This was a super productive week for me at Hospitalito. I have been outside of the bodega for over a week now! I have mostly wrapped up three small projects I have been working on for the nursing staff. The first, a pocket-sized emergency medication reference guide in Spanish intended to help nurses have quick access to information regarding rescue medications/advanced cardiac life support medications. These are medications administered by nurses but used very infrequently. The information is useful even to the medical providers. Because Hospitalito is the only 24-hour emergency room within three hours for some Guatemalans, it is not uncommon to see patients in grave danger. However, the frequency is still quite low. The second project is a similarly inspired medication reference manual in Spanish. It now resides within the box of all “emergency drugs” and delineates each drug, their intended uses, normal dosages, and what to monitor patients for after giving a particular medication. Lastly, because February is Heart Month (American Heart Association) and my own nursing speciality, I created a power point presentation on cardiovascular health and heart attacks.

         I spent an additional six hours at Hospitalito on Saturday. A group of 15 volunteers – all from the US who here in Guatemala for six months with an organization for future health care professionals – assisted with miscellaneous housekeeping chores. I worked with half of the group in the bodega. They proved to be a huge help cleaning and moving nearly half of the shelving units and supplies into the new bodega. It was an exhausting and dirty day but looking back very satisfying to see how much we accomplished for the hospital. The majority of supplies have been sitting on their respective shelves collecting dust for who knows how long? It was also satisfying knowing more Spanish than the majority of the group and serving as a facilitator to Antonio, who is in charge of the Bodega.