Yay for Friday and Chiang Mai Night Safari

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Today was our last day of clinical at Nakornping Hospital in Chiang Mai on our respective units. Melissa and I spent the morning on our female medical unit and we got to do and observe more than I expected! We observed a thoracentesis which was done at bedside with lidocaine by the first year doctor, which went well. This was interesting to observe the dynamics of the doctor, the resident, and this intern and how they worked together but didn’t really help the intern out much. The teaching style is not through explanations but through forcing ones hands and showing after. We saw this teaching style in the labor ward as well; the nursing students are basically delivering the baby yet the instructors are forcing the student’s hands around and yelling at them. The one student delivering did not look like she knew what to do and was shaking with nervousness. Doing is the best way to get better at something I feel but this was not constructive but more taxing for both student and instructor. We helped with a bed bath, which was wet but not sure how clean and also not everyone receives one. The same woman received one two days in a row while other we didn’t see receives one. We also did more NG T feedings, helped draw up and prep medications and Melissa attempted to start an IV. This was our busiest day there and we were blessed by it. After clinical we attended and presented at post conference with our preceptors present. This was a great time of sharing case studies with them and discussing the differences and challenges of each country’s nursing care. There was a lot of positive sharing about what we will take back with us to the US after we return, based on what we saw, and that is great and seemed encouraging for the preceptors. Yet, I was internally conflicted as I wanted o encourage them yet there was a lot of things we saw that were negative or harmful based on limited resources or lack of attention in care. Patient positioning was not occurring and it was obvious due to the number of deep pressure sores. We saw infiltrated IVs that were not changed and medication therefore not given. We also saw lots of alarms going off on the ventilators or telemetry and the nurses did not react, only expecting the alarm to be due to a malfunction or broken technology instead of a patient condition. I wanted to share my concerns and more negative differences, but was hesitant too.
This evening we went to Night Safari, which was a very touristy but fun attraction with animals and safari-essce theming. It was amazing how close the animals came up to the tram car, yet only for a moment as we didn’t buy any food beforehand! Getting to see this zoo-themed park so close to Chiang Mai city was interesting to me. Meji my buddy and I spent most of the time with the other students and we walked in a group. When we went to the tiger show, I could tell many of us were conflicted morally with the treatment and training of the lions. Though it amazing and fun to watch the lion do trained tricks and moves with the trainers for food as motivation yet we could tell they follow their trainers to a fault. When they didn’’t cooperate, the trainers showed it and didn’t outright hurt the animals but the feeling wasn’t positive. Most of the evening I felt fine, but this show in particular I felt very bad for the tigers and had a bad vibe from their treatment. At the end when they called for money as a tip, I felt sad as the trainers make the money when the animals do well. I did not feel the tigers were appreciated for their beauty. What a life they have performing for visitors. Despite these thoughts, I had a great time and was actually a little cold walking around the safari, a new feeling!

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