For those who’ve lived in America for all, or even for a large part, of their lives, it might get easy to take this country for granted. For those who’ve never traveled to an impoverished country, or for those or who’ve never been admitted to a hospital that isn’t equipped with state-of-the-art surgical equipment and innovative technology it may seem especially easy to forget how good we have it.
However, the six visiting medical professionals and students of the Universidad Autonoma de Santa Ana in El Salvador — who’ve spent the last four days shadowing and observing physicians and surgeons at Owensboro Health Regional Hospital — think our technology is something to be desired.
“They are working with the newest technology — we don’t have that in El Salvador,” said Dr. Marcos Quintana, a physician and professor of internal medicine.
“We are 50 to 75 years behind,” said Jose “Mike” Hernandez, who manages international affairs for the university. “We will have this technology that you guys have in, like, a hundred years.”
The group traveled from Santa Ana, a city located in western El Salvador and home to around 300,000 people. Those traveling included a doctor, a manager of public relations, a professor and medical students in their first, fourth and sixth years, respectively.
As part of a creative initiative established between Dr. Scott Reader, an Owensboro Health cardiologist, and Hernandez, the idea to expose El Salvadorian medical students to a first-world hospital was brought to life. Hernandez said he wanted the university’s students to gain the necessary knowledge and experience so they could become the best doctors possible. The group was invited to stay with Dr. Reader and his wife during their Owensboro visit.
As they’ve observed and taken notes during open-heart surgeries and picked the brains of the various specialists whom OHRH employees, the group has been highly impressed with, not only the technological advancements at OHRH, but with the companionship and teamwork they’ve witnessed between surgeons, doctors and nurses.
“Even though we lack our resources, we came here on Monday, and we started seeing something we had never seen in our lives,” Hernandez said. “They have this companionship among professionals [at OHRH]. We don’t have that in El Salvador, honestly. You can have the most advanced technology to treat patients, but if you don’t have the most advanced people — that’s going to be everything.”
The entire group agreed with Hernandez in saying they planned to take the camaraderie they’d witnessed at OHRH back home with them to El Salvador, hoping to bridge the gap between medical professionals working at varying levels of the hierarchy.
Laura Cienfuegos, a sixth-year medical student, believes the lack of companionship in the El Salvadorian medical community is cultural, but it’s something she’d like to see changed.
“It’s cultural between the professions. With nurses and doctors, we are divided,” Cienfuegos said.
She then commended OHRH for their hospitality and inclusion of their group, adding, “Even with us — we are students — and they treat us like one of them.”
At OHRH, the visiting medical professionals said they were amazed to see that a urinalysis sample was able to be analyzed through a machine that automatically took 5,000 photos, fully capturing the sample in its entirety. In a Santa Ana hospital, a technician would be required to take individual photos, manually. If something was inconclusive or inaccurate with the sample, the technician would be forced to take as many photos as possible until they detected the issue.
Hospitals in El Salvador are run by the government, and the funds for advanced technology just simply aren’t there, the group said. Even for private hospitals, the price for brand-new machines is so high, it’s a rarity for doctors to get the chance to use them.
Rather than feel frustrated by the technological and social shortfalls they may experience in El Salvador, the group displayed nothing but intrigue, excitement and admiration. As they return home on Saturday, they said they will take much of what they’ve experienced back with them.
“You know, there’s always been this American dream to be pursued. Well, we call it the Salvadorian Dream,” Hernandez said. “This is the role of our university — to transform Salvadorians’ realities of life.”
