Clinic Set Up (7/23) || Mason Lew

The morning of the 23rd started at an early 6 am when I had to pack away all my belongings for storage or transportation to Tra Vinh. The morning was particularly rough to wake up knowing what lay ahead was a long bus ride and heavy lifting throughout the day. Nonetheless I trudged myself out of bed and began stuffing my suitcases. Due to space limitations on the bus, we were only allowed to carry one smaller bag with us to the next several days of clinic. I packed the essentials and my scrubs into a small carry-on luggage and jammed the rest of everything else I owned into my larger bags and headed down to the lobby. After grabbing a brief breakfast, I went to help load the buses, a preview of the lifting that would be required for the rest of the day. Once the buses were packed, I boarded and almost instantly went to sleep. I had small windows of lucidness but the majority of the ride was spent fast asleep. When we arrived at our destination, we were instructed to get out and leave our stuff to begin setting up for clinic. As we were arriving, the dental team also arrived and we were notified that the UMC team would also be joining us at a later time. I was amazed by the amount of people we had gathered for just set up. As it began, we lifted tables and chairs from outside and organized the clinic into a variety of different configurations according to a shared vision among organizations. I felt amazed by the scale of the clinic and was glad that differences in ideas could be settled and compromised on. Once we got a working layout we then moved to do a vitals refresher to prepare for clinic day. I gave a glucose demo and it honestly served as a refresher for me too. In all Training and set up lasted until early night when we then went back to our hotel. The new hotel was seemingly fancy and I was excited to be on the same floor as many of my friends. After I settled in, I went down and enjoyed a dinner cooked by the hotel and got ready to sleep for the day as tomorrow was clinic day 1.

1. Moving chairs and tables into formation for clinic

2. View of the Vietnam landscape as we travel to Tra Vinh

Video depicting the vitals refresher in action.