Mornings at the Masaya Hospital Physical Therapy Outpatient Clinic can be described as hectic, fast-paced, and slightly chaotic. I'm familiar with patients being scheduled for a particular time on a particular day, such as "Monday at 11:00". Here, they are scheduled to come on a certain day, but the time is "first come first serve" and they are placed with the first available therapist. This system causes about 90% of the patient population to come as soon as the clinic opens. Meaning as soon as one patient is finished, another is ready to go. I come from a society that is always in a hurry, so I was astounded to learn that patients I worked with previously were requesting to be with me again, even if that meant waiting an hour or more! This gave me the reassurance I needed. I'm a very social and talkative person by nature so typically I use these qualities to form bonds with my patients. Here, the problem is that I speak very minimal Spanish and my patients speak little to no English. I used gestures and facial expressions in attempts to communicate, but it wasn't the same. The inability to converse with my patients felt like a major handicap, and I was concerned about the effect it had on my treatment abilities. But then, my self doubt dissipated when my patients requested and were willing to wait for me. Apparently, we had connected after all.
