damienNZ has left 2 comments

damienNZ comments on la campiña

hi there paul, i think we met a few weeks ago, i visited jens at ?your place in granada, he and i climbed up 3 cruces. i have not been as social or gotten to know cali quite as much as i would have liked so far, have been extremely busy in the hospital. i am going to look into cutting down the number of night and weekend shifts so i can actually get to know cali a bit better and perhaps travel to salento or san cipriano or manizales for a weekend. i did go out to juanchito which was great fun, and also went to the feria in yumbo the other night, massive party. if you have any get togethers at your house in the next few weeks do let me know.

damienNZ comments on NZ med student in Cali

cheers for the comments, i am having an amazing time here and learning a lot at HUV. i made it to Tin Tin Deo the other night and had a great time, very traditional salsa place. Also managed to get to Tienda Vieja which is huge and had a fun time. i woke up a few hours ago, slept all day after a 24 hour shift from saturday 7am to sunday 7am, pretty much the most intense night of my life. i lost track of the number of gunshots, there were at least 15 people with heridas por arma de fuego after midnight, not simple gun shots either, those all stay at smaller hospitals, we get all the complicated, very serious gunshot wounds. i won´t go into details. very harrowing stuff. the motorcycle accidents are gruesome and sad. i am not sure whether a public health campaign in cali encouraging people to not drive drunk would make an impact in the trauma unit. tends to work well in some countries. i can´t believe how much the interns and doctors work here, the hours are crazy and the workload immense. i think this is partly because there are so many doctors in colombia, and it is difficult for them to export themselves. doctors are in short supply in NZ so the doctors earn relatively well and work conditions are pretty good. there are a whole lot of other factors too of course. Natalia, i liked ibague and had lechona for dinner. the hills around the city are beautiful. i get lots of funny looks but more in cali and ibague than bogota. however, i am fairly short (167cm) which colombian people rarely fail to comment on, as they find it odd that being a whitey i am not taller.