Hazardous to your health

[Luisa]

Also known as 6 months of Caregiver Training in the Philippines. I decided to start this thread as an answer to the requests from the guys here asking me about my (mis)adventures while I was in training school. The title says it all.

I'll be telling you guys in the most KISS way possible and without getting sued for slander and libel either about why everything I learned in 6 months of lectures and return demonstration exams got thrown out the window during on the job training, why certain hospitals are Avian Flu and Dengue breeding grounds in the Philippines, and most specially, why my home training with a comatose aunt and her home doctor helped me get through classes and on the job training.

This is going to be a very informative thread. It'll be a peek into the college level medical education system in the Philippines.

Heaven help us all. Let the games begin

[Luisa]

1st Day of Classes
Pre - Class Mental Notes:
1. Make sure I do exactly what the teachers want and do not stand out or be better dressed than the others.
2. Wear makeup (but don't fall into a vat of blush powder and come out looking like Rudolph) , smell nice and clean, and do not stand out otherwise.
3. Sit where I can SEE and HEAR and participate
4. Do not try to be invisible but do not be so visible that I become target practice for classmates.
5. Earn brown-nose points from these teachers

How many of these notes do you think I was able to follow?

up next, What I Learned in the 1st month of class.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Excellent! I can hardly wait.

[mrnoodle]

I went to school for 20 years and never learned any of the stuff on that list

[Luisa]

First 15 Days of Classes:

1. Classes never start at the assigned time. Forget a 3 PM class time even if that is what the class schedule, your level coordinator and registration card says. The teacher says you can come at 3 if you want. But he won't be there till 4. Teachers take days off for birthdays and class gets dismissed early when the teacher has a date or is picked up by her boyfriend.
2. If the students pester the level coordinator enough, Holy Week becomes a legal reason to miss 5 days worth of classes and then play the catch up game at the end of the module.
3. Security at the college is so non existent that I get away with not having a student ID for the rest of the month. A guilty conscience forces me to go get one anyway.
4. A scrub suit is worn during return demo exams. Official color seems to be any shade of green. (Note to self: A Mint Green scrub suit is not a good color to wear in the streets, It starts traffic even when the real traffic light says red and stop.)
5. A lecture means a "temporary lecturer" will come over, give copies of hand outs written in English and then proceed to translate the English tongue to vernacular.
6. Just because there are suggested textbooks, you don't have to buy it because there are hand outs anyway and as long as you can write fast, who needs the books? (I bought both books and saved myself the ink and carpal tunnel syndrome)
7. Turning off the lights and reading off a Power Point presentation to the class is considered a lecture. PS.- It is almost impossible to take notes in that kind of darkness.
8. The Caregivers mantra: "You don't scold the geriatric. You do not hit the geriatric, you do not beat the geriatric." Then always remember the published story of the Filipino caregiver deported for beating his patient who happened to have a toilet accident after being bathed by the caregiver.
9. Following the US Caregivers handbook gets you graded down and in trouble for not doing it the "normal hospital way." More about the normal hospital way in this country when we get to my OJT postings.
10. According to lecturers, the Caregiver's Handbook method written by an American RN for treatment of Americans is WRONG. I believe that is because I was using a US set up for the Return Demonstrations in a Philippine setting. Silly me, I thought we would be caring for AMERICANS and CANADIANS :p
11. My classmates seem to think being a CG is a job they will never have to do even though they are studying it and are using it as their jumping board to leave the Philippines. They all have "options" when they get to wherever it seems and they can just forget their employment contracts. I on the other hand look forward to actually caring and nurturing patients who need it. We'll get to why I feel that way later.

This covers my first 15 days in class. I'll get to the rest of the month tomorrow. In the meantime, my bed beckons me to lie on it and shut my eyes .

[xoxoxoBruce]

So you have to actually learn two systems, one to pass the course and one to work anywhere outside the country, as well as not mix them up. They teach you what to do as well as what not to do. That certainly is thorough.

Fortunately you can do this.

