’t want to talk to me very much! The rest of the morning went really well, and I believe that I got a lot out of what we did that will hopefully help me in the future!Oh, one more thing! This doesn’t relate so much to MSIH but since it’s my blog no one can stop me from writing about my personal life! Two of my best friends made Aliyah (moved to Israel) and have been going through the process of preparing for their army service. This includes “tryouts” for any of the combat units. As of a couple of days ago they were BOTH accepted into צנחנים (Paratroopers) which is a very historically prestigious unit here in Israel! It has been really nice moving so far away from home but still having two of my closest friends nearby! Granted, once they join the army it’ll be very difficult to see them, but I’m really proud of them and wish them the best of luck! STAY SAFE!- blogger of the month Ross Green