Adventures Abroad

One of the biggest reasons I chose the program here in Santiago, over any other program in the world that Puget Sound offered, was because they have a class called Observación Clínica where I would have the opportunity to shadow and observe doctors in the Chilean health system. Because I want to become a doctor this seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to gain more experience and also learn about the health care in another country. Eventually I would like to work in other countries and try and develop their health systems or offer health attention to those that don’t have access to healthcare. Thus, the opportunity to explore another country’s health system seemed like the perfect way to see if this is really what I want to do.
Well, we were in a classroom for this course until about 2 weeks ago. In the classroom we were learning about how the health system works in Chile and how it is different than the system in the US. The first week of May though was technically our first observation. As a group we went to two different sites in Santiago to learn about two completely different areas of health. The first place we went to was a ruka, which is a large hut where the Mapuche (the indigenous people of Chile) heal the sick. It was a very cool experience to see some of their ceremonies and talk to the Mapuche healers about their struggles with integrating their culture into the more modern Chile. After this, we went to a clinic where patients with terminal illnesses can go to live out the rest of their life in comfort. It is the only clinic like it in all of South America and is totally free to the patients. Overall, it was a rewarding experience getting to talk with the volunteers and nurses about this institute.
Although these experiences were very insightful, they left me feeling a little disappointed because I felt that I didn’t get to see as much as I really wanted to. I wanted to see the doctors and nurses interacting with patients, or the Mapuche doing their healing ceremonies, but I didn’t see any of this. For this reason, I was very excited for this last week when I would be in a hospital with doctors. I knew the dynamic would change because we would no longer be in a big group but rather in pairs. However there is an uneven number of people in our class and thus, there is one group of three. I am in that group of three and the professor explained to us that each week one of us would have to go to a site alone. When we were given our assignments for the week, I found that I would be the only person to go to a placement alone. I was really nervous, hoping that I would be able to understand everyone even if I didn’t have another set of ears to help me out.
I got to the hospital, which was incredibly nice by the way. I almost felt like I was in the United States again. I was introduced to the head of the emergency department, which was the department where I would be working for the day. The lady gave me a quick introduction to the basics of the emergency room procedures in Chile and then introduced me to a nurse. The nurse introduced me to some of the other staff but because that morning was really quiet, there wasn’t much to do. We sat around for a while and every few minutes the nurse would bring me into a room with him to administer medicine to a patient or one time, to take stitches out. It was an uneventful morning, and although I was starting to observe some doctors, which is exactly what I wanted to do, I felt like I needed to make more of an effort to ask questions of the staff in order to learn as much as possible.
I began to ask how the process of checking in worked and what the layout of the department was. A nurse showed me around and introduced me to all the different types of machines they had. It was starting to seem just like a US hospital. Then she introduced me to one of the doctors in the ER. He told me that he wanted me to follow him into the next room. The nurse at triage would ask if it was okay if a student came in with him and then I could see the whole process for myself. I was stoked. This is exactly what I wanted to see. When the next patient came in the doctor handed me the chart and said something . . . Did I understand that right? I thought he had told me to go into the room and ask the patient for their symptoms. This couldn’t be true though. He was coming with me right? When I went over him again, he just looked at me and asked if I’d done it yet. “Done what?” I asked. “Asked the patient for their symptoms.” So I had heard him right. He was asking me to go into the room, without him, before him, and ask the patient how they were feeling that day. Wow, this was scary. I’ve done Global Medical Brigades before, where a group of students from Puget Sound go down to Honduras and set up a medical clinic for a week, and with this experience I’ve had to ask patients their symptoms and record them. But somehow this felt way different. It was in a much more professional setting and I felt very intimidated to just walk into a patient’s room as if I was part of the medical staff.
I told myself I could do it and then walked into the room with as much confidence as I could muster. I asked the patient what their symptoms were and how they felt, praying that I would able to understand their response. Surprisingly I understood EVERY word she said and was able to write on the chart exactly how she felt, what her symptoms were, and when they had started. As I walked out of the room, I was really proud of myself. I went back into the room to observe the consult with the doctor. Afterwards the doctor told me I had done a really good job and made the visit a lot faster for him. He asked me to start going in to all his patients rooms before him and because I did such a good job, he also wanted me to write down any allergies the patient had, any previous illnesses, and the medications they were taking. I felt like a real medical student.
