6 Feb 2010
Shortly after I started my first real job post-graduation, I learned about a mission group that went down to Ecuador every 2 years to do surgery for a week. It sounded incredible, absolutely something I wanted to be a part of, and since they had returned from a trip a few months before I started, I had a little less than 2 years to learn not only my role in the OR, but also how to scrub at least the common cases we’d be doing, which is not something we learn in nursing school.
Fortunately, the caseload in the Operating Room allowed for me to not only train in my role as a circulator, but to also pair up with one of the techs on my team to learn how to scrub as well (thanks Pat! and Ann for teaching me how to suture!) and before I knew it, we were loading up all our gear and heading to the airport:
Ah, the good old days before smartphones, when we all carried physical cameras.
I don’t have a lot of pictures from our travel down to Ecuador- one of my first purchases now that I’m making real grown-up money was a nice DSLR camera, which I love, but it’s kind of bulky and mostly stayed tucked away on travel days.
Sunset (from the wrong side of the plane) en route to Ecuador- it’ll be dark when we arrive, so good night for now!