Hi from Santo Domingo!

Hello from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic...

Amanda and I arrived safely around 12:15am and got to our hotel rooms around 1:15 early this morning. We were, needless to say, extremely exhausted! But, I did get a great night's sleep! We are gonna catch a bite to eat around 9:45, then we are going to head out with a couple other "HOPIES" and pick up a couple other volunteers from another hotel and then we will start boarding the ship around noon. I am so excited and anxious to get started on our mission here!! More to post soon!!

Pictures from Dominica

Here are some pictures from our time in Dominica. 

The area we docked in after we unloaded our cargo.


A band from Dominica played at Medsite 1.

The water was so clear you could see crabs climbing on the rocks by the pier. 

The view from the hospital in Roseau.

The had medications in Russian.

and Arabic.

Allyssa and Heather at Medsite 2.

Mustering to go to Medsite 2.

NGOs at the Dominican Cultural Party.

Allyssa, Heather and I at the end of the pier in Dominica.

Introduction

Hello Everyone!

My name is Amanda Shifflett, and I will be traveling with Ryan Garner for the next 4 weeks to the Dominican Republic and Honduras. Hopefully I will be able to post about our adventures on this blog so my friends and family can know how awesome this experience is going to be! A little side note - I am not a blogger. I've never done this before, so we will see how it goes.

I am super pumped to be a part of this mission. Before I started pharmacy school I had a co-worker that was part of Project HOPE. She went to a few countries in the Pacific, and reading her blog posts got me interested. A few years ago I was also fortunate enough to be a part of a different mission trip to Nicaragua for a week, and during then I experienced how rewarding it is to be a part of something so great. It is because of these experiences, along with my deep-seated desire to help people, that I applied for the Project HOPE rotation. 

I will start off by saying that I am very nervous. I have never been on a ship before, and the longest I have been away from my husband and puppy is one week, so it is certainly going to be difficult (I also have no idea how the ham to pack for an entire month). However, I am sure it is going to be incredibly rewarding!

We leave for the airport tomorrow afternoon, and we will meet up with the navy ship on Friday. I am told that the wifi on board is very sketchy, but I hope to be able to post something after Sunday. Goodbye for now.

Dominica

Like Heather said earlier, the WIFI on the ship has been out for most of the time that we have been in Dominica and I didn't want to drag my computer down into town to use the internet at a restaurant to post a blog.

Dominica has been much easier than Colombia just in travel alone.  We got to be pier side here so that meant no tinder rides, which is great for my motion sickness.  We did have an hour van ride to Medsite 2, but that was still better than the up to 3 hour boat rides from Colombia.  Another benefit of being pier side is that we got to have some liberty when we were not working. That meant meals not from the mess decks and some time to wander around Roseau.

The first day after set up, I went out to Medsite 1 which was a few blocks from where the boat was docked in Roseau. They had not been able to set up the pharmacy the day before because of surgical screening so we had to set up pharmacy and get ready for patients relatively quickly.  The people who had been there before told us that the pharmacy was going to be small, but I did not expect it to be as small as it was.  We could barely fit the 5 of us and all the medications into the room, much less patients in there to pick up their medications.  So, I was given door duty for the day.  That meant I had to get the forms from the patients when the came to the pharmacy, make sure they did not come in the door, and then counsel them when the medications were ready.  That made for a busy day because the patients really wanted to come into the pharmacy and see what was going on.

The next day Heather and I went to Princess Margaret Hospital on a SMEE.  We got to see how the hospital was set up as well as how they run their pharmacy.

I spent the next 2 times that I was out at Medsite 2 which was in Portsmouth.  We had an hour van ride there on a coastal road, that we learned was built by the Chinese government. The pharmacy at Medsite 2 was super spacious compared to Medsite 1.

I had one more day at Medsite 1 and then was off the last 2 days we were here. I got to spend some time exploring the small area in Roseau that we were allowed to wander around before we pulled out tonight.

We get to Barbados tomorrow and will fly out the next day.

I will post pictures on Dominica when we get back to the land of relatively fast internet.

I can't believe that our 5 weeks here are already over.

