...and kind of really great, too. and funny as hell-i'm sure i'll have lots of stories of their goofiness.
i'll admit that this is going much better than i thought. i like peds (at least at this clinic) more than i ever thought i would. i'm in an out-patient clinic and still don't love that about it (still think i prefer hospitals) - but this one is pretty awesome. totally unlike the one i just left.
it's a subsidized clinic where most of the patients are low enough income to be on medicaid or altogether uninsured. the population is chiefly hispanic, african american, and middle eastern. many recent arrivals to the US w/ little english and some without citizenships. the doctor speaks fair english and is fluent in arabic, but speaks only very little spanish...and since i have a minor in it from undergrad (but haven't used it in forever and am extremely TERRIBLE at it), he is using me as a translator. so i'm kind of useful, and that's really nice. it's an interesting, diverse population that the clinic serves. and the medicine they practice is very different than i've seen previously. it is limited to what will be covered by the state, so it's both more tricky and more of a simple chore to treat patients. a lot of advice is given on using vaseline for dry skin and washing out noses instead of prescribing meds for colds that don't do anything anyway or ordering xrays and consults at the drop of a hat.
the doctor is amazing w/ kids. he has a very calming presence and sings to them all the time. i will learn a lot from him in how to best manage and examine little niñitos.
i have already had several embarrassing moments as i translate for the doctor. one was while we examined a 15 year old boy w/ some "down under" complaints and the doc made me ask him if he is sexually active (at all? in any manner? umm....with girls or boys? with any body parts? eh...) and whether or not he masturbates (you know, uh, touch your own self? in your area? ummm....crap.). we ended up pulling another spanish-speaking staff member into the room to help, since i was struggling so much... so there were 3 adults standing on one end of the room from this poor guy all interrogating him about his self abuse. sigh. and you wonder why people avoid going to the doctor.
the other was when i had to tell a prepubescent girl that she needed to lose 15 pounds. i struggled for some of the words and then, since my vocabulary is so bad, i found it difficult to be as compassionate and delicate as i would have been in english. sigh again.
i assume it will get better. already words and phrases that i haven't used in years are returning to me. and i'm putting together a cheat sheet to have at my fingertips. i can tell you that by the end of the day yesterday, my brain hurt from not only getting grilled by the MD on medical questions, but also from thinking in spanish/english all day. i got home and asked my dog if she wanted dinner and couldn't figure out why she wasn't frolicking in glee until i realized i had asked her in spanish. i should have remembered that she only speaks english and russian.
i'll write more soon. this will surely be an interested rotation.
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