My experience in the Dominican Republic - 3

(To read Part 1 & 2 of this journey, click here.)

Day 4 - CAMU

On this day, we visited Camú, an area inland, with small houses dotted along a single mountainous road. It was about a 30-minute ride from the hotel. Like in Playa Oeste, initially there were very few people waiting, but within 20 minutes or so, there was a crowd of people eagerly waiting to receive free medical care from us.

We all quickly went about setting up our designated stations. Having devised a new set-up for the acupuncture station, I was armed and ready to treat another 100 patients today! My station was the first to be set up, as would always be the case the rest of the week -- in about 10 minutes -- because all I needed were a few chairs, a table, my needles, sharps container, alcohol swabs and cotton. General medicine - and our newcomers, the Dental team - would take about 30 minutes because of the slew of drugs (for the pharmacy) and tools and equipment required (for dentistry). The paraphanelia required to do dental work was mind boggling. Thank goodness these two departments had extra local assistants helping.

In terms of doing acupuncture, I can now see why acupuncturists were called Barefoot Doctors in China and why this medicine grew out of China, a country with a population of well over 1 billion. Once armed with the proper training, all an acupuncturist fundamentally needs are needles. (Plus of course the sharps container, cotton, and alcohol swabs for safety and sanitary reason.) Just with needles, we can effectively treat a multitude of people and conditions. Imagine had I brought my other tools found in Traditional Chinese Medicine, such as moxa, cups, e-stim, and herbs, the greater degree of relief I could've provided the Dominicans!

The acupuncture station before the chaos

Dental tools

Local assistants Stephanie, Amelfi, and two Korean national assistants, Penelope and Eunju

Other scenes from Camú:

Tragedy had befallen this woman, and our staff was praying for her.

(This little girl was so cute. All through this consultation, she sat on her mother's? grandmother's? lap, quietly, sucking her pacifier, intently watching every move that Dr. Tomoko made.)

(This little boy was also adorable. While his mother got treated with acupuncture, the boy sat quietly the whole time next to his sister, and was constantly mindful of having his hand on his mother's body. He would get distracted by all the commotion, and then realize that his hand wasn't touching his mother, and would quickly go back to touching her belly or arm, or somewhere, as long as he was touching his mother.)

I don’t know which was more tiring – the huge numbers of people I was treating, or the heat and humidity without any air-conditioning. I had constant trickles of sweat dripping down my face, neck and back every day. I was basically bathing myself in my own sweat every day. By the second day of doing these intense medical missions, I got a heat rash on my abdomen. It was so darn hot and humid!! (But I came back with beautiful, supple skin from all that moisture! LOL!) Mirla and the other aides had to frequently change the wet, cold towel around my neck to try and keep me cool.

I couldn't live without these towels!

Day 5 - LOS RIELES DE SAN MARCOS

This was another location about 20 minutes from the hotel. We conducted our work inside a local church. Acupuncture was stationed up by what I suppose was the altar as it was elevated from the rest. Boy was it hot in there. We had fans going, but it was just blowing the hot air over and over. At one point, the electricity went dead because so much electricity was being used by the dental department, haircutting department, fans and printer. Thank goodness for our reliable generator, which allowed Dr. Lee the dentist to keep working!

Scenes from San Marcos:

That's the acupuncture station, in the back. Dentistry to the left, and general medicine to the right.

I think the recirculating hot, humid air plus being elevated from others (making the air even hotter) got to me that day because I started to get dizzy part way through my morning stint. I had to stop about 2 hours into it. I had to step outside and rest in our little truck for a while until I could feel normal again. After a good lunch, I was thankfully back to working.

Patients resting as they got their acupuncture treatment.

This family (the girl on the left was a friend) was so adorable. The mother was very shy and soft spoken but very sweet and loving to her daughters. The children were very well behaved all throughout the day. Later in the evening, while Christian work was going on, the little girl in the light blue dress was meandering around the crowd and came upon Assistant Eunju and I. When we asked her for a kiss, she readily and without hesitation came up to us and planted both of us a cute, sweet kiss on our cheeks!! I just melted there! All the hard work was so worth this little kiss :-)

Pharmacy busily dispensing medication

Dr Karen trying to cool off

These boys were great, always eager to talk to us in their limited English. They came up to me to say hello in English, and introduced themselves. I introduced myself, but realized one English etiquette was missing in our dialogue: I taught them to say "Nice to meet you" which is "un placer conocerte" in Spanish. When they learned what "nice to meet you" meant, they scurried back to the other English staff they had introduced themselves to earlier and finished their introductions properly. Later in the evening, couple of the boys came back to ask me again how to say "un placer conocerte" in English. When we were leaving for the night, the boy in the black pants came by our truck and thanked me in Spanish for the English lesson and our work. Again, all the hard work was so worth it with these kinds of exchanges.

Doc, how does my new teeth look?

Children doing song and dance along to the Christian missionary work

This day was also John the photographer's birthday. We were able to celebrate with cake and serenading. Fun times.

The last of these chronicles coming real soon...

My experience in the Dominican Republic - 2

(To read Part 1 of this journey, click here.)

