slathering on the sunscreen here in balmy Michigan

Hi all! Emily here. I am the only LMUVer who stayed here in Michigan, and let me tell you about all the tanning and sightseeing I am doing in this lovely weather. Um, none. But I am having a wonderful hodge-podge of a time working outpatient family medicine Mondays and Wednesdays at the Imlay City migrant clinic and Tuesdays and Fridays at the Shiawassee clinic in Owosso. Thursdays I work with a psychiatrist, Dr. Lenhart, at the Bay City county jail, the Cathedral House free clinic, and Bay Arenac Behavioral health. Dr. Lenhart seems to have the patience of Job, and I have seen so much just after one day. Almost all of his patients' mental health issues--depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia--are complicated by substance abuse, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, violent crime, or any combination of the aforementioned. On Sunday evening Dr. Lenhart invited me to the Mustard Seed, a homeless shelter run through Catholic Worker House that takes in women and children. The Catholic Worker House runs charitable offices across the country, and coincidentally my mother and sister have been volunteering as ESL tutors for years with a CWH charity out in California. Last Saturday I worked in the ER at Covenant with Dr. Wagner, and I saw a patient with toxic shock syndrome and a patient with pseudotumor cerebri. Since my patient population of interest is Latino immigrants, my favorite site so far is the Imlay Migrant clinic. And though I am not eating mangoes and touring rain forests, I bet I am learning almost as much new medical vocabulary in Spanish as my classmates abroad. For example, "comezon" means "itchy" in Mexican Spanish, and "flujo vaginal" means vaginal discharge (sorry to all the non-medical people reading this but it's handy to know how to say that). Anyway I am off to bed so I can be ready to head up to Imlay tomorrow. Les deseo muy buenas noches a todos!