El Laboratorio

The school kids are now out for the year on their summer break...which means, we have very few patients. That in combination with a surplus of volunteers and medical students has left me plenty of time for branching out from the Nurse Practitioner role in the clinic. Jen and I have now taken over what we so lovingly refer to as "the poop lab." We anlayze urine for infection and pregnancy, vaginal dc wetpreps for yeast/BV/trich, feces for parasites, and blood for RBC and hemoglobin level. We are working on figuring out how to do a CBC, but we're still coming out a bit inaccurate...everytime one of us bravely donates a blood sample, we either end up having leukemia (way too many WBCs) or typhoid (way too few)! The lab is also loaded with awesome books on parasite identification and descriptions. I have learned to love the lab and am now hoping to apply to an infectious disease course in Lima, Puru. Not for a while though. The program doesn't have any openings for another year and a half. If you are curious about what the parasites look like under the microscope or if you want the scoop on the scary things they do inside of us, check out my earlier now-updated entry entitled "A Whole New World."