We got pimped.

For those not in medicine, pimping is when you are going around with the doctors/residents and they start directing difficult questions at you, mostly making you look like a fool.  It's a real problem in Spanish.

We haven't started our study yet, but are going to morning rounds on the men's medicine floor just to show our faces and get some idea of the patients.  We can't hear 70%, and we can't understand most of the other 30%.  Yesterday, we were going over EKGs of a patient when the doctor suddenly turned to us and asked if we knew what the "eje" should be.  We just blankly stared back.  After visibly dripping sweat for what seemed like minutes, I just said "no".  Everyone was a little shocked, and he assigned the intern to teach us about it.  Until we realized "eje" meant "axis", which everyone learns in the first lesson on EKGs.  Sorry U.S. medical schools, we failed our reputation of being any good.

The next day, the same doctor was pimping the Bolivian medical students.  He then turned to us.  We shyly and slowly asked in our broken Spanish if we understood the question: the cardiac signs of anemia.  Easy!  I said "tachycardia" and Jackie jumped right in for "ejection murmur".  Bam!  Reputation somewhat restored.  We later gave the list of indications for cardioversion.  The Spanish is tough, but oh so rewarding.

Here's the pictures that Jackie, Omar (great Bolivian MD working with the research group), and I took for our hospital IDs!  I finally cut my hair short a month ago, and if anyone is interested I really believe Pantene Beautiful Lengths is a great organization for a hair donation with a lot of NYC salons which will cut for free.