Day 5: Seine Bight Clinic

​Julia Tao
The clinic today was located in Seine Bight clinic, where my team was assigned to the pharmacy station. There were not too many patients today either, so at the beginning of the clinic we packaged Mebendazole (parasite medicine) for the parasite research the next day. Halfway through clinic, a few students went to the Seine Bight school to hand out pens/pencils/toys. Once we came back, Dr. Tao called the students to see a case of a boy who had hemophilia, which had caused his knees to swell up with blood. Deshawn, the patient from last year's clinic who had fallen off the back of a pickup truck, came to the clinic to talk to the group and show us his progress in recovery. Last year, he wasn't able to move his legs or even hold a fork to eat with, but today with the help of a donated walker, we were able to see him stand up! After clinic, Ms. Ruth presented about marine biology to the group in preparation for the marine biology mission the next day.

​Jacqueline Duong
Today was the last day of clinic and I think all of us had a bittersweet feeling in that we were all exhausted but we also didn’t like the feeling that the trip was coming to an end. The bus ride to Seine Bight from Placencia was about 15 minutes, but we were a bit delayed this morning because all the chairs and tables were not delivered on time. 
On this last day, my team was at the pharmacy station (my personal least favorite). Luckily enough, I had a team of dedicated and organized girls who would work at the pharmacy station the whole day when I was assisting other stations. Before the clinic day began, Julia had us all packing Mebendazole (parasite medication) for the research she was conducting at Independence the next days. The reason why I never liked pharmacy was because personally, I love to talk, and this station was the one in which I rarely had an opportunity to interact with new people. I am so grateful to my team that was consistently hard at work taking orders from the pharmacists and packing up all the medication. The pharmacists Mrs. Duong and Mrs. Nguyen assigned me the task of calling out numbers and giving their medication to them along with the respective instructions. I thought this task would be a lot easier for me because talking is all I’m good at, but most of the patients I had to talk to only spoke Spanish! A lot of the patients got a good laugh at my attempts to explain the different uses of the medications, but ultimately, I got things done. 
After a bit of assistance at the pharmacy, I helped out in patient education and then acted as a runner to get things done for some of the doctors that needed help. Furthermore, I conducted a couple of interviews as a part of the ABC Media team. Before lunchtime, Dr. Tao announced that the Fairmont team that had brought pencils, pens, and toys for students would be visiting St. Alphonsus, the local school. Because I was part of the media team, I also followed along to record the interactions between the students and the volunteers. 
When we got there, we were able to quickly interrupt the older classes and give them some pens and pencils. Adam Alamy, Duke, Dean Alamy, Nate Cheng, and I were given the opportunity to explain the purpose of ABC to the students, in hopes that they would recognize our support for each and every one of them. 
Because they had a one hour lunch period, some of the students stopped by the clinic, and some even played basketball with our volunteers! I ran into one of the basketball players later at the clinic and he claimed that the students beat our volunteers.
While the boys were playing basketball, I was talking to some of the female students who came up to me for some bracelets I was hanging out. One girl in particular said she dreamed of becoming a doctor and move to the states where she could help all the children. I was recording her and spontaneously asking her interview questions, and when she explained her aspirations to me, I was quite shocked. I realized that so many of these kids had so much potential and that they had dreams. It was that moment that the hot weather and the dozens of kids asking me for bracelets seemed not annoying, but inspiring. 
When we returned to the clinic, I helped with patient education and spoke to some very friendly adults and students. Soon enough, it was time to clean up!
After cleaning up, we heard the story of Deshawn Castillo, an 18 year old who got into a car accident last year that paralyzed him neck down. Doctors told him he would never walk again, but his adoptive mother and he shared his inspirational story that touched all of our hearts. Deshawn expressed that if he wasn’t going to try to recover then he’d just be sitting in his bed the whole day and live a pitiful life. Because of his mindset, our OT (Mrs. Cassandra) who had seen him the year before announced that he had an incredible amount of improvement. He was able to stand up on his feet with the help of others and a walker. I have no doubt that Deshawn will be walking some time in the future, and being able to meet such a determined role model has impacted and altered my mindset and outlook on life.