Day 13 - We're in a hole, we're just going to have to dig ourselves out.

Today I went with Dr. Srivalli to Apollo Hospital. It is a 400 bed hospital in central Bangalore. She is a radiologist and I very much enjoyed my time there. Radiology is one department that I have not spent much time in. As an interpreter, I was able to be involved with physician-patient interaction in almost all departments. Because radiologists typically do not deal with patients directly, I have not seen much of what they do. I would say that what the radiologists do here is similar to what they would do in the states.

The hospital was naturally very different than the clinic that I was at in Bailhongal. It was modern and had similar equipment. I would not compare it though with the hospitals that I have been to in the US. Still very different. They are still upgrading many facets of the hospital. In about 2 weeks they will have a PACS system which allows for a network throughout the hospital to track patients as they move through departments (as I understand it). For that size of a hospital, I was surprised at the low-volume of equipment. I would expect more.

I spent about an hour with Dr. Srivalli looking at CT scans, 3 hours with another Jr. Radiologist looking at x-rays, and 2 hours with another Sr. Radiologist looking at MRIs. It was very interesting. I also spent some time in the ER.

We were there from 9 am to 7pm. Afterwards, we went to her brother in laws where she picked up some items and then they chatted. Through bodylanguage, I was able to correctly deduce that they were talking about home loans. Yeah, don't ask me how I got that one right.