At Centro de Salud Volcanes, I was placed with Dra. Lopez and got to observe the patient-doctor interaction in this clinic near the city center. The atmosphere was very busy and public. Privacy did not seem to be a huge issue as the exam room doors were sometimes left open, and at times patients even walked in as doctors were seeing another patient. The clinic was part of the government-run healthcare system, which allowed every Mexican citizen to access healthcare. Despite the more public nature of healthcare, I was very impressed with all the services and medications that even the poorest Mexicans could access at little to no cost.
The first day at the clinic, I could hardly understand any of the Spanish conversation. Somehow, everything became much more comprehensible by the second day. Once I could understand more, I was also able to better engage in the conversations and consultations and ask Dra. Lopez questions I had about her cases. She gradually allowed me to work more directly with patients, from taking their basic measurements to helping wrap a bandage across a post-surgery patient’s abdomen.
While I could not follow every conversation, something that I could clearly grasp was Dra. Lopez’s empathy and warmth towards her patients. She treated her patients with respect and expressed genuine interest in their lives. She comforted them when they were in pain. One particularly moving case involved an elderly woman with advanced ovarian cancer. Dra. Lopez allowed me to feel the patient’s massive tumor, and I could not believe that just between my hand and the patient’s flesh was cancer. Tears rolled down the patient’s face as she explained how her children were all in the U.S. and that she did not have much family in Mexico to go through this difficult time with her. My heart ached for her, and I could see the concern in Dra. Lopez’s face. She consoled the patient and explained the next course of action. I admire the way that Dra. Lopez empathized with the patient yet also maintained her composure and role as the physician. The language in which they spoke may have been unfamiliar to me, but the emotions I saw and felt were universal.
Fanny's Summer Abroad 