Rheumatology

So as you know, I switched from Gastroenterology to Rheumatology this week. To be honest, I kinda didn't want to make the switch, as I've grown so attached to the doctors and nurses in Gastro even though it has only been a week. I'm still debating on what I should get for my favorite (Dr. Romero) since his wife is giving birth in like a week or two. I so wish I could see the baby!!! But anyway.

Rheumatology wasn't bad, actually. I came in expecting the worst because come on.. rheumatic diseases =.= joints and tissues... wow. But honestly, I think it's all about how you choose the see the experience. You can see it as sitting there in an office, listening to the doctor talking and diagnosing the patients. Or you can see it as a chance to see how the doctor interacts with the patient, a chance to ask the doctors anything and everything about the diseases, to see how the system here works. In just a day, I've suddenly learned all these new terms and diseases, and it's not like I can retain all of them in a single day, but my doctor certainly tries lol. Dr. Diaz (Federico) literally quizzes me on what he has just told me. Like after he told me about a diagnosis or a procedure, he would ask me to diagnose the next patient that shows those symptoms. This man!

Obviously, there are also some downtime that I'm just sitting there because he's talking to the patients and stuff... in Spanish. This is probably one of those times when I desperately wish I understood Spanish. I swear, I probably looked like a lost puppy sitting there, staring back and forth from the doctor to the patient... trying to grasp what they were saying and ended up depending solely on hand gestures. It's probably a pretty hilarious picture. For the patients and doctor.

So yesterday, Federico promoted me from simply "American student" to "American nurse." Which didn't really mean much since I wasn't actually doing anything haha. But I helped him with like opening syringe packages and preparing them and stuff. I mean I didn't get to do hands-on activities with the patients (and I'm not sure I wanted to anyway because that is too much responsibility for an untrained "American student" lol), but I like being helpful!

Today though, Federico had to attend to some patients at his own clinic, which means I had to be switched off to someone else in the department. If you really know me, you'd know that I'm the type of person who always tries to find the positive in everything? It just makes me feel better and happier as a person.. but today? I tried and tried, and I unfortunately failed.

I was with Esmeralda today. She's a doctor in another part of Rheumatology that works on the second step of treatment (after the first line of treatment shows to be ineffective). She's much younger than Federico. And from the way we interacted, she's also much less friendly than Federico. She literally took me in and dropped me in a chair for a couple of hours while she attends to her patients in her office. Closed door. I just thought it was a little rude that she didn't even offer an invitation to you know, follow her and observe. I mean she WAS supposed to take me in, after all. But no. After sitting there for half an hour and realizing that Esmeralda wasn't about to offer me any chance to see her "in action," I decided to ask one of the nurses, Ana, if I could follow her. So I got to see her put the different kinds of treatment into patients' IV tubes and asking patients questionnaires... that kind of thing. Ana also spoke a lot of English, so she was able to explain to me the questionnaires and also the different types of treatment. But still, I was just really upset because of Esmeralda. She often passed by and basically ignored me the whole entire time. And then to later find out from Allen that she was actually nice to him last week. What. In. The. World...?! Why did she not like me? :(