Saturday we had the clinic open. I was in charge of taking vital signs and taking an initial triage note. I had numerous interperters work with me throughout the day. I was able to have a little station in the corner where we had the new vitals machine that was donated to the clinic. With the new machine I was able to get accurate readings in a quick amount of time. So they would come in from outside and have a seat next to the vitals machine and we would begin asking questions. We would start with their name, age and what was wrong with them. The children were especially scared of the thermometer and they would scream and cry. It took a little getting used to having to explain to the patients how to put the thermometer under their tongue. The adults seemed to be worried about the blood pressure cuff. The pulse oximiter didn't seem to register with the children as well as it did with the adults. When I did the OB Clinic all of the women had great blood pressures and they seemed to be low to me. When we did the Clinic for all patients there were quite a few people with very high blood pressure. One that I remembered was 210/135 and it really seemed to surprise me. Everyone seemed to have low pulse which didn't surprise me as much because they all work so hard during the day. We had a rough estimate of 200 patients that we saw and it definetly flowed well. The machine made it go so much faster than me having to sit and do everything by myself. While the machine was working I could start with the triage questions so it would only take a few minutes witch each patient where before it would have taken much longer. A few patients I had known from our health village class so it was good to see a few famillar faces. A few of them were also helping me interpret. Overall I think that it was a succesful day and we helped people who really were sick.
Shandra Fisher
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