Residents in Belize – Day 2

So we had our second day of clinic on Friday and it was prenatal day…..interesting for 3 pediatricians who haven’t done OB since 3rd year of medical school!!! We also saw diabetics which seems to be a common problem here. A couple of older women came in with large open wounds on their feet and some with amputated toes from their uncontrolled diabetes. The conditions in the clinic are less than ideal but something is better than nothing. I am surprised that they do pretty well in the way of supplies–obviously they get some sort of aid from docs in the U.S. The clinic does have some accessibility to do their own labs. The Chem Panel machine is currently broken but they should be getting a replacement from the states soon. They have a machine to run Hemoglobin A1C which is useful seeing as diabetes is so common here. They just got a rapid HIV machine that uses a small sample of blood and is complete in about 6 minutes. They had their first positive during prenatal day….She will have to get repeat testing at the local hospital as the test is not perfect.

Read about day of sightseeing and rest…