Today we met for our second day of clinicals. Ginger took Alyssa and I out for two visits. On the way, we stopped in front of one of the many temples in Taiwan to take some pictures and see one of the wells the Taiwanese people still use. Ginger told us some of the poor families don’t have water in their home so they have to come to the well to get water for bathing and for cooking (which most people don’t do a whole lot of anyway…they buy all their meals from venders on the streets. Kitchens are VERY SMALL).
The first family we visited was awesome! The patient was a grandmother that was just old and needed help to stay alive until she pasted on. Her son spoke English and spent the whole time chatted with us about his family, his visits to America, and even how Osama was killed.
A lot of people that are receiving care at home will have a caregiver from a different country (usually Indonesia, Philippines, or Vietnam). The caregivers from to Taiwan to work for a family/care for the elderly because they will make more in one month here than they would in a whole year in their own country! The caregiver women in the first home we visited was so cute! She kept telling Alyssa and I that we were so beautiful and she changed her clothes to take a picture with us before we left!
After our visits, we went back to the hospital to have lunch with our nurses. Today, we had fried rice for lunch. It was actually VERY VERY GOOD! It was a lot like fried rice that you can get in the United States. WE all got shrimp fried rice. They use a lot of the little baby shrimp in their cooking. I also tried some soup noodles another one of the nurses had. Those were SOO good! But the weird thing about the soups they make here is that they put the WEIRDEST things in them! This one had pigs blood in it!!! The thought of it is BLEH! I did actually try it though…just a little. And it really wasn’t that bad. I just don’t get why they feel like they need to put EVERY LITTLE BIT of the animal in their cooking! Like yesterday, we had pig intestines in our soup. YUCK!
One of the other students, Jeni, tried something called “stinky tofu”. It really is STINKY!! It smells awful so I did not what to try it. And now I’m glad I didn’t because Jeni hated it and she likes EVERYTHING! She said it tasted like a farm, cows, pigs, manure and all!!
Jeni eating the Stinky Tofu
That afternoon, we were going on 3 more visits with my nurse, Ginger. We were going with the doctor that cares for all the patients we were visiting. That afternoon was probably my favorite community health experience so far! We, first, went to a family’s house that was pretty far away from Chi Mei Hospital. The house was HUGE!!! I didn’t think there were houses like that in Taiwan because I didn’t see anything like it until then. We walked up to the gate of the house and the caregiver let us in. When we walked in, the family had a Mini Cooper parked in their front way. In all the houses in Taiwan (and I’m sure in a lot of Asian countries) visitors take off their shoes to go into the house. The family gives you “house slippers” to wear when you go in. Usually, they are colorful slip-ons that you are only allowed to wear inside. When we walked into the house, we realized how wealthy these people must have been! Their house was at least 5 stories up and I think they even had an elevator.
Oh, another thing about all the houses in Taiwan is that they all have alters in their house to pray to their Gods. They are all pretty similar, they all have red bulbs and usually Buddha’s and other little ornaments. They usually have little alters/stands lined across then too where the family puts food/fruit for their Gods.
After we left this house, we drove by a big building that looked a little fancier than others around it so I asked my nurse what it was for. She giggled a little and told us that it was a place where you get massages. Then she added…only men go there. We realized it was a strip club and she laughed and laughed about it. While trying to figure out what the place had, we taught her the words “naked”, “mistress” & “affair”. Haha. Now every time we see her again she tells us. “I told my husband NO AFFAIR!” Haha. We laugh so hard every time.
The next place we went was a nursing home. We were going to visit two patients there. The place was pretty nice and it seemed like they provided good care for their patients. One of the patients there had a HUGE indention in the side of his head, probably the size of a grapefruit. They must have taken out part of his brain and taken off the skull part too!! It was so scary. The manager of the nursing home took us around and showed us all the things they do for their patients. It was a very good institution.
Also, the doctor sat down with us and told us all about the healthcare system and how all patients have insurance. It was very interesting how almost the entire country has a great access to healthcare. I was very impressed. Here is everyone from the nursing home plus the doctor and nurse we visited with:
The cute little old man that was smiling at us the whole time we were down stairs.
We had a great day in clinical today. Probably the most fun yet.
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