I spent four weeks serving with the doctors and staff at the Centro de Salud Santa Clotilde at the Hospital Santa Clotilde along the Napo River in the Peruvian Amazon region of Loreto. The hospital consisted of an approximately 30-bed inpatient unit, emergency department, dentist office, psychologist office, obstetrics clinic, laboratory, pharmacy and an outpatient clinic. It is staffed by local nurses, doctors, midwives and techs, as well as doctors and nurses from countries such as Spain, Canada and the United States. Many of these volunteers, such as myself, lived in housing and ate meals provided in the hospital compound. Almost all medical care is conducted completely in Spanish.

My typical day began around 7 a.m. with rounding on inpatients in the hospital who were admitted for anything from marasmus to wound care to tuberculosis. After documenting SOAP notes for the day and renewing or placing orders for the patients, I would move with the doctors to the outpatient clinic. There we would see adult and pediatric patients for a variety of acute or chronic conditions. We dealt with many infectious diseases unique to the area, but also with trauma or typical diseases like diabetes or hypertension. We would perform lab testing and order medications for any patients who needed them. The day ended whenever all the patients were seen. About once a week, we would take call in the emergency department to see patients that come in there at any time of the day. If anyone needed care beyond the scope of our hospital, we would send them by boat or biplane to the larger city of Iquitos.

During my time in Santa Clotilde, I got a wide exposure of clinical experiences. I learned about and cared for patients with a variety of unique tropical diseases such as dengue, malaria, tuberculosis, leptospirosis and intestinal parasites. I also was part of the care for patients with cancer and HIV. I cared for trauma patients with injuries from machetes and chainsaws. I performed ultrasounds for pregnant patients of a variety of gestational ages. I did knee injections, skin biopsies, suturing and other procedures.

Overall, the experience was incredibly informative and humbling. It was a gift to be able to learn and serve alongside amazing medical professionals from the U.S. and locally. I have gained a great amount of respect for those who are called to this kind of long-term work with all the challenges that a resource-limited hospital experiences. The local community was so welcoming and kind, and gave me great respect for their tight-knit, family-based culture. I hope to carry many of the lessons I learned with me to other populations in the U.S. or elsewhere.

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