Mussoorie, Queen of the Hills

Namaste!

Well last week we were in Mussoorie, which is also known as queen of the hills, which I wish I could say I really got to see hills, but due to the MONSOON season, I didn't get any good views except of clouds, which we were in mostly.

Anyways, my group was pretty burnt out from clinicals this week so we didn't exactly involve ourselves like we did in the past three weeks. I think this is partly due to the trip recovery to Agra and getting homesick, oh and maybe just a little too much of India.

Katie and I did however on the first day in Mussoorie mention that we hadn't seen a birth yet and we really wanted to and the doctor we were with said, "Oh well there is a woman about to give birth in about 45 minutes if you would like to watch." We were pumped!!!!!!!!! She had been in labor since 6 pm the night before and it was about 11am when we started watching. She was in a lot of pain and nothing seemed to be happening and then the nurses were all of a sudden scrambling around and we moved to prime birth watching positions and saw that she was crowning!!!! Very exciting, and they had to tell her not to push in order to get ready to CATCH! The baby popped out like it was nothing and we watched the whole process of cleaning him up. (it was a boy so good thing, I didn't want to have to think about her throwing it into the river). We were so pleased with checking this off the list of things to see that we stopped clincals for the day and went into town where we... shopped, ate, and of course got ice cream... which we did for the next 3 days :) Goodness I miss home.

The next day at clinicals Katie and I shadowed the ultrasound doctor, Dr. Samuals, who told us that there were no surgeries for the day and that there weren't going to be anymore patients. So what did Katie and I do? We showed up for surgery :) And guess what we watched three!!!! (performed by Dr.Samuals... wonderful) The scrubs were much different from back home, well the men wore practically the same thing at home that surgery buffs do, but as for the girls... we wore skirt scrubs and dress scrubs over it... We looked ridiculous! I don't think wearing a skirt and a dress in an OR in the US would ever ever fly... but we did it in India! The great thing about the OR rooms in Landour Community Hospital was that there were huge windows that over looked the awesome view... if I could have seen it! The three surgeries we observed were a partial abortion, tubectomy, and an ovary biopsy. The crazy thing about the tubectomy was that they walked the patient right into the room, scared and all, and had her lay down on the betadine soaked table that the last patient had been on, with some blood and betadine splattered in places over the floor!!!!! I guess I was just glad to see the surgeons change gloves.

Besides buying tons of Kashmir goods and eating out a lot and ending with ice cream every night, not much else happened in Mussoorie. Did I mention we stayed in the hospital itself and in the "premium wing" which means we got a flat screen tv! whooo!!! But it was still a little creepy...

Ideal India

Namaste