Forest beyond forest
Wrapping a broken toenail
Today was a slow day at Pasam Hospital (spelled Pasam not Posom as I spelled it in my last post) due to the fact that Tuesday’s are a religious days for most Hindi’s in the region. I was able to get more involved with the patients that did come into the clinic, helping Dr. Mas by taking vitals and putting on basic wraps. The fortunate thing about the clinic is that there are not strict governmental rules about what student volunteers can do compared to the United States. As long as the doctor feels that I can appropriately treat the patient, he will allow me to perform the procedure necessary. Though this is usually at most a splint or an injection, I look to gain comfort around patients so I will feel natural when I have to perform more invasive procedures. An additional concept taught was how to properly clean a cut that needs dressings applied. In the United States, most people would know to wash it regularly and put some sort of antibiotic ointment on the cut to prevent it from getting infected. The conditions for many of the locals do not allow such treatment and therefore when a patient comes in with an old wound that wound must be debrided, which is removing the dead and infected tissue from the wound. After the clinic we took a short walk of about three miles up the road through the forest. We were greeted by about thirty monkeys and they all wanted food. When John gave a baby monkey a small piece of chocolate they all looked intently at him and got very close. Their comfort with humans is understandable with all the tourists but is still unusual to me. The night ended with another spicy Indian dish that included rice, flat bread, and a spicy vegetable soup. Tomorrow is a busy optometry day for the clinic, and I will be helping Dr. Mas with many eye exams. Until then, it is farewell from Southern India.
Monkey eating corn on the cob
Moon above the mountain