[Luisa]

You got that right Bruce. Luckily, I am a fast learner and I got the message after the first 2 return demonstrations. I CAN do this. There is no doubt about it. I can do both methods and much more because I actually bothered to learn the lessons. Both those taught and not taught but happened to be in the US handbook anyway

That did not sit well with my classmates though. Not that it mattered nor did I care. The proof was in my OJT. Up next, the last 15 days of the 1st month. Think you have to power to keep up with me? 5 more months to go !

[xoxoxoBruce]

Go baby go.....or is it, you go girl? I'm inept at being hip.

[Luisa]

1. American Senior Citizens must spend all their money first and then the government will give them money (take care of them) while the senior can still keep their home and car.
2. Caregivers are basically a little of everything. Nurse, doc, therapist, companion, etc We are supposed to tell the docs about a patients medical history after getting it from the family and stuff.
3. Basically, the job of a CG is to make sure the patient is always presentable at all times, has meals on time, gets around, and takes their medicines on time. And take them to Doc appointments.
4. The best way to prepare for an oral return demonstration practical exam is to keep writing the procedure and rationales down over and over till you use up all 100 sheets of yellow pad paper. Only after doing that and having the same results come out every time even if written in various ways can you be sure that you know your petrissage from your tapotement. You can be sure that you can answer any question no matter how far out of left field it comes from. Just don't let your classmates catch you doing it because it is "not normal" to review that way and they WILL report you to your Testing lecturer who will immediately order you to cease and desist from reviewing that way because it is a really dumb way of doing it. I never stopped doing it and I passed every exam they threw at me. I was too thorough though. I did not leave anything for the tester to ask me anymore while I was giving my demonstration. Sheesh! Looks like I can't ever do anything right by their standards :p
5. As far as my classes have gone, Tonchi summed it up best for me when she said, "In the Phils, it's "We pretend to teach and they pretend to learn". I was damned and made a target in the whole class by this point because I actually was learning something and it wasn't much owing to the lecturers but more because I was pushing myself to learn and do well. At a certain point, I accidentally showed up a lecturer during a demo exam because I was TOO THOROUGH AND WASTING TIME
6. Being the only over 30 student in a classroom full of teens to twenty something makes you the target of certain lecturers for some strange reason. I never did find out why till the day I finished the course.
7. When getting paired up for a demonstration partner, avoid a partner who is addicted to downloading MP3 songs from the internet if you value your sanity and review time. That person can make exam day a living hell for you.

Coming up, April (mis)adventures :-D

[Luisa]

I think it is "You go girl!" I do believe that I actually "Went and conquered" All because I NEED TO.

[Tonchi]

Tell them how it is also "not normal" to pay your tuition and how you were informed of that

[Luisa]

Well, I was told by my classmates that since I had given a downpayment of 7 thousand, I did not need to pay for at least 3 months since the amount covered the monthly fee of 2600 pesos. When I refused and continued to pay at the end of every month I was told by the class president that I was "making everyone else look bad" and that I "wasn't being a team player". Gee, pay the fee and avoid being embarassed by getting a letter from the accounting department, or don't pay and have your classmates like you. What would you choose?

[Pangloss62]

Avian Flu and Dengue breeding grounds in the Philippines

Ah yes. Dengue Fever. The "other" misquito-borne disease. When I was in Brasil, I kept seeing signs warning people not to allow stagnant water ANYWHERE for fear of the dengue. Be safe.

[wolf]

Remind me not to hire any Filipina home health aides for my mom.

[Luisa]

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

Ah yes. Dengue Fever. The "other" misquito-borne disease. When I was in Brasil, I kept seeing signs warning people not to allow stagnant water ANYWHERE for fear of the dengue. Be safe.

So what would you say to a hospital that has an open air aviary in the middle of the hospital grounds. All the ward windows open to the aviary and the mosquitos in the nurse's stations bite so bad it actually hurts? Eventually we pestered housekeeping enough to give us a jar of insecticide and we sprayed our work areas. I started wearing mosquito repellant to work too. Somehow mosquitos like my blood. I think they find it to be the perfect blend of sweetness and sweat :p

We seemed to be having a lot of Dengue admittances. I actually had a patient start a nose bleed so bad that the blood hit my face when he blew. Not much we could do for him except give transfusions and try to keep the fever down. I think Dengue is an illness that has to be ridden out. It is either the body cures itself or it doesn't