Butterfly Kisses

Excuse the hiatus! My laptop won’t load tumblr properly for weeks even if I have a relatively fast connection and no matter what browser I use. Anyway, this is the continuation of my previous post.

The view from my window in Kakuyu Kaikan (Nagoya University’s Alumni Hall). I spent all my mornings in Kakuyu staring outside while sipping roasted green tea and thinking of home.

The road leading to the the Tsurumai subway station. One of the things I will miss the most about Japan is the discipline of the people. I’ve never seen as much adherence to rules before. That is the one thing I’ll forever wish to see in my dear Manila.

Before heading to the hospital, we went to Tsurumai Park across the street to see the cherry blossom trees. During spring, this park would be filled with university students having picnics under the trees. Too bad, it was still winter when we visited :((

No photos were taken inside the maternity ward to protect patient privacy. This was during lunch with their students who spent the morning with us, bathing babies, examining placentas, studying maternal and child records and touring the Neonatal ICU. Everything was so ideal, I can’t even count how many times I said “Sugoi!” when I was inside the hospital. But what the hell, I still love our very own PGH to bits.

After lunch, we visited the pond somewhere in Tsurumai park.

They have awesome flowers nearby as well.

Then we headed for the JR line to travel again to NU’s Daiko campus to have laboratory practice with their students.

Physical examination practice with Fijiko, the mannequin they use for simulating different conditions for PE. In UPCN, I’m proud to say that Meti, Fijiko’s counterpart in our simulation lab is pretty much as technologically advanced as the former. He can produce fluids, can be programmed to have pathologic heart and lung sounds, can respond to meds, etc. But nothing still beats seeing these things in real life. I think that is one advantage we have, because we are allowed to work with actual patients and do bedside procedures for 3 years while they are only allowed to do so after 3 years of being a staff nurse. Everything is simulated in their laboratory while they are students.

My partner Jhe, discussing edema levels with the students.

Their fundamentals laboratory. Our simulation lab looks like this, only smaller since we have very few students.

I’m pretty much amazed that they have Nihonggo terms for murmurs, midsystolic clicks, ronchi, even all meds, etc. They were actually surprised that we don’t have Filipino terms for things such as these. At least they now know why it would be almost near to impossible to use Filipino as the medium for instruction in Nursing or Medicine in our country.

My partner demonstrated the Japanese way of bathing newborns in hospitals after we simulated Leopold’s maneuver and fetal heat tone monitoring.

I demonstrated how we deliver babies in the Philippines, which was by the way, a little different from theirs in the maneuvers used. I have my Fabella training and Prof. Barcelo’s lectures to thank for this, as well as the DOH’s Unang Yakap manual, of course!

It’s a boy! It’s fun to note that we use the same birthing mannequins; those where the baby had to be pushed from the other side by another person. Kala ko sa sobrang hightech ng bansa nila, pati mannequin nanganganak mag-isa eh :))

After the lab practices, we celebrated Prof. Iriyama’s birthday.

With Shiho and Mika, at Yeon Mall.

And of course, what is there left to notice but the cute winter fashion of Japanese teenage girls. I’ve seen cuter ones in Nagoya City, but I haven’t seen the most quirky there is. Harajuku, duh!

More to come! Hopefully my laptop cooperates on the next posts :)