Bonasiva! (Hello!)

Sorry that the last post was so scatter brained! They only had wifi at our last hotel in Arad and so I had to quickly send something from my iPod only to realize that we had to catch our taxi for the bus station.

To continue...the hospital visit in Arad was a phenomenal experience. An Infectious Disease doc took us around the hospital along with our translator Marcus to visit all the different wards that the hospital had to offer. One of my favorite patients that we saw was in the pediatric ICU. Andrew is a student in the 11th grade who had to miss his Cambridge Exam (which we decided was an English profiency exam for entry into European universities) because he was hospitalized for Meckel's Diverticulitis AND Appendicitis.

Fast forward to our visit of another building of the complex...the rheum/onc building... there we were able to meet with some 3rd year med students (they have a 6 year medical training program straight out of HS). It was very interesting meeting them and comparing our two training regimens. We both decided physician shortages were problems of our countries. :(

Today we left on a 7 am bus to a little village of 3,2001 named Buten (or Buteni...seems to be a mixed opinion on that one). We were able to hold a health screening day at the town's cultural center mainly taking blood pressures and giving out some Tylenol for aches and pains. I would have to say it was super frustrating at times because while we had a translator, we would still not be able to communicate with our patients as much as we would have liked and because with our limited training we felt as though we weren't able to do as much as we would have liked for our patients. It was very rewarding to help and support the people as much as we could though and we definitely kept smiles on our faces as we attempted to learn a little Romanian. You would not believe how many people had headaches and backaches!

There we also noticed the divide between the Romanian people and the gypsy population. There is a definite dislike for the "Roma" as they are called. They have poor hygeine, are known to steal, and seem to always want more. It was a very interesting dynamic. We were able to interact with some of the children though who ended up teaching us lots of fun games! Even a Romanian version of "Ring around the Rosie!"

Tonight we then visited a hemiplegic man at his home. Listening to his family tell his story and the story of their struggles with his condition were heartwrenching and left everyone at a loss of words. At first we felt hopeless as we could do little to better his condition. After chatting for a bit though, we realized that just being there, providing the family company, and reassuring them that they were doing a great job was a tremendous gift in and of itself. We even had some lighter moments when Ryan's water exploded (they do seem to love their sparkling water here) all over the floor. :) All in all a great experience to teach us the importance of the whole family's experience of a disease or a condition. SUPER moving!