Palin and Agua

First stop, Hospital Nacional de Palin.

Here at the maternity hospital Ryan and two Del Valle students, Alex and Kevin, assembled a light source for babies with Jaudice, while Joe, Linus, Quinn, and Cassie worked on an unstable light stand. 

Ryan and Alex position the LED on the circuit board

Here goes the light... and some fixation

Pumping it up!

Also, Quinn worked on fixing blood pressure cuffs. 

Speaking of which, our special guest blogger, Quinn, will share her experience today.

“My assigned piece of equipment at the Palín Maternity Hospital was a broken blood pressure cuff. I brought a new cuff with a bulb and valve that Project C.U.R.E. in Nashville generously donated to us. The broken cuff at the hospital could fill without a problem but there was a tiny leak that made the pressure drop steadily. Working with Dr. P., I found that the problem was not in the cuff nor the tubing but rather in the bulb. It had been heavily used, and as a result, air was leaking out through the connection to the valve. We quickly fixed the cuff by replacing the old bulb and valve with the new ones from Project C.U.R.E. I checked the functionality of the cuff by taking Dr. P's blood pressure.”

After a long day at the Hospital Nacional de Palin and a bumpy ride back to Antigua, we had lunch at San Martini. Delicioso!

Professor Adams, what a meal!

In the afternoon, we decided to spend the energy gain from lunch on some hiking or running on Cerro La Cruz mountain. Dr. Adams, Lydia, Cassie, and Meredith, our fitness enthusiasts reached the top first, while Dr. P., Alison, Quinn, Sami, and Joanna took a refreshing walk up the hill. The landscape was absolutely breathtaking! The beauty of Antigua city is surrounded by the solemnity of the Agua volcano. The volcano looked so peaceful yet contained so much power, just like our team of Biomedical Engineers!

What a view!

Team Fitness

Some calorie intake seems preferable after exercising up and down the hill. For dinner we went to the Miso Korean restaurant spotted by Linus earlier in the day. We had our first Korean menu lesson from “Professor Linus”, and spent the rest of the time practicing using chopsticks; surprisingly, we all got pretty good at it!

With full bellies, we are ready for work tomorrow at Obras Sociales del Hermano.
Our Del Valle friends will also join us, so we all look forward to a great day!

Professor Linus

Miso!