Hospice

This morning we had our first official clinical day. Each group of students (we are partnered in twos) is assigned a different place every day. My partner and I were placed in the hospice run by Sacramento Santisimo. We spent much of the morning with an older man I'll call Max. He has a trach & NG tube. Max is mostly unresponsive and continues to aspirate and get pneumonia, so his doctors have said there is nothing more they can do for him. Things are waayyy different here than in the U.S. as far as sterile procedures. By that I mean there was nothing sterile about the procedures we did (suctioning and redressing trach). Throughout this time, the hospice kitten was sitting on my shoes. I am soooo very thankful that I had the experience of working with a patient with similar needs at St. Joe's last semester, because today the nurse overseeing us pointed at the suction and left us to it. We also gave him his breakfast- juice through his nasogastric tube. Also went a little different than my past experiences. We spent our remaining time doing morning vitals on the rest of the patients on our wing. They were all very kind and accepting of my not so great espanol. To add to the experience, there were music lessons for kids going on a couple doors down from some of the patients I was with. As much as I love the recorder, it was a little tricky to hear blood pressures and lung sounds!
All the patients are at the hospice for various reasons, some that I cared for today include...
-A young man with hydrocephalus and other physical disabilities who was found abandoned by his parents at the age of 10
-A very happy middle aged man who has CP, he loves to smile and listen to his radio
-An older gentleman who is blind and has no family at home to care for him
-Another elderly man who is fairly independent but cannot live alone, he loves sitting outside!

I have thought to myself from time to time in the U.S. that hospital supplies are low. This is a whole different situation here. Today, one patient ran out of incontinence pads- nothing could be done until his family could buy more for him. There were also no masks left for the nursing staff. I'm glad I was able to bring some gloves and alcohol swabs, I am hoping to leave some here when I go back home.

It wasn't really the time to take pictures of patients, but I did get one of this cute little guy (mentioned above)!

Not from today, but at one of the hospitals we toured. He was just born & muy adorable!