Sights, Sounds, and Smells.: Market and Success

I went to the market yesterday morning at 545am to see what was going on. My observations: a lot! It felt like it was midday as people scurried all over the place, selling fresh fish, meats, fruits and vegetables, spices, and any houseware items you could think of. The highlights for me included river rat (with live killings by smashing the rats on a rock while holding their tail, thus giving them an immediate cerebral hemorrhage and severed spinal cord, followed by skinning, and de-gutting), pigs heads and intestines, snake, frog, turtle and cockroach, and various types of river fish. They also had every type of meat product you could possibly imagine. It’s interesting to me that the people here, and pretty much everywhere but America, are able to consume nearly the entire animal whereas we are not programmed/taught to do that. I understand that some people in the U.S. eat other parts of the animals than just legs, wings, breast, cuts of steak, etc, but, EVERYONE here does it, not a select few. It’s just more efficient and produces less waste.

The cleft lip/palate procedures that we have been carrying out have been going very smoothly without any complications. Each day has been more successful than the previous, and the families have all shown such great gratitude. It’s amazing how much of a difference a 1 hour procedure can make. For these kids who were looked at as outcasts, after a 1 hour procedure, they regained an opportunity at having a childhood again.

So I have been acting as a scrub tech, who is the person that is in charge of giving all of the instruments and sutures to the surgeons. This has been a very valuable experience as I have learned all the names of the instruments and have gained experience loading needles and understanding the perspective of a scrub tech, with whom I will inevitably work with in my career since ob/gyn’s do a significant amount of surgery.

Anyways, I gotta run. It’s time to go eat some Pho for breakfast and get over to the hospital. We’ve got a long day today with 6 procedures on each table!

Peace Signs on the Street