Segundo día en Querétaro

Second day! 

Today we got to sleep in (much needed after our long day yesterday) so I stayed in bed until about 9am, giving me nine solid hours of sleep. Last night was quite warm in bed, but I sprawled out and fell asleep in no time nonetheless. I'm lucky enough to have my own bedroom and bathroom (unlike many of the students who have to share a bathroom with the rest of their host family AND share a bed with their roommate!) so I was able to wake up on my own, lounge in bed, and then get up and take a shower. We didn't have to be anywhere until 11:30am so I took my time eating breakfast and finishing up the previous blog post. 

Mary, the professor with whom I'm living, and I left for our 10-minute walk to the university around 11:15am and within five minutes of our trek I managed to step in used cleaning water from a store and get my pristinely white scrubs and shoes dirty. Wearing head-to-toe white is NOT a good idea...

Our day consisted of touring the general hospital in the city. One of the university nursing students brought us there and the manager of education showed us all of the various units. I acted as semi-interpreter between them and our group. This hospital serves people without insurance and who are mainly from surrounding rural communities. Typically, these patients are of lower socioeconomic status and cannot pay their medical bills. At this hospital, the government pays for their care, but at a price. Mexico has socialized health care and while it covers the medical expenses of these uninsured patients, the care is compromised. The demand definitely outweighs the availability of medical staff, resources available, and space in the hospital. The facility, while functioning, lacks many of the conveniences that we often take for granted in the U.S., such as computers for charting (the physicians actually use typewriters for their documentation and nurses use different colored ink depending on their shift for paper charting), sharps containers, and MRI machines. It was definitely an eye-opening experience to what socialized health care looked like and the health disparities between those who do not have insurance and those who do and are able to seek care at hospitals with more technological advances and available resources. 

After our tour, we drove back to the university. After taking a short break with sitting and snacks, the students returned to their host homes for a late lunch and to relax for the night with their families. Mary and I went in search of food for lunch and had fun figuring out how and what to order. We had a cheap yet delicious meal of tamarindo water, tostadas, and quesadillas with fresh guacamole and completely stuffed ourselves. After paying, we only had a two minute walk back to our house where I started a load of laundry to resurrect my dirty-water-laden scrubs and Mary changed so she could return to the university to get some work on the computer done. 

I decided to go upstairs to sit on the patio and relax, start this blog post, and catch up with all the news from back home.

I am definitely okay with this for the next three weeks :)