Tonight was our first night in Chaing Mai and we already love it here! Our hotel is located in the center of a night market so we spent the night walking around buying souvenirs and eating street food :)
I didn't get a chance post yesterday but I wanted to share my favorite clinical experience thus far. Yesterday, a group of us had the opportunity to observe pharmacy students from Thailand while they did home visits to patients. The students, Kitty and Balloon, were both very kind and tried their best to explain/translate everything to us in English. We visited 2 elderly patients; the first patient was a 79 year old male diagnosed with diabetes and hypertension. During the visit, we took his blood pressure and TJ performed a diabetic foot exam.
Interestingly, we learned that the diabetic foot exam in Thailand differs from the United States in that
it only tests for 3 spots underneath the foot and the patient has his/her eyes open as the pharmacist asks "does this hurt?." In the United States, we were taught to test for 10 spots on the foot while the patient has his/her eyes closed and is instructed to respond to each touch. Kitty and Balloon were equally intrigued by this difference and asked us to demonstrate our method on the patient, who was more than willing to comply.
In the second patient, we observed Kitty and Balloon test her post-prandial blood glucose level and speak to her about her diet and personal life. The patient shared that she loves mangos, durian, and soda and consumes all of these on a daily basis. Kitty joked with her while also explaining the high sugar content of these foods. Kitty explained to us that diabetic test strips are expensive (40 baht each) and so patients in Thailand usually cannot afford to test sugar levels themselves.
Both visits seemed as if Kitty and Balloon were visiting their grandparents-- they were casual and lighthearted, yet you can see how caring the students were to their patients and how happy/grateful the patients were to be receiving care. This has been a trend I've observed with all patients and health care providers in Thailand. Everyone is extremely respectful of one another and all patients seem to be very thankful, regardless of their health condition.
This was an eye opening experience for me & I'm glad I got to share it with you all
Excited for this upcoming week in Chaing Mai!
Talk to you soon,
Tiffany
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