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Pediatric Health in La Paz(2)- Nima Habibi




Pictured: the outside of hospital del niño

Weeks two and three brought about the start of our normal hospital rotations in the city. Our coordinator broke the entire group up into teams of four people, and we will be rotating which health center we go to each week. This first week, me and my classmates were assigned to go to Hospital del Niño, in the Miraflores neighborhood of La Paz. This is a third level hospital, and the largest pediatrics hospital in the city. At first it was overwhelming, as there are so many different wards to go to and everyone seemed to be extremely busy. The first day, my friend and I went to the Burn Unit, where we were immediately thrown in the deep end. Upon entering the room, we were met by a nurse screaming at us for wearing business casual clothes. Our preceptor, who was there to witness this, told us to go his office and change into our scrubs. Once again, upon return we were met with another fit of anger from the charge nurse. She told us we were going to contaminate her entire floor, and she gave us a different set of scrubs to change into. On that day, we were able to observe and help out with the burn curations of all the patients on the floor. The doctors (who were much friendlier than the nurse) showed us how a couple curations go, and then asked us to participate. Essentially, we would remove scabs, clean the wounds, apply a cream, cover the skin with bandages and antispetic, and then wrap the area of the body once more. Above all while doing this, we had to make sure to calm down the children. Though a painful process, I found that I was really good at comforting them, and often times they would want me to teach them English! From having such an enjoyable experience the first day and making friends with the doctors, I returned to Burn Unit everyday for the rest of the week.




Pictured: Dr. Zapata’s office - a doctor in the burn unit
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Location: La Paz, Bolivia

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