Something medical

I guess i should write something about the reason i'm here....... Medicine.... well i got in on a Friday and started at the health clinic on the monday. i spent the first couple of days with the maternal and child health team, then with the GP and we have been switching back and forth between the two ever since. so far it has been very good. lots of varied experiences including having to inform someone that they were HIV positive and handling a case of PID, and that was my long case. i thought i was picking a routine hypertension case, Ha... not so. its amazing the list of problems that people come in with and the fact that they use the doctors to vent every problem. and then there are some that you have to pry every little detail out of, tedious work i tell you. but dealing with Jamaicans has been very interesting.... many of them heard that i was from Australia and expected some one white, then i stepped in the room and they were like, you are from Australia?.....lol.... it was so funny, cause then they found out that i was Jamaican but they thought that my parents were in Australia... it took a while to get the story straight......my accent gets stronger everyday, though the american, british and yes some Aussie still gets in there sometimes.

while dealing with the patients, its increasingly obvious that patois is a totally different language. though for me it was refreshing and funny to hear it so much again, i kept thinking, my Aussie friends would have such a difficult time. like when a patient says 'mi belly bottom hurtin mi' what does that mean? any guesses?.....lol...... it could mean that their stomach is hurting them, any part of their abdomen, or that their pelvis is hurting or that their chest is hurting......lol... here is another... when they say 'doc ah yuh a go jook mi?' what does that mean..... basically they are asking if they are gonna get an injection... i heard this one most when it was immunization time, like this little 3 yr old that said to me, 'mi noh like jook yuh nuh'... i tell u i felt like bursting out laughing. i was like, man the language. i really have to rephrase things when interviewing and have started to think of my questions in ways and forms that they would understand and be able to answer. its a totally different way of thinking and i'm trying not to make it permanent, cause that would be hard to get out of my system when i get back to Aussieland.

i have also come to really appreciate the Jamaican health system. i must say that everyone can get quality health care and highly subsidized as well. not as much as it is in Australia but definitely better than in America. no one is turned away from getting seen or medication, even if they have no money to pay for it. everyone that is HIV positive that need anti retrovirals have access to them, and if they can pay they do, but if not, they still get them. meds cheap, doc visits cheap, the only thing is the amount of time it takes to see someone in the health clinic. which is why alot of Jamaicans that can afford it go to private docs cause the wait is not long. its more expensive though but at a clinic is is cheaper, same quality, but u pay for it by spending most ur day there, so with ur time. but all in all it has opened my eyes to the good stuff of this country considered by many to be inferior because it is third world. compared to somethings i have seen in the states.... we going good.

neways enough of a rant.. i go rural in 2 weeks, now im sure THAT will afford me some interesting stories.