After a few hours, the doctor introduced me to another doctor who I could shadow too. This doctor brought me into the room with him and would introduce me as the American from Denver who was learning about the Chilean health system. To my great surprise, in the first consult that I sat in on with this doctor, he told the patient that I had some questions for him about the Chilean health system. He then abruptly left the room, leaving me alone with the patients with absolutely no questions to ask. I was terrified but I had to think of something to ask. I couldn’t just leave. I asked him how he liked the service he had received that day. After asking one question, I felt a lot more comfortable and began to see this impromptu interview as an opportunity to see the opinion of the health system of Chile from the perspective of an actual patient and not from a doctor or professor. I ended up talking with the patient for about 40 minutes and we talked about so much—from the Chilean health system to American politics. For having no questions prepared I again felt proud of myself that I was able to communicate with a native Chilean with no help and learn a lot of new things about the Chilean health system.
Over the course of the day I continued to ask patients their symptoms, observe other simple medical procedures, and had the opportunity to “interview” patients about their experience with Chilean healthcare. Overall, it was an amazing day that instead of leaving me disappointed like the week before left me wanting to go back. While at the beginning of the day I was fairly shy and still nervous about being by myself without a classmate, I learned at the end of the day that I would not have wanted it any other way. Being by myself made me feel more independent and I think I got more out of the experience than if I would have had another American with me. I learned how to push myself out of my comfort zone and take initiative. If I hadn’t taken initiative and asked questions and done some of the scary things the doctors asked me to do (like take notes on the patient’s symptoms and interview them about their health system) I wouldn’t have learned as much.
After the day I asked some my classmates how their days had gone and most of them told me that they didn’t really enjoy the experience. They were left feeling disappointed and that they didn’t get to see anything super cool. While I didn’t get to see anything that would change my life forever, like someone brought back to life or even a cast put on a broken arm, I learned so much about the Chilean health system, and better yet, myself. I learned that I need to put myself out there, push myself beyond my comforts in order to advance my learning and myself. Overall it was an amazing experience and I can’t wait for this Thursday when I will get to observe surgery and learn more about myself.

The whole group together at the ruka de la Mapuche

the Mapuche performing a ceremony

The theme of this week was very similar to that of last week—learning to deal with challenges. I bought another ticket to Mendoza and again, the trip was cancelled due to bad weather in the mountains. I enjoyed a spontaneous weekend in Santiago with no plans. I wandered the streets and found some new restaurants, new barrios (neighborhoods), and watched one of the biggest soccer games of the season in an American themed bar.
Since I have not accumulated any funny stories from the weekend, I decided I would write this blog about some of the interesting things I have come to notice about Chilean culture, things that you would only be able to notice if you weren’t from Chile but had still lived here for a significant amount of time. I would call these things cultural quirks. They don’t necessarily reveal a profound history or cultural influence of Chile, but I find them funny and refreshing.
Here goes.
Cultural Quirk #1: I’ve talked about this before, but Chileans have no shame in staring. Especially when it comes to checking out the gringa with blonde hair walking down the street (aka ME). They will look out the window of a car and whistle. They will look behind their shoulder as you pass. They’ll put their entire face against a window just to get a better look at you. I’m serious. None of these are exaggerations. I really have had guys press their faces against a car window, like they’re kids in a candy shop, and stare at me for an uncomfortable amount of time.
Cultural Quirk #2: Chileans love their little white dogs. I’ve noticed that the majority of Chileans that own a dog, first of all have a very small dog, and second of all, the dog is always white.
Cultural Quirk #3: They have a rhyme here that is the equivalent of “Eenie Meenie Minie Mo” but in Spanish. It has the same concept as our rhyme where they point to multiple objects as they chant the words and at the end when their finger lands on the last object, this is the one they pick. What’s interesting though is that the rhyme talks about God and the Virgin Mary and doing what they would want you to do. A little deeper and profound than “Catch a tiger by its toe.”
Cultural Quirk #4: They also play “Rock, Papers, Scissors” here but instead of pounding the different symbols on your fists, they put their hands behind their head and then at one time reveal which symbol they have chosen. Same rules, just different in how they reveal their choice of rock, paper, or scissors.
Cultural Quirk #5: PDA is definitely a thing here. Chileans are not embarrassed to publicly make-out with their pololo (boyfriend). Whether it be tongues out in the metro, mounting each other in the park, or kissing each others necks on the street corner, PDA is a daily occurrence here. I have seen it all when it comes to relations here. Not even kidding, I’ve seen a couple licking each other up and down their arms and necks in the middle of the dance floor. Too much? Apparently not here.
