Medical Education and Technology

Even 20 years ago when we first arrived in Ecuador, information technology helped with medical education. We would send a medical search request to the National Library of Medicine via a dial-up connection and receive an answer within a couple days. That was amazing back then!
Now, Hospital Vozandes' teaching staff can offer live training sessions via video-conference with medical personnel in other places. The picture is from this month's Morbidity-Mortality lecture. On the screen are students participating from the Loja medical school in southern Ecuador. They are watching in real-time and asking questions. Medical education and technology have come a LONG way! At the podium is Dick Douce answering hard questions about tuberculosis...some things don't change.

Back to normal?

Thursday morning, I was at home, doing school work when Dick came bursting in "Did you hear? It's chaos! The police are on strike and the airport is closed. Schools are closing and people are going home." Thus began one of those too-exciting days around here. Ecuador's president talked with the police who were on strike, was tear-gassed, then treated and held at the police hospital until an armed force rescued him Thursday evening. The local newspaper reported that six people died in the trouble on Thursday, and nearly 200 were injured. Friday, a welcome calm returned. We are currently under a state of emergency. Please pray that next week bring cooler heads and wise decisions.

Saturday, we went grocery shopping. State of emergency or no, folks need to eat. People get paid at the end of the month, so the first Saturday of the month there are many people in the stores. Add to that uncertainty about the coming days and we weren't surprised to see that our store's 42 checkout lanes were fuller than usual.