Continuing Promise 2015: Doh-mah-nee-kah

WiFi on the ship has been down for the past week and will be for the foreseeable future as someone plugged their laptop into the router in the middle of the night and hacked the password...now the seabees have to build a box to lock around the router so it doesn't happen again...they are busy out at site building ramps...
I'm currently out in Dominica enjoying a nice breakfast with good coffee...not galley sludge...Esther and I were able to get an early special liberty since usually we can't go out until after duty hours (1600-2030)...
Since arriving in Dominica on Monday July 27th I went out to site #2 on Tuesday which was an hour bus ride along the coast...this site was also at a school that is open air but we had a spacious room and lights and a fan...the best site since the mission has started...that's not say it's not without its challenges but the patients speak English with a few pockets of Creole so there was no need for translators...all the patients were very friendly and there was even a sports tournament going on...I believe its called the windward games...it's the 4 neighboring Caribbean islands that compete in basketball,volleyball, futbol, etc...

the navy band was also on site for a little bit...

The next day (Wednesday 28th) Emily and I were able to attend a SMEE at Princess Margaret Hospital with LT Phung and HM3 Fowler...we took a tour of the hospital which was also open air...it's a very weird feeling seeing that after going to the OR which is basically an upgraded double wide trailer the patient is wheeled outside across to the PACU...all the wards were big open bays full of those old school shopping cart like meds...like the kind you see watching the Pearl Harbor/ any WWII movie...everything they do is handwritten and there are only 4 pharmacists and 1 tech for around 260 bed so they do not have time to actually do their job they spend it handwriting labels and logs...we spent time explaining how to go about installing the laminar flow hood they acquired...they did not have a hood for inpatient IVs the nurse does it on the floor....we ended the day seeing a man who just died...a man we had seen within the past 30mins alive in the hallway...being wheeled on a gurney through the crowd uncovered...a patient had bled all over the floor so they almost slipped....another aspect that was interesting was that a peds surgery patient who was around 7yrs old was all alone...I think it would be rare in the states to have your child in the hospital and not be by their bedside...

Wrote this from my cell phone at the Fort Young hotel....all is well and I will upload more if the Wi-Fi comes up on the ship otherwise I will post a final blog once we land in Barbados

Continuing Promise 2015: This is a REALLY LONG TRANSIT

I know it has been a while since I posted...I was able to get on Facebook for a few minutes on the 21st to send my sister Katie a happy birthday message and post a picture of the Panama Canal...other than that I have had extremely poor luck connecting to the internet...Emily posted some pictures in her last blog post so I won't post ones that look exactly the same from the exact angle since we were standing right next to each other on the bridge...and with that #ThisTransitIsLong #ThisTransitIsLooooong #ShipLife #81StairsEverydayUpandDown 

JULY 18, 2015 SATURDAY

            Not much going on today besides Bingo on the mess decks…it was a huge crowd since there were cash prizes and a 3 night stay at the Hilton in Barbados for liberty. So much fun we played 4 games and there was so much competition and cheering it was really a great morale booster.

JULY 19, 2015 SUNDAY

            We spent most of the day in the pharmacy playing games…mainly werewolf…which I’m told is like mafia but I’d never heard of either…this group is so competitive and loud and hilarious...we've even started to recruit some UCSD dental students to play

JULY 20,2015 MONDAY

            Today was all about RISK...that is all that needs to be said...if you've ever played RISK you know friendships are gained and lost with nothing but world domination in mind...everyone is a salty sailor when it comes to RISK...we also had field day...which is really just commands way of giving us cleaning time from 0800-1100...they have a lot of different names that sound like it would be fun but its really just cleaning...Emily and I spent 3hrs cleaning scuff marks and tape residue off of cabinets...like scrub so hard with harsh chemicals we took the paint off in layers...

