This week has been full of exciting new experiences with new friends!
It is beginning to get a little colder every morning as we approach winter in Santiago – but that isn’t stopping the excitement of the Copa América 2015.
Our group took a trip to Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights), which is dedicated to the victims of human rights violations of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which took place between 1973 until 1990. The museum was opened recently, in the year 2010 and is a very eye opening and honest showcase of the horrific tragedy of the lives lost over a period of 17 years.
One of my favorite parts of the week has definitely been trying different foods! A couple of classmates and I decided to go out to lunch in between classes and clinical observations one day, where we happened upon a sushi restaurant. The sushi in Chile is hands down some of the best sushi I have ever had! Now there is no way I can go back to the USA and view sushi in the same way. My host family also invited me out to lunch on Sunday, were we ended up eating Peruvian food (a very favorite to many Chileans). I tried a very traditional dish called ají de gallina, which is a chili pepper chicken meal. It was delicious, of course!
There was a lot of experiencing the city and trying new foods but even more time was dedicated to visiting hospitals. The hospital that my group explored for our observations this week is called Hospital Sótero del Río. It is an very poor public hospital for Chilean patients who cannot afford to pay for healthcare services. Each patient that I had the opportunity to talk to was extremely grateful for the care they received and seemed overly joyed with the attention the doctors and nurses gave them.
My group also, briefly, visited Hospital del Salvador and Clínica Indisa. There, we spent some time asking questions about the kind of care and specialties the institutions offer as well as what groups of people they generally care for. Hospital del Salvador is a particularly old public hospital with an artsy exterior, full of gardens and huge windows that shed light throughout the hospital hallways. Clínica Indisa is both a private and public clinic that was probably one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen.
Having the opportunity of a hands-on learning experience learning about Chilean healthcare is one of the most unique things I have ever been a part of.
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“Of all the books in the world, the best stories are found between the pages of a passport.” – Unknown
Kyla Corvino
<p>My name is Kyla Corvino, I am a nursing major and Spanish language minor who feels so blessed and enthusiastic to have the opportunity to be back in Santiago, Chile studying health sciences in the language I absolutely adore. Spanish and Nursing are my two passions that I will continue to pursue abroad for the rest of my life! At the age of nineteen I have had the opportunity to visit three different countries, which helped spark my drive to be a world traveler. I've found through my travels that every experience has the capacity to become a unique adventure and every photo holds those memories.</p>
