Fun day yesterday  – saw several patients with the doctor in the general thoracic clinic over at Mexicali General, as well as a patient over at his private clinic office.

Dr. Gutierrez, a surgical intern joined us for the clinic, which I enjoyed.  He’s nice, and doesn’t seem to mind my halting, grammatic train wreck Spanish..  I took his picture earlier this week  – (his first intra-operative photo!) during one of the cases –

Dr. Gutierrez, surgical intern

Went with Dr. Ochoa over to a new private hospital across town – (had to use GPS to find it) called Arco Quinones Hospital.  It’s on Rio Tamazula Sur y Calle 4ta # 2600.  You have to drive thru the industrial section of Mexicali to get there – but it seemed like a cute little place.  It’ so new – there were only 3 patients in-house.

Dr. Luis Carlo Maldonado Martinez was kind enough to give us the full tour: there are two patients floors – one ICU bed with ventilator and cardiac monitoring equipment, one labor and delivery suite – a very small neonatal area, and 2 operating rooms.  There’s a small one-suite lab (about the size of my kitchen here but suitable for the more basic lab studies) and a radiography suite for x-rays and ultrasounds.  They also have a small ER (but probably more suitable for a ‘urgent care’) with two beds.  The place is brand-spanking new, with gleaming floors and smiling staff.  (Not a bad place for a nip / tuck sort of thing – but too tiny for any ‘real’ surgery or serious illnesses.)

The good doctor performed a small procedure over there in one of the operating rooms on a very nice patient – letting us try out the facility a bit.  Everything went very smoothly – and then it was off to another hospital to see another patient!

I take patient privacy very seriously – so I don’t publish any details about patients, or photographs without their express permission in their native language.

More homework today – he liked the English version of our patient education (for pre-surgical optimization to prevent post-operative complications) brochure so now I am working on creating a Spanish translation.