Cultural Quirk #6: La comida de Chile. The diet of Chileans is probably the thing I have had to adjust to the most. They have avocado and tomatoes with everything. Hamburgers, hotdogs, bread, spaghetti. Not kidding, I’ve eaten spaghetti with avocado and tomatoes; and I thought it was good. On the weekends instead of dinner, my family has a meal called once that consists of bread, avocado, and usually tomatoes. Bread is a huge staple here. I think my host mom must eat 15 pieces of bread a day. And the bread here is not like the sliced bread in the States. I would describe it as a French baguette in miniature. It’s a hearty bread and with pretty much every meal it is served and expected that you have at least one piece. While I have enjoyed the food here, I would not constitute it as having much flavor. Chileans are quite honestly a bunch of pansies when it comes to spice. The tiniest amount of flavor they would say is too spicy. But even when a dish has no flavor or taste to even talk about, they will still mutter between each breath, “Qué rico,” which means, “how delicious.” I quite honestly could write an entire blog solely on the food here, and maybe I will sometime. But these are just a couple of the interesting quirks of their diet.
Cultural Quirk #7: Another thing about the food—there is no such thing as finger food here. Everything is eaten with a knife and fork. French fries—you better not use your fingers. Fruit—don’t you dare put it in your hand and go straight for your mouth. My host mom gives me a knife with every piece of fruit I eat, assuming I will cut a slice before putting into my mouth. Whether it be a pear, a kiwi, a peach, I have to eat it with a knife. Even an orange, yes an orange, I will get a knife to cut it with. What am I going to do with an orange and a knife?! I’ve skipped the knife with the orange simply because I don’t understand the logistics.
Cultural Quirk #8: Guys here have no game. That is, when it comes to dating. They don’t believe in leading you on or playing hard to get. They simply ask you out if they like you. I’ve had guys call me “Qué preciosa” (How precious) after about 5 minutes of dancing with them, sometimes even sooner. I’ve been asked to go out from guys I’ve literally never seen in my life. Seriously, the first words they say to me are: “¿Quieres salir conmigo alguna vez?” (Do you want to go out with me sometime?) Really? We haven’t even exchanged two words yet and already you want to spend an entire night with me? There’s no such thing as having a “thing” here. Dates are on the table within the first 10 minutes of meeting a guy. There’s no messing around.
Cultural Quirk #9: Chileans think every kind of weather is cold. Everyday my host mom comes home from dropping my host brother off at school and says, “Hace frío” (It’s cold). Literally, its 70 degrees outside. They keep telling me it’s winter and as I walk down the streets I see that everyone is in winter jackets with boots, scarves, and gloves. But literally, it is 70 degrees outside. I’ll get stares if I wear a short sleeve shirt with no jacket. But come on! It’s 70 degrees outside. I would say this still constitutes summer, or at least a warm fall. Then when we do have the occasional cold day, my host family will complain how cold it is in the house, but yet they have ALL the windows open. The door to patio, the bedroom windows, the window to the kitchen, all open. I don’t know if they don’t know they’re open or what’s going on but it’s only logical to me that by closing them, it would make the house warmer. I’m just saying.
Cultural Quirk #10: Go to the supermarket here and everything is in a bag. You name it, it probably comes in a bag. Ketchup. Mayonnaise. Jam. Soap. Shampoo. Yogurt. Yes, all in a bag. It’s sometimes an interesting feat to pour my yogurt each morning out of a hole in bag and when it gets to the end, I still haven’t figured out how to squeeze every last drop out because that bag of yogurt stays in the fridge long after I think it’s all gone.
Cultural Quirk #11: Nothing is on time here. They’re on Chilean time, and the Chileans will recognize it. The other night I asked how long the halves for our games were, since I’m playing in a league here. The girls said they were 22 minutes. Twenty-two minutes? Why not 25, or 20, or even 30? Why 22? They answered me that this allowed time for people to be late, for the game to start late, and for there to be a longer half time and still not go over an hour. It’s for Chilean time, they said.

So there you have it. Chilean culture in a nutshell. I have one last story to tell you all before we part for the week. This didn’t quite fit into my list but it still goes along with the theme of learning about Chilean culture in a comical way.
I was wearing a Puget Sound t-shirt one day with the initials P and S on the front with an axe in between them. A typical Puget Sound shirt that I didn’t think anything about. When I sat down for dinner that night, my host mom asked what the letters meant. I told her they were for my school. As soon as I gave my answer, she started laughing. “I thought the letters stood for Partido Socialista,” she admitted. “And the symbol in the middle looks like the Communist anchor. I thought you were a Communist.” Oh God! So now my Puget Sound shirt can be mistaken for a Communist campaign. “No, no, no,” I assured her. “It’s just the symbol for my school.” So now if I ever go running out with that t-shirt I’ll know that everywhere I go people will think I’m a communist. Puget Sound represent.