JULY 21, 2015 TUESDAY

            Today we went through the panama canal…the command actually cancelled some cleaning since it was field day yesterday and certain meetings so most people could spend time watching the ship go through the locks…we were actually able to go above the bridge and have a view of the front of the ship…they block the front off for crew members to handle the ropes and cables that come from the crew on shore at the canal…all of the enlisted pharmacy techs that were working today went to dinner with Emily, Ester, Jerline and I…usually we end up sitting at the NGO only tables (officers can sit there as well) but this time it wasn’t as crowded so we all got a table together which was nice…its really a family environment here everyone teases each other, has each others backs, and works hard together in the pharmacy and on site….we played RISK again...the LTs are in a very real power struggle and RISK has become life

JULY 22, 2015 WEDNESDAY

            Today Emily and I had our presentation on Dengue Fever and Chikungunya…Earl had set up time from 1900-2100 for our presentation as well as any other NGO groups that wanted to speak. All of the pharmacists and a few of the pharmacy techs attended which was very nice to have that support. The room we were in was neighboring the weight gym and had many pipes that made for a very noisy room…. definitely put us in a situation that required us to be loud enough and project our voice...I have very hit or miss presentation skills but this time even without really knowing the subject matter I felt confident...maybe its the sense of community with the pharmacy staff and NGOs here... The crowd was very supportive and had several questions….we even had one of the physicians with Latter Day Saints ask for a copy of the presentation because it was very professional and informative.

JULY 23, 2015 THURSDAY

            Today was the first day of our lecture series in the pharmacy. Each pharmacist picked a topic that we would discuss each day. LT Hand put it best in his opening statements to the discussion group: “Welcome to the first annual Comfort Discussion Series and what will most likely be the last Comfort Discussion Series”….So you know just another special treat for Emily and I.LT Hand’s topic was dyslipidemia and hypertriglyceridemia…we spent about an hour and 20 minutes going over patient cases, guidelines, and how you would explain certain things to patients….did I mention the difficulty when you don’t have access to resources and the internet to look up material…

JULY 24, 2015 FRIDAY

            Today we attended the CO Call where Captain Sears talked about what the mission has already accomplished and what to expect in the next few countries. This morning I also attended a lecture by one of the navy pediatricians about efficient and effective teaching…it was nice to here comments and different adjustments to better help and understand medical students during their time as students and residents…we got our berthing inspected today...and when I say inspected I say inspected...we had to take the "inspector" through both our lockers and rack...everyone's experience was a little different...mine was that the inspector went through EVERYTHING...my dirty clothes bag, every pocket, every nook and cranny...yeah I said nook and cranny...Today was Dr. Hsin’s (Jerline’s) topic discussion on sepsis. Jerline has a different approach to teaching where we were quizzed entirely off of the guidelines, definitions, and drug mechanisms of action and side effects. Since I have not had inpatient experience yet I was taking as much information as I could from Jerline and Dr. Moon (Ester) since they both were in residency programs this past year….we pre-packed some medications for Haiti and finished off the night with a few games of werewolf

Panama Canal Transit and more about Colombia

Today was spent transiting the Panama Canal.  For the last 2 days, we have been traveling from Colombia back to Panama City. To make sure that we did not reach the canal too early so we only traveled around 5 knots on the way back as well as doing "circles" yesterday somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.  The slower travel made for a perfect fishing speed and some of the crew caught a 150 lb marlin off of the stern.

We anchored off the entrance to the canal this morning around 1:30 am and made it to the first lock around 9 am.  We went through 2 sets of locks on the Pacific side and then entered the Gatun Lake. There of was one more set of locks on the Atlantic side that we reached around 3 pm.  Now, we are pier side in Colon, Panama to pick up supplies and then will head onto Dominica.

Here are some pictures of our transit.

Heading into the first lock. That row boat is what brings the lines out.

Going into the first lock. The men in blue are workers from the Panama Canal that get on to help navigate the boat through and get off at the second set of Pacific locks.

Tourists watching us go through the first set of locks.

This is how close the boats are to the sides of the canal. The red boat is an oil tanker going through behind us.

The boats are pulled through with the little tram like things attached by the lines brought from the row boat.

Going towards the second set of locks.

Going into the last set of locks.

Going through the last lock into the Atlantic Ocean. There is a car driving across at movable road in front of the lock.

On our way into the Atlantic Ocean.

It cost 320,000 dollars in toll every time the ship goes through the canal.

A little more about my time in Colombia:

On Wednesday last week, when I did not go ashore, I was able to shadow a nurse anesthetist in the operating room.  I was able to see 5 surgeries, including 4 hernia repairs all repaired a little differently.  

A few more days of transit and then we will reach Dominica for 10 more days of medical sites.