Clínica Pro-Vida

"Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living the other helps you make a life." - Sandra Carey

We finally had a day with beautiful blue skies!  It is winter in Peru (which is easy to forget because it’s still so hot), thus it has been very cloudy since we’ve been here.  Today I had clinical in the Clínica Pro-Vida – which is completely free to pregnant mothers in the community.  Cecilia, the nurse that runs the clinic here at la parroquia, is absolutely amazing at what she does and I learned so much from her!  She was really great about letting my clinical partner, Ellen, and I be extremely independent.  We had a steady stream of patients all morning, so the time went very quickly.  The women that we took care of ranged between primips, multips, single teens, and married Señoras, all at different stages in their pregnancy.  For each woman, we began by completing an intake, getting to know her by asking a slew of questions about herself and her pregnancy and documenting her answers.  After taking blood pressures and weight, we went on to complete focused assessments.  This included measuring fundal height, to ensure that the baby is growing at the proper rate and using Leopold’s Maneuver to determine the position of the baby.  This allowed us to easily find the baby’s heart, so that we could listen to fetal heart tones using a doppler and assess the anatomy of the baby using an ultrasound machine.  My favorite part was locating the baby’s head, heart, arms, legs, etc. on the screen, and then watching the mothers faces light up!  The babies were excited too because we had a couple kickers – muy fuertes!  We also did a lot of teaching, wrote prescriptions, and made some outside referrals.  The women were extremely grateful for the care that they received, and I feel so fortunate to have been involved in such an important time in their lives and the lives of their unborn children.  One of the women said that she was so grateful that God had sent las enfermeras de Marquette to Piura to help her and the community.  I am really looking forward to returning to the pro-life clinic with Cecilia in the coming weeks! :) 

On another note, I tried ceviche for the first time today at lunch!  If Peru had a national dish, ceviche would be it.  Raw fish is cut into bite-sized pieces and marinated in the juice of an acidic fruit (usually lime), salt, and seasoning.  The texture takes a little getting used to, but the flavor was light, refreshing, and muy delicioso!

Ceviche

In the afternoon we had class with our profesora to solidify the topics of the two projects we will complete over the next three weeks.  For my individual project, I will be teaching the women’s group, Vaso de Leche, about arthritis and physical activity.  I’m very excited to work with this wonderful group of women, who are so eager to participate and learn!  For our aggregate project, my group has chosen Casa Maria – a women’s shelter run by la parroquia for survivors of domestic violence. We will be gathering data on this group of women to formulate nursing diagnoses and interventions, using current research to support our findings.  We will share our final project in the form of a paper and a 30 minute presentation with our teacher and members of the community during our last week in Piura.

We also discussed our impressions on community health nursing and health care in Peru thus far.  Some of the main ideas that we discussed were the differences between hospitals here and in the United States, including differences in the standards of care.   We have concluded that a lot of those differences are due mainly to lack of resources: money, supplies, medical equipment, facilities, knowledgable staff, etc.  However, it is amazing to see what these people can do with so little. Open communication, faith, and strong relationships are vital. For example, the hospice doesn't have any strong pain medication to give the patients, so as nurses it is up to us to be creative in using non-pharmacological pain management techniques.  Next, the Peruvians hold health care providers and nurses, specifically, in very high-esteem with full trust. Everyone is extremely impressed when we are introduced as las enfermeras de Marquette, and we aren't given any less respect because we are students. This status in the community provides us with many opportunities to educate the people and for them to actually listen!  On another note, it seems that the approaches to health care in both countries are similar in that it they are mainly curative.  This is where public health nurses try to make an impact – by providing care and education to aid in health promotion and disease/injury prevention in the community!  Although, public/community health is strongly dependent on the collaborative efforts of countless different people of different professions and talents.  This is extremely evident at Santísimo Sacramento, and I know that working with everyone here will continue to be a valuable experience.

Today we also said goodbye to the first session of Marquette nursing students – I’m hoping that they have all arrived home safely, and I wish them the best of luck with their pediatrics course that starts Monday! 

Hasta mañana,

<3 Lisa