Studying abroad has already presented me with so many obstacles. Obstacles that I’ve gladly approached and usually overcome with success. But there seems to be a theme with the obstacles. While obviously there are distinct obstacles that come with studying abroad in a country that speaks another language, this theme could be found in any study abroad experience whether you’re studying in London or in Thailand. I’ve noticed this lesson coming back again and again but this weekend I noticed it the most. The lesson: be flexible. Go with the flow.
This week, on a Tuesday afternoon, me and some friends decided that we wanted to go to Mendoza that weekend. We bought our bus tickets and booked the hostel within 24 hours and were pumped to enjoy a weekend in Argentina, tasting the many wine flavors and exploring a new city. When entering Argentina as an American, you have to pay a fee of $160, pretty pricey for just a weekend away from home. We all looked at our budgets and decided to make paying this fee worth it we would fly to Buenos Aires later in the semester.
Thursday arrived. My class, called Observación Clínica, which is usually in the morning got moved to the afternoon that day and we had no idea how long it would last. We assumed it would be a four-hour class like normal. When we got there, we quickly realized that we were going to take a tour of the hospitals we would be working at in the upcoming weeks. These hospitals were about an hour away from each other on public transportation. After a two-hour lecture, we finally left for the tours. At this point we were all very nervous that we wouldn’t be done in time in order to return home, pack, and catch the bus. The class finally finished and we all rushed home to get our things organized.
After I had packed my bag and was about to sit down to a quick dinner before leaving for the bus, one of the girls who was going on the trip with me, Nadeen, called me and said that the bus was cancelled. How could this be? I ended up having my host mom call the company to confirm that this was true and that there was no way that we could go with another company that night. After getting off the phone, my mom confirmed that the bus was indeed cancelled due to rain and snow in the mountains that had closed the pass. In order to get to Mendoza you have to go through the Andes Mountains and cross a pass. It can get pretty dangerous when there is even a slight change in the weather because the highway that runs through the mountains is not very safe and the rain and snow can push sediment onto the road making it impossible to pass. My host mom gave me a big hug and said she was so sorry that I wouldn’t be able to make my trip this weekend.
I was a little upset but quite honestly I laughed immediately after it happened. It didn’t seem like such a big deal. When in a foreign country, there is always something to do and I was confident that me and my friends would find something to do in the place of going to Mendoza. My mom was amazed at my resiliency, even saying she was surprised I hadn’t cried about it. I came to realize that I had grown so much since the beginning of this trip. When my flight out of the States was cancelled and I had to leave for Santiago the next day, I was distraught and overall so upset about the whole situation. But now my entire weekend’s plans had been thrown away and I was laughing. I found it comical and honestly a great opportunity to explore the city. What a different mindset than two months ago.
The next night, since we were in town, me and a friend decided to start planning our trip to Buenos Aires with the full intention of buying tickets that night. After searching on every site possible, we thought we had found the best deal for the times we were going. I booked the ticket and my friend Courtney said she would book it the next morning. The next morning, Courtney emailed me to confirm the flight, but when she was in the process of booking it, she saw that the price had jumped up by $100. Wow! I looked at my ticket to make sure that I had paid the price that the site had advertised. I found that the actual price of the ticket, after fees, was what Courtney had said, $100 more than it had been advertised for. We had definitely found better deals than this and I was fairly upset that we hadn’t noticed this rise in price.
I ended up calling the airline and seeing if there was any way I could get my money back, saying they had some false advertising on their website. There were not very keen to listen to my story. Again, I was running into a series of unexpected events where I needed to learn how to be flexible. After the whole situation I was quite honestly still a little upset, but not as much as I usually am about these kinds of things. I thought, you know its only $100 and in the scheme of things, this is not the end of the world.
In the end I felt proud of myself because I had dealt with an adverse situation with grace and I had also had to deal with an uncomfortable situation over the phone in Spanish—a sure sign that my Spanish was improving.
While this weekend definitely presented a few more obstacles than normal, I realized I’m learning how to be more flexible and go with the flow. Challenges like this don’t rattle me anymore and I’ve come to realize that everything works out for the best. Even though this story doesn’t seem to have a cheery end, I learned a lot about myself this weekend and how much I’ve grown while I’ve been down here. I still had an awesome weekend, filled with exploring the city and hanging out with friends, and a few lessons learned on the side. I’ve faced a lot of challenges while I’ve been down here and I’m starting to see that I can deal with adverse situations much better now. When I come home, the things I used to constitute as “problems” or “challenges” will no longer seem like anything at all. The challenges I face down here seem to put everything in perspective. When living in a foreign country everything is a new experience and adversity only adds a little spice to the whole journey.