August 16, 2013

Today we had a health fair at Petit Savanne health clinic. All of the rotation students prepared handouts covering various health topics such as women's health and pregnancy, wound care management, diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, renal dysfunction, children dosing, smoking cessation, tropical diseases, pain management, and urinary tract infections. At the clinic Pap smear screenings and HIV testing and management were also offered. 

Roughly 76 local residents came out to our health fair after Katie and Bianca advertising the event the night before. Cooking demonstration were also provided by Jungle Bay to help patients learn how to make healthier decisions and cook healthier. 

The health fair was held from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and students were able to provide patients education regarding the various topics. The patients were very receptive in receiving information and kept students busy throughout the four hours. Students also kept children busy by playing and demonstrating scientific experiments with the children. Bubbles, alkaseltzer gas formation, and filtration were games that were shown to the children. 

The health fair today was extremely successful. We were able to provide almost 100 patients with education and materials on common disease states in Dominica. It was a life changing experience to see that the community members of Dominica were so appreciative of all of the donations we were able to give. To the people in this country, even when the simplest things aren't available to them, they make do and still live an amazing, happy life, I personally feel that many of us, including myself, need to learn from the people of Dominica and truly appreciate everything that we have in front of us rather than expensive cars or big houses, but rather live our lives simply and happily!

Tonight during dinner we were given the opportunity to experience Dominican culture. Singers and dancers sang and played music that was native to Dominica. The dancing was called "jing-ping", and the performers sang and dance, then gave us the opportunity to learn the same dance. It was nice to learn their culture and their songs and their type of dancing seamed more "jumpy". One of their dances I noticed was similar to the waltz and was considered one of the easier dances. Other dances were face paced and up-beat, which the characteristic of being up-beat has been a common characteristic in the Dominican culture.

Theresa