Escuela

Tuesday we had our first seminar, which is the theoretical portion of the clinical observation. It was long and the professors were hard to understand, but it was really really interesting. They started off the semester by giving us a crash-course in the Chilean healthcare system, which was super useful and fascinating. They have a mixed public-private system here, with public hospitals that are free and/or very cheap depending on your tax bracket (and pretty universally considered to be shitty), and then extremely expensive private hospitals. During the observation we'll have the opportunity to visit both and talk with doctors and patients there. I'm really excited to learn more about their system.

We also had our first medical spanish class. That class is much less interesting, but I know it'll be good for me to know once the clinical observations come around.

Last night I had my friend Reva over to dinner at my host family. It's her birthday today and my family was all excited to feed her huge amounts of food in celebration. It was a blast. I taught the whole family how to toast "L'Chaim!" Yay for intercultural sharing. My host dad cooked up a storm. Those who make fun of my vegetarian militantism at home will be pleased to know that I ate lamb ribs. It was actually pretty delicious when I didn't think about what I was eating. But no, this does not mean I'm going to be eating meat again when I get home! It's a cultural experience. A very tasty cultural experience.

We've had beautiful weather the past view days. It's been highs of 60, and the smog hasn't been too awful, so the mountains are usually in full view, which is incredible. I'm going to try to organize some sort of hiking or skiing adventure soon...I really want to get out there and see them up close!

- L