Friday, May 17, 2013

a long way from home.....




We are so pleased to have a visitor with us for the next month all the way from Guatemala City! Dr. Heidi Arguello is a veterinarian from Guatemala, who met Dr. Lechten and the crew on the "Veterinarians Without Borders" mission to Todos Santos, back in February of this year. After many emails and phone calls after the adventure ended, Dr. Lechten invited Heidi to stay with us and visit our clinic to learn more. "This has exceeded all my expectations" says Heidi.
"Where I come from we learn the techniques but do not practice all of them, we learn what the instruments do, but they are very expensive and are very hard to come by, so we do not have most of them". Back in Guatelmala Heidi is the type of veterinarian that travels to people's homes to diagnose and treat their pet. It is a difficult thing to do especially when you don't have blood machines, x-rays (the diagnostic capabilities) at your disposal. Heidi is working alongside our doctors and technicians here to advance her skills to bring home with her. Heidi was excited to see the rehabilitation area, as she has never seen that before. "I think the hydrotherapy tank is fantastic, to to see the positive therapy sessions is really neat to see" she says. Heidi is bilingual teaching us here at the hospital some Spanish, but we have to admit her English abilities are excellent!

Walking away from this experience Heidi simply hopes to " keep everything in my head that I had the opportunity of seeing and learning so I can take it all back with me to use in practice"! Heido will be with us until the beginning of June. We hope she enjoys her time with us, and comes back to visit again in the future!


Bienvenida Heidi!