One of my patients....

So over the last few days we've really gotten into the swing of things running our clinic. We have visited several remote Andean villages, and when I say remote I mean that we are in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, and we have to drive 3 hrs across dirt roads and mountains to reach these people. They are isolated. Yesterday I was paired with a great pediatrician from the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Krishna, and she pretty much let us do everything (she was overlooking of course). We had the village's school come out so we could attend to children with problems ranging from night blindness due to Vit. A deficiencies to tumors. There was a poor 8 year old girl that had her ear pierced with a dirty needle and had not been able to see a doctor for it, and this happened about 8 months ago. Her ear and side of her face had become so badly infected that she will be permanently disfigured if we are fortunate enough to get the infection to go away. Her mother was even worse off as she had scraped her foot on a rock 5 years ago (yes, you read that correctly) and had as yet never seen a doctor for it. The infection had become gangrenous and had made it's way all the way down into her bone. We don't have a surgeon with us so all we can do is try to fight the infection and get her to an ortho ASAP and she will probably loose her foot. I actually have a picture of the wound but I'll spare you guys that one. Back to my work with Dr. Krishna, we were so overwhelmed with children that I, on my own, saw about 30 patients. Now I mentioned last summer that I thought I was having a hard time with the Spanish, well now there's a new little wrinkle here. Apparently in these remote villages very few people speak Spanish, much less English so we had to get a translator for Quechua to Spanish, then I do my best from there. Let's just say that it makes life interesting, especially seeing as I wouldn't get the chance to do what I'm doing here in the US for about 3 more years. Here is picture of one of my patients, these kids are great and are so thankful for our help. On a side note we're taking measurements of all the children's feet and with this information we are partnering with TOMS (a footwear company many of you probably have heard of) and will be bringing shoes for thousands of children next summer! Having a great time, and I hope you are as well reading this...

Finally!

Well I apparently have taken too high resolution pictures and they take FOR-EV-ER to upload, so hopefully I can remedy this by lowering the quality going forward. Anyway, here's a pic of the Colca Canyon I was talking about. We started on the top of the far side of what you're looking at here, worked our way all the way to the canyon floor, then up the side I'm standing on when I took this picture for a little, back onto the floor for the night. We spent the night at what could best be described as an oasis (and it actually was called this). I've never seen the stars the way they looked that night. Anyway, we woke up before the sun rose and began our trek out the next morning, some more great views on the way back up. I'm going to post this first before I try loading anymore pics so you guys at least have this to look at, the picture doen't even do the view justice....

Sorry for...

the radio silence, I´ve been pretty busy and it takes a lot of time to upload these pics. Well we´ve started our first weeek of medical care and visited two remote Andean towns in the last two days. But you´ll hear enough about that going forward so I´ll get you up to speed with what we did last week in the Canyon. We climbed into and out of Colca Canyon which seems to be one of the deepest (these all depend on definitions of course) but lets just say that the difference between the top point and bottom is 3191 m (that´s over 9,000 ft.) which is more than double the depth of the Grand Canyon (around 1500 m difference). Given the fact that this difference ocurs from 4000 to 1000 m the altitude can really get a hold of you. Let´s just say it was not easy and that it really freaked me out for my plans later this summer, but of course there´s only one way to see what happens. We did not climb the entire 3100 m, our max altitude being 3,400 m (10,200 ft.) and minimum being 2,150 m (around 6,400 ft give or take), however in covering we did this by hiking 22km in two days on top of the altitude. Also, before we entered the canyon we got to see some Condors taking flight for morning breakfast. These birds are HUGE, and have a 10.5 ft wingspan, making it the largest of terrestrial birds. I´ll make another post with pics... I hope Everyone is doing well and I look forward to hearing from you along my adventures....

Bringing drugs INTO Peru....

So, in order for us to have the necessary medications and medical supplies down in Peru we all needed to carry an extra bag into which we put as much as we could fit. Here is a picture of the contents of my bag, I had 72 bottles of antibiotics, several thousand ibuprofen tablets, nebulizers, etc etc.... The point of the story is I never thought that I'd be carrying a bag of 30 lbs of drugs ITNO Peru, doesn't it normally work the other way around? Anyway, I'm currently writing this sitting in a room with four friends from med school, in hostel in Arequipa Peru. We're waking up early tomorrow morning to hike into one of the worlds deepest canyons, camping the night, and hitting up some hot springs along the way, possibly seeing some condors as well. I hope this finds you all doing well and I hope to be in touch on a regular basis. Ciao.

Re-blog: Summer 2011

> Dear friends and family,
> As most of you know, but some may not, last summer I started a blog to keep you all up to date with what was going on in my life. I had planned on keeping it going whilst I progressed through the first year of my medical education but I was unable to do so for a plethora of reasons. Anywho, after successfully becoming 1/4 a doctor I'm picking the blog up where I left off quite literally. I'm actually writing this email on a plane going from Miami to Panama City, with a final destination if Lima Peru. I am heading down there with a group of other first year medical students and attending physicians from Stony Brook and we will be doing a medical mission of sorts throughout the sacred valley of Peru, pretty much right where my blog ended last summer. We will be visiting remote clinics, towns, and orphanages with the aim of providing medical care to people that may otherwise never receive it. My blog will eventually follow me through 4 continents over the course of 2 months, but without trying to spoil all the surprises feel free to check back periodically as I attempt to update the blog as often as possible. I hope this message finds you all doing well and I look forward to hearing from all of you. Please feel free to pass this along to anyone and everyone you think may be interested. Ciao.
>
> Best,
> Aidan
>
> PS- last summer I told myself when I was down here I had to do everything I could fit in as I thought I might never have the chance to make it back to Peru. Who would've guessed that I'd be heading straight back the very next summer? It just goes to show you how odd/crazy/interesting life can be sometimes!

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