Week 2

So, I had a reasonably busy week, so I am only able to make one post for this week. I'll promise to make more frequent ones when I can.

This week I continued my Spanish training. I can now speak and understand many phrases, and I am able to get my way around Costa Rica effectively. The instruction is good, and I feel like the entire class is progressing. I feel that by the end of the month I will be able to communicate well to hospital workers and doctors alike with the spanish knowledge I will have gained.

The engineering lessons are going okay as well. We are learning so much about power supplies, infant incubators, infant warmers, batteries, anesthesia machines alike. We learn basically the common problems with these machines and how to fix them. Most problems are in fact with the leak in tubings or user error. All other problems are more with the power supply which can be fixed with diode bridges or transformers. In fact, in lab we learned how to construct power supplies by using a diode bridge to convert most AC into some DC. We then used a power regulator to convert most of the AC into as pure ranging DC values. These experiences helped us understand the basics of these medical equipments.

So, besides the school work, we do tend to explore the culture of our city. Thursday night, we had salsa dance lessons with an instructor (friend of our spanish teacher). It was really fun, though it was hard at first. It's always fun to dance, and I am going to keep it up as time goes on. After that, we all went and relaxed just tired from exhaustion.

Today, we all went to a hospital in Turialbas where we worked on fixing medical equipment and taking a tour of the hospital. It was a pretty decent hospital with plenty of space and doctors. One thing that struck me the most was that the entire hospital including emergency rooms were not as super streseed (as one sees in the US). Everything almost seemed carefree. Maybe this was typical of the system. When I asked a worker there about emergency wait time, she said that it was nearly the same as in the US since there were enough doctors and nurses but not enough space for crisis loads at all times. Also, another interesting observation was that most of the equipment in the hospital was brand new and in good condition. Lastly, the co-workers in the hospital seemed way to occupied in the World Cup but who could blame them haha. The instruments that I worked on was the infant ventilator which we took apart to examine the inner workings. The filter was found not to be present as well as a source for the humidifier. Those two problems were noted and sent to the main technician. Overall, I learned a lot by visiting this hospital as it is preparing me for my month long test in Nicaragua. On the way home, we noted so many car accidents that I could barely count them with my fingers. We got home after that long ride, and now I have to sleep since I have to get up at 4am to catch the bus for our beach trip to the Pacific Side of Costa Rica, Manuel Antonio. Adios! I'll write my next update probably Monday night.