Tomorrow we will have our last clinical observation day here in Panama, which is hard to believe. We've really learned so much while we've here and I can't wait to go home and share all of my experiences with my family and friends. Today was an especially exciting day for me, I got to witness a live birth! I have always loved watching labor and delivery shows on TV growing up, so having this opportunity to see it 'live and in person' was very thrilling to me. We changed into our clean scrubs and were given shoe covers, hair covers, and masks and then went and scrubbed up to our elbows. We got the opportunity to go hold some of the babies that were in the nursery while waiting for someone to go into labor. Finally, two women did go into labor and we all filed into the different rooms to see the births. I figured the experience would be similar to watching it on TV, but I was so wrong! Watching the baby come out and watching the mother through the whole process was one of the most emotional experiences of my life. I didn't know this women or have any emotional attachment to her, but I was tearing up throughout the process, even while holding her hand while the nurses cleaned her up. It was a very beautiful event and I feel very privileged to have witnessed it. I will never forget this experience, or any of my experiences in Panama for that matter.
--Caitlin Brock
No comments:
Post a Comment