12 January 2010

After a two-week hiatus in the States, Calla and I returned to El Salvador. We spent two days walking around the capital before traveling home to Estancia. It was great to be back. The only inconvenience was a lack of electricity in the clinic and the house. The clinic normally runs off of batteries that are charged by solar panels. The batteries died about a week before we left in December. They typically last 5 years and ours are now 7 years old. Normally, the lack of light is no more than a mere annoyance that requires us to cook by candlelight. Our first night back was a little different.

Within 30 minutes of arriving to the clinic to cook our dinner, we got a phone call. A family that lives about 20 minutes from the clinic was calling to see if they could bring their 7 year-old girl to the clinic because she had fallen and cut her face. We told them we were already at the clinic and were waiting for them. Our relaxing return home would have to wait because there was work to be done.

The girl arrived shortly. Two hours ago she had fallen and sliced her face open on a brick. She had a 7 cm laceration over her left eye. The cut was pretty deep, and I think that we were all uncomfortable. Luckily the cut did not involve her eye. If she had been in the States, a plastic surgeon would have been there to sew her up. But out here there was only us, three medical students in a clinic without electricity.

Since I have the most interest and experience in all things surgical, I was elected to fix her face. It was a surreal experience. That night I put seven stitches in this girl’s face only with the light of a single candle.

I told the girl to come back in four days to have the stitches removed. The whole week I was preoccupied with her wound. It was so deep and so close to her eye that bad things could happen. Four days later she returned to the clinic. Her wound looked fantastic! It was fully closed with minimal scarring and her eye was completely unaffected. I feel lucky that everything worked out, but it was yet another potent reminder of how tenuous our position is here as medical students working in an area without doctors.


--Bela