First day at work

Since I've been idling in Ukraine, I finally found a clinic to hang out at. I show up to meet this lady who is supposed to set me up. I go to an ambulatory clinic, kind of like a general ambulatory clinic, where there is a separate women's health center. Because I am early I hang out in the lobby. The Ukrainian elections are in a week, so the clinic lobby will, on the day of elections, serve as a voting center. Wich means that the resume of all the representatives running (and these are representative elections) are hanging out in the hallways, for all to see. Resumes include not only their full education and current job profile but also full names of their. Spouses and children, along with their addresses and phone numbers--maybe I'm just jaded but man, that's like a perfect stalker opportunity: let me steal your children and rob your house, before I vote for you. Once I get to the actual clinic, there is a sitcoms check. There does not seem to be an appointment list, people sort of just show up and wait in line. Meanwhile, waiting patients continuously pop their heads into the room, while you're seeing someone else, asking some burning question and end up being seen without waiting. It's messy. In this clinic, it appears, there is nothing for me to do--this is ob clinic and I'm too infected with whatever to ever step foot around anything newborn--so I am send to meet some other dude. The address of the next clinic is the Romanian embassy....I hope this is not right. I find it anyways, in the back of the embassy. There is no indication of where things are, X-ray is next to gyn rooms, next to ortho clinic (?!?), but after asking a bunch of people I make my way to meet the dude. He pimps me about medical things and then leads me to the inpatient gyn floor, leaving me with the inpatient unit head. The inpatient unit is confusing. Patients are sort of just hanging out, in their own clothes, terry-cloth bathrobes, and house slippers (or worse yet flip flops). Most of them do not appear to be sick and as it turns out are there for things that I would send everyone for outpatient evals (like patients are admitted to undergo Ultrasounds).i end up sitting in something along the lines of the call room. Tere are multiple bales where attendings sit and scribble notes in patient charts, which are all paper and appear terrible disorganized (UA's are hand glued directly into it). There are no actual notes, just scribbles, and the process is constantly interrupted by patients walking in to ask questions, to get doctor's notes, and to review results--this is both inpatient and consult setting. Again, intermittently, this is interrupted to perform Minot procedures. The procedure room is this large room with one wall being all windows. There are three gyn chairs, all facing the window, and in one of them, in full lithotomy, is a patients...just kinda hanging out. There are about 7 people in the room, and I immediately check to make sure there are o building across from the windows...cause, to know, this is awkward. I lean against the window, while staring at this lady's cervix just hanging out, and look back. On the window sill are vaginal smears, just neat little rows of glass slides on pieces of paper of patients' names and diagnoses scribbled. I quickly lean away...this is mildly gross. I now saline why the chairs are facing the window--natural light because the only OR light on the stand only has like 3 bulbs in it. There are no drapes on the chairs, each patient walks in with her own towel to sit on, and after the procedures, they are asked to get onto a cart (board with handles in wheels, no brakes or rails) after they have independently climbed into and out of the chair (this is after general anesthesia). There is a sheet on the cart, but no second sheet for coverage, so patients Re wheeled away on their sides (because that is how they slum onto the carts) I frantically try to cover their butts with their Own terry cloth robes as janitors (yes janitors) wheel them away. As I walked home,navigating post-work-day traffic, I felt bad. Mostly, because most of what I saw was simply because of lack of resources. And every single terrified and confused tout I had seemed like an arrogant developed world snobbery. The physicians are good, they have to be working like this, with nothing. But it seems weird that is happening. I gotta g to bed, back to work tomorrow.