Before I continue with the rest of my week-long experience, the following is a quick overview of what became our daily schedule:

Our days started early. 7:00am breakfast call (the Koreans had bible study at 6:30am!), loaded and ready to go on our little truck by 8:30am-9:00am, and to our location by 9-9:30am. Except for Sunday, which was a day off b/c the crew went to church, everyday from Saturday to Thursday we worked from about 10am to about 6:30pm, with about a 1-hour lunch break in between. From 6:30 to about 8pm we had set down, packing and Pastor Aaron and his assistant Omar would share their Christian faith with the people we treated earlier in the day with songs, puppet show and slide shows. We’d then head back to the hotel and have dinner around 8:30pm, and I tried to be in bed and sleeping by 10:30pm every night. I had a hard time sleeping the first few nights from all the excitement and nerves but by the third night both from exhaustion and getting the swing of things, I was in a routine and sleeping pretty much through the night.


Day 2 - PLAYA OESTE
Oh talk about being nervous and excited! I could barely eat my breakfast that morning, as it was going to be my very first of 5 medical visits to the surrounding neighborhoods in the week to come. I knew to expect a huge line of people and chaos, but I still didn’t really know what to expect, so my poor stomach was all in knots.

We arrived to Playa Oeste, an area about 20 minutes from the hotel. We were to be housed in a small 4-room school. There weren’t too many people when we first arrived, which surprised me, but it let me sigh a sigh of relief. I jumped the gun, though. After about 30 minutes, there was all of a sudden a long line of people waiting outside! The school became quickly filled with Dominicans eagerly waiting for our services. General medicine and I (acupuncture) quickly set up our stations, and after people went through registration, having their name, age, blood pressure and chief complaints recorded, they were directed to the appropriate departments.

I was given the wonderful support of a daily local assistant, hard working and sweet Mirla, who helped with removing needles and keeping the flow of patients coming and going. I asked her to keep a tally of how many patients I was seeing, and according to her records, I saw 93 on this day! (And as the days went on, I was averaging about 100 patients a day.) Holy cow, I didn’t think I had it in me! Thank god for my energy bars and protein shakes I brought from home. They helped so much in between meals. As the days progressed, I remembered to take frequent short breaks, drink tons of water (with electrolytes in it), take my herbs, and pace myself, too.

That's my awesome assistant, Mirla

People waiting in line to get acupuncture

As part of our mission, the crew had also brought a supply of canes for the visually-impaired. The president and vice president (I believe) of the local blind organization came to the school that day to receive the supply from us. Both general medicine and I were able to provide care for them as well for their non-vision related health concerns. At the end of our day, before we headed back to the hotel, the crew formally presented the two representatives with the supply of canes. It was gratifying to hear that these canes would help the visually-impaired to gain a little more independence, as those with handicaps in the DR are not yet given much social or governmental support.

Pastor Aaron and Mirla speaking to the two visually-impaired representatives

I learned a lot from my day at Playa Oeste. First and foremost: Pace Yourself! That day, I had about 5 patients at a time sitting in chairs, randomly placed in the room, and I would go from patient to patient, taking a quick look at their registration form, asking them couple questions, then taking their pulse and looking at their tongue to make a quick diagnosis. I would then begin inserting the needles in the limbs and ears of the patients, requiring me to bend over, kneel down, get up and overall get a real work out on my back and knees. I quickly realized this would not help me last for the next 6 days.

Later on during dinner, I mentioned this fact to Jae, and ever the smart woman that she is, she came up with the brilliant idea of having a 4-patient acupuncture station with patients sitting, with their legs up on chairs, all side by side. In between patients, we were to put single chairs so that I could sit between patients and do my care by just turning around in my chair. This allowed minimal getting up and out of chairs by me as well as not having to get on my knees. This was to help me tremendously in the days to come. ...And of course, the frequent snack, water, and breather breaks.

DAY 3 - DAY OFF

Because this was Sunday, we were given the day off. The Koreans went to church in the morning, I slept in, had breakfast and hung out by the beach with my friend Tomoko until it was time for lunch. We all joined together for lunch, then went on a little excursion of Puerto Plata.

Pastor Aaron and Omar took us on a furnicular ride up one of the highest peaks in Puerto Plata to enjoy the wonderful panoramic view of this beach town. DR is so lush and verdant! And it was so cool up at the peak. There was a nice botanical garden we could meander through. There was also a little bit of Rio de Janeiro going on up there, too, with a huge Jesus Christ statue.

Puerto Plata

One of the rare group shots

Rio in Puerto Plata

After the furnicular ride, we went to a local supermarket to purchase water for the next several days. We also indulged in refreshing sherbets made with local fruits.

Being tropical, there was an abundance of fruits in DR, here frozen to make a sherbet.

This was also the day that the husband-and-wife team, Drs. Lee and Karen, and the dental assistant John arrived from Los Angeles.

I ended the evening with a nice stroll on the beach, before heading to the hotel restaurant for dinner. This would be the last time I would see this beautiful beach sunset b/c after this, every night, we were too busy, away on site, or tired to stroll for a leisurely walk.

To read Part 3, click here