By the end of night I think all of my senses were overstimulated. It was my first day working at Cheng Hsin General Hospital in the psychiatric unit. Kristin and I were paired together and both didn't know what to expect and were nervous about the language barrier. Our preceptor turned out to speak pretty good English. It was a great refresher of all the different psychiatric diagnosis's and medications. 'Andrew' (our preceptor) was very intelligent and wracked our brains with questions and taught us a lot. I was very surprised how much English is in patients charts and written on the white boards. All medications, diagnosis's, and notes are in English. Most of the doctors and nurses can understand and write English really well but are shy speaking it. There were a few patients who spoke English and one patient spoke Spanish. I got to work on my nonverbal communication skills and do a lot of pointing and hand motions. There was one patient who was wearing a Disneyland sweatshirt and he kept coming up to us and telling us the letters on his sweatshirt and getting really excited because he could say the letters. It was really cute and cool to see the way we can connect with the patients even if it is just through a simple few letters on his sweatshirt.
Messing with the restraints made from Germany!
Everyone wears masks everywhere you go!
Shortly after working at the hospital we met up with nurses from the nursing home and took the MRT to Shilin. We went to The Modern Toilet for dinner. For a bunch of nursing majors this restaurant was perfect. We all like a little bathroom humor. The tables were old bathtubs with a glass sheet over them and the chairs were toilets with different seat covers. Some dishes were served in small toilet bowls, drinks in urinals, dessert in a squatty potty, and other various bath utensils. After dinner we all split into groups with the different nurses and headed to the Shilin night market. The night market was PACKED with various tourist, locals, and other people. The streets and alleys were lined with store after store after store and different food stands. I was so full from dinner that I didn't want to try any of the food and was actually kind of scared to try some of the food. Kristin, Brittany and I tried a sweet potato fried with honey. It was very sticky but tasted good. A popular street food was 'stinky tofu'. Stinky tofu is an understatement of how the food smelled....it was NASTY. Apparently the tofu is actually really good but I couldn't get past the smell of the tofu. When I got home I googled stinky tofu and was thankful I didn't eat it. I recommend googling stinky tofu...very interesting! After shopping around for awhile we headed back to the hospital dorms! 
I of course chose the Zebra toilet!
My chicken curry and black ice tea!
Martina's spaghetti!
Just drinkin from my urinal!
Crowded market!
Sweet potato fried in honey!
Hi Sweetie...such a great post. You're writing is excellent. Thanks for taking the time to do it. Lots of folks ask how you're doing and it's great to share your experiences with them. All is good here. Hopefully we'll talk soon.
ReplyDeletelove you bunches...daddy.