Hospital Visits

Our medical volunteers participating with Aim Abroad went to two different hospitals today, the pediatric hospital and the maternity hospital. At the pediatric hospital, the volunteers helped the hospital staff by helping feed the babies in the nursery, taking the children's temperatures, taking the children's blood pressures, measuring the children's height and weight, and listening with a stethoscope to the children's breathing patterns and heartbeats. The volunteers were also able to take blood samples and give injections, but they were not trained to do so, and were not comfortable with learning the practice; however, they did mention that the hospital staff is happy to train the volunteers to become proficient in those skills. The volunteers at the maternity hospital said that they spent a lot of time with the head surgeon of the hospital discussing different cases. Although they did not encounter any interesting cases, the maternity hospital had a different ultrasound machine, compared to the ultrasound machine at the clinic where most volunteers learn about the practice. The volunteers learned how to read the ultrasound output from a very different type of machine and did observe a few patients with the machine. They were able to tell that the patients were doing well, with their newfound knowledge of the practice of reading the ultrasound machine. All in all, the volunteers described they learned a lot today, and look forward to more volunteering at these local hospitals in India while they are with Aim Abroad.