January 12th: Nakornping hospital…Post Conference…Night Safari

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Today I got to spend the morning on my unit with Carrie. We were both excited to be on our unit for the morning because we had only been there for an hour for the past two days with going to the OR and being at alternative medicine and going to the labor room. We got on the floor and all the nurses were excited to see us and our preceptor Jinda was too! We felt very welcomed on our floor from the beginning and even though a lot of the nurses didn’t speak a lot of English, they spoke enough that we could learn from them and talk to them a little bit. Today we were with the same nurse we were with on Tuesday and we followed her as she prepared injections. We were both able to help her prepare medications today which was really cool. I felt like a pharmacist working with the ampules and mixing the medications! We also helped to feed the patients again and I got to attempt to put an IV in! I got the IV in the vein but it infiltrated sadly. ☹ We also got to see a thoracentesis done at the bedside which was crazy! They pulled more than a liter of fluid off of the lady’s lungs. She had lung cancer and it was very sad. Overall the morning was good and we got to learn a lot again from this unit. After the morning we went to the walking street market and bought some cool souvenirs and had lots of snacks for lunch. Then we had post conference with our preceptors from the hospital where we got to present case studies and some differences we have noticed between Thai hospitals and American ones. I talked about a common patient case we saw on our unit of a patient with an acute exacerbation of COPD and lung cancer. I also talked about the incredible teamwork that we saw by the nurses on our unit and how in the United States we need to implement more teamwork and unity on the floors. I also noted the creativity that the nurses in Thailand have to combat the lack of resources that they have. It was truly amazing to see how resourceful and innovative they are. It was exciting to get to present to our preceptors and show them that we have learned a lot and that we are so grateful for the opportunity to be at their hospital. After the post conference we came back and had dinner and then left for the night safari. It was very cold all day because it had rained the night before so we bundled up for the night safari and left. We saw a lot of different animals and they had different dancing shows and a fountain and light show that was cool. My buddy was amazed by all the animals and it was cool to get to spend some one on one time with one of my buddies. She is the quieter one and the one that knows a little less English, but it was so sweet to talk to her and get her to teach me some more words and phrases in Thai. Overall a great and exhausting day! Goodnight!

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