At least the doctors are friendly....

A quick recap of work last week:
Thursday and Friday was spent in meetings and doing the Clinic/Doctor entrevista (survey) that I helped design and translate. It was pretty exciting and a little stressful seeing the survey that I had worked on for a few works finally applied. On Thursday, Joanne, Katrina, and I went with Jacoba to two different clinics to start our surveys. The first location went pretty well, without any major Spanish or translating snaphos (sp?). Our second stop was the pueblo of Cuanajo which is about a 40 minute Combi ride from Patzcuaro and is famous for their hand carved wood furniture (fun fact). The Combi ride was quite at an adventure- at one point there were 23 people on the bus! The bus driver literally pulled out camp stools and buckets for people to sit on in the aisle, it was out of control.

Once we safely made it Caunajo we were in for a treat. The doctor at the IMSS/Oportunidades clinic was young talkative and we suspect very lonely. A quick note about IMSS/Oportunidades clinics before we discuss the overly friendly doctor: I/O clinics are free clinics in rural areas (generally one clinic serves multiple communities if they are close by) for people who are not covered by insurance (although Mexico does have a national health insurance system called Seguro Popular). The doctor at the clinic was very very very friendly and ended up talking to us for a very long time and giving us an exhow tensive tour of the clinic. We think he was so friendly because he was on his service year (required to gradate from Medical school) which means that for a year in between your medical school training and residency you live in needy community (rural or urban) and are basically on call at the clinic 24 hours a day. He showed us his little room which is inside the clinic where he has to live for a year. He probably was happy to talk to people around his age (he was 24). After our interview he even offered to drive us back home which was a nice a surprise after our ridiculous combi trip to Cuanajo.

NB: The pictures above are of a)mountains in Cuanajo, b) a new "to prevent the (swine) flu" poster at the clinic, and c) cows parading in front of the I/O Clinic in Cuanajo.