Playing Doctor with the Optometrists

So I don’t do pain. I don’t do blood. Since I was in middle school my grandmother has always told me, “Brooke, you should be a nurse when you grow up, just like your mother, aunt, and other grandmother.” And I inwardly cringe every time that suggestion leaves her lips because I couldn’t imagine dealing with people’s physical pain on a daily basis. I didn’t always use to be like this. I feel like this all started when I had to deal with physical pain on a daily basis. It was when pain became a struggle and fight in my life that I became super high sensitive to the physical pain of others. However, being at MITC, especially during the summer, I have had to learn how to overcome or at least deal with my anxiety over this issue because I have had to translate for over hundreds of medical consultations. For instance, one week I was working with a curly haired doctor from Shreveport and at the end of the week she told me that when I was in front of the patient and she was examining the patient from behind she didn’t even have to ask if the patient was feeling pain in the area that she was touching because all she had to do was look at the expression on my face. With that being said, it’s been a difficult process and you knowing this background info will help you understand my story about a girl with Down syndrome named Chayo.

This past weekend at the compound a team of eye surgeons came from Louisiana and Tennessee to operate on over a hundred patients. The students worked hard to turn MITC into a make-shift hospital. My assignment was to translate and work with the children specialists, Dr. Black and Dr. Debbie. I cannot describe in words how special and unique this opportunity was for me because these surgeons that I had the blessing to work with are some of the best in the country. I had the opportunity to scrub in two surgeries and was taught the different kinds of instruments used and the manner in which to hand them to the doctor. I watched and gave instruments to world renown, Dr. Brad Black, who performed a surgery in forty minutes that someone later informed me that this would have taken medical students at UT eight hours to do.

The first picture is from one of the surgeries that I had the honor of scrubbing in for. Here Dr. Black is fixing a little girl’s crossed eyes. This was a special case for me because this girl is one of the ones from the Orphanage here in Cordoba that I work with every Thursday. I promised her that I would be there with her the whole time. The procedure for this type of surgery includes loosening the muscles from the eye, straightening the eyes up, and then reattaching the muscles to the eyes so that when the child wakes up, her or his eyes are lined up. This particular surgery is extremely important because if the child is not operated on before puberty he or she will actually go blind in one eye. The second picture is of the two girls from the orphanage that were operated on and this picture was taken two weeks after their surgeries. I really enjoyed my time with the team of eye surgeons and hope to work with them again.

Mark Stern, a very talented professional photographer, took pictures all weekend of the work. If you would like to see some more of his pictures you can go to this link.... BUT be warned.... there are numerous pictures of surgeries so if you have a weak stomach when it comes to blood, i would pass if i were you..... http://marksternphoto.zenfolio.com/cordoba