Mi Español es Muy Mal.: Peruvian Medicine

This morning, JL and I got up at 6am to run with MK (while JS was sleeping like "la princessa" <3). Funny story, I had set my alarm the night before to 5:45am so that I could get up to run, and I had also set another alarm at 6:45am, just incase I decided not to run I would still get up in time for breakfast. When the 5:45am alarm came around, I decided I was too tired and decided not to go running. An hour later, my alarm rings again. I hear JL and MK outside my room and thought that they had just returned from their run, so I go outside to say hi, only to find out, they actually haven't gone anywhere and it was actually 5:45am. Turns out, my cell phone never changed time from EST to CST (the time zone in Peru). Seeing as I was up anyway, I decided to go for an unintended workout which displayed how out of shape I was. (MK will probably never invite me to run again, haha) We ran for about ~20min, showered, then had breakfast, which consisted of bread and 2 slices of cheese. Unfortunately, coffee isn't a huge thing in Peru, so they drink instant Nescafe -_-

After breakfast, JL and I, along with another student, PJ, who lives with the same home stay family as we do, head off in a taxi to Clinica de Madre Cristo, where we met up with one of our instructors/interpreter, Rocky. We all took turns shadowing an internal medicine doctor (whom I forgot the name of) with Rocky interpreting for us as needed while the other 2 students hung out with Frances, a nurse from the US who is living in Peru for an extended time to work on a project. It was very interesting to witness how different medicine is in Peru. For example:
1) patients go to the pharmacy to purchase their medications to be injected, rather than the medications being available being available at the injection clinic. In the US, medications are injected in the arm, but in Peru, it is injected in the butt.
2) The EKG electrodes are not attached to the skin with conductive stickers ( I have no idea what these are actually called), but by suction and a bit of ultrasound gel
3)They do not have "paper" which they change after each patient lays on the exam table. Eww, but at least it's more GREEN
4) Nurses don't usually wear gloves when giving injections. The Peruvian nurses always complains to Frances about how fast gloves are going, and she knows its her fault, but she can't help but wear at least one glove when giving injections. They also recap used needles.
5) Most medications are given by IM (intramuscular). This means that if the medication needs to be taken 2x a day, the patient has to go in the clinic 2x a day.
6) The medications are in glass vials, which seem terribly difficult to break off the top sometimes. If the nurse improperly breaks off the top and glass pieces fall into the medication, s/he has to pay for a new medication out of pocket. Patients also have to buy their own syringes at the pharmacy.

that's all I can remember for now, I will add more as I remember more.

After clinic, we went home, had lunch, then went to spanish class (TOO much spanish!). After class, we went home and met up with MK and JS. I finished the remainder of my veal steak and we went out on a stroll.

There are no pictures from today(or yesterday) from me personally as I am not quite comfortable enough to be singled out as a tourist. So thank you JL for these wonderful pics!

MK and I relaxing on JS's bed before we head out for our afternoon clinic and spanish class, respectively

JL and I left a little early for school to do some exploring... and picture taking =)

Some graffiti by our school

After dinner strolling pics:

Beautiful water fountain

We walked around for quite awhile, and one of our final destinations was Plaza de Armas of Trujillo. I don't feel like plagiarizing wikipedia, so if you want to know more about this place, read it yourself here -> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_de_Armas_of_Trujillo_(Peru))