A side of empathy served in cardiology

Sorry it has taken me so long to blog. I have been really confused about the blogging and have my own blog so if you have a tumblr...def follow me. Here is an insight on my life so far though! There are apparently only 3 hospitals in the Azores which are a group of 9 islands. There is one in Terceira (which is where I am currently living), Sao Miguel, and Faial. This week I am in the cardiology unit and the doctors I am shadowing are Dra. Rute (pronounced Ruth) and Dr. Schneider. Dra. Rute is the sweetest doctor ever and she took me to the room where they do the cardiac stress test. The cardiac stress test is basically where doctors make patients walk on a threadmill at different intensities and then chart and record the ECG to see if there is any abnormalities. Then Dra.Rute took me on her patient rounds and that was when I realized that I feel very isolated and distint on this island. I don’t understand a word of portuguese, if that wasn’t already clear on the my first blog, but the fact that i DON’T understand portuguese really impacts my shadowing experience in the hospital. When I shadowed a neonatologist in India, I could understand the emotions and the interactions that were occuring between the doctors and the patients, however, here I just feel so lost all the time. I feel so helpless because I am always lost in translation. I can only imagine the extent of trouble that immigrants who travel to America face when they have to go to the grocery store or even see a doctor. I am grateful I can speak English to my friends back in the Residencia and that there are a few doctors who can communicate with me, but what about the people who come to America from parts of India that can’t speak English or people who come from remote African countries? I feel like this shadowing experience is great for me because it is putting me in the place of the immigrants who come to America, and in this way it is showing me the importance of empathy and humility. As a future doctor, I think it’s important to understand multiculturalism (somebody at the hospital asked me if I spoke Indian today……) and furthermore, even more important to understand where the patient is coming from- in terms of culture, language, and family. This program is the true definition of immersion because everyday I learn something new in Portuguese and everyday I crave to communicate with the people around me. So i guess i can say, today in cardiology I was served with a side of empathy.

-Advaita