Day 3: Independence Clinic

​Julia Tao
The bus left at 7 AM to bring us to the Independence clinic. The high school gym was occupied today, so our group used 3 rooms: one for vitals and intake, one for doctors, and one for pharmacy, which actually worked out really well! My team was assigned to doctors today. A lot of patients in this clinic spoke Spanish, so I helped out with intake a bit as well. Midway through the clinic, Dr. Zhang had a patient who wanted to do a pregnancy test and it turned out to be positive. At this clinic, we also met a girl with cerebral palsy and were able to see a baby with a congenital cataract. The dentists were overwhelmed at the high school, so they transferred to a real dental clinic, where they did many tooth extractions. 

​Jacqueline Duong
After a successful first day of clinic, there was a decently high level of enthusiasm going into today combined with a bit of weariness. We came in expecting to set up in the large outdoor auditorium at Independence High School, but because of the graduation ceremony that day, we were relocated to 3 classrooms. Although it seemed like an extreme downgrade, we were able to organize things well with vitals and intake in one room, doctors in another, and patient education and pharmacy in the last. 
​My group was involved with doctor shadowing today, and for the first hour I was able to shadow Dr. Zhang. I distinctly remember a patient by the name of Edison who 68 years of age. Edison lived in Chicago for 44 years but moved back to Belize after retirement, where he owns a farm. He was a healthy man for his age who claimed he walked 6 miles a day and ate plenty of fruits and vegetables. This may or may not be true, but there was no denying that Edison was a happy man. He was kind and engaging, and I saw him later that day at the dental clinic. 
Speaking of the dental clinic, at first we had our two periodontists (Dr. Ta and Dr. Wang) as well as our general dentist Dr. Nguyen performing extractions with their patients simply sitting on school desks. There continued to be a high demand for dentists, so we were able to move the dentists to a dental clinic called “Global Dental.” According to my understanding, this clinic was established by missionaries and has been inactive for 7 years until our group decided to use it. 
Back at the medical clinic at the high school, there was also a high demand of our opthamologist Dr. Kim, so most of the girls in my team had to send help and support to that station. In addition, the team at intake as well as some of doctors needed some translators because a lot of the locals in Independence only spoke Spanish. So for the first couple hours I was only able to shadow Dr. Zhang for a few students because I was also running around the intake station to serve the Spanish speaking patients. 
Soon enough, the news came that the dental clinic was getting overcrowded, so my team member Natalie Bui, my friend Duke Pham-Chang and I were transferred there for extra support. At the clinic, one of our best Spanish speakers Gabriela Carroll and our friend Nathan Lee were already helping out the three dentists. I got there around 11 am and the plan was for the clinic to end at 1. Relieved that we only had 2 hours left, Duke, Natalie, and I arrived at the Dental Clinic in high spirits, only to realize we had about 50 patients to go through in that short amount of time. Gabriela and Nathan were helping as dental assistants, and Duke stepped up to help Dr. Ta. Because of the high demand of the dentists, we were given instructions to only accept patients who needed extractions. Natalie volunteered to work as check in where she was given the difficult task of explaining to all the patients that needed fillings and cleanings that we could not serve them after they were waiting for such a long time. 
I was given the task of cleaning and sterilizing all the handpieces. It was a pretty easy yet monotonous job that I managed to mess up initially, but eventually I got the hang of things. 1 o’clock came and went, and we still had about 30 patients left to go. Mr. Terry Tao stopped by to drop off lunch for us and notified us that we would be extending the clinic to probably around 4 o’clock where as they were going to start shutting down the medical clinic around 2. When I heard this, I felt both an overwhelming sense of disappointment and relief. We were all tired and sweaty, and none of us would dare complain, but looking at the long list of patients that had to be seen reminded me that what we are doing will give them the help that they cannot afford on their own. Hours passed and it felt like I had washed too many dental instruments for way too long. I felt like I was washing sufficiently fast until the dentists announced they needed more anesthetic syringes. In a rush, I quickly put more anesthetic syringes in the sterilizing machine, and they ended having to use warm instruments that came straight out of the machine. 1 hour before the clinic closed, some members of the medical clinic dropped by to give extra support, but they also notified us that the clinic the next day at Hopkins was cancelled, and that we’d have another day at Independence. At that point, we were able to tell the patients that the dentists did not have time to see that day to return the next day, and I am positive that everyone felt a huge sense of relief. The dental clinic ended just before 4 o’clock, but the bus with most of our volunteers had already left. 
After cleaning up, the few dental volunteers hopped on the back of Mr. Terry’s truck and got dropped off at Hokey Pokey where we took a quick boat ride back to Placencia. Dr. Pham (Duke’s dad) even saw an extra patient at the boat dock! After a long day of work, our dental team enjoyed a nice boat ride, where we even got back earlier than the other group! We had some ice cream at Tutti Frutti and walked back to our condos to rest.