Tina Gaud here -

Today marks 2 weeks here in Belize for me, and it's been a busy 2 weeks! Along with settling in to my new home in the small village of Hopkins, I've been seeing patients with Nurse Judy Krieg. A native Belizean, she was a critical care nurse in the US for about 20 years before moving back to Belize. Now she runs a health clinic out of her garage. I live next door to her in a rented apartment, and help out in the clinic. There are no doctors in Hopkins, so Judy is the only medical care outside of Dangriga, which is 20 miles away. Among the patients we've seen, one had been stung by a stingray, another had been burned on his face and hand when an oven he was repairing exploded in his face, and another was a local teenager with psychiatric issues.

Last week a group of cardiologists from Miami Beach were giving a free cardiology clinic in Dangriga. We took one of our patients, a 14-year-old boy with heart disease, into Dangriga to get an echocardiogram. We were happy to find out that his heart is holding its own despite having had no medical treatment.

My main purpose here, however, is to see how telemedicine can improve access to healthcare for people living here. I have been meeting the doctors in Dangriga and discussing with them how telemedicine may improve healthcare here, and we are planning educational lectures over telemed as well as consultations with the doctors in Rochester who volunteer with Intervol.

This weekend I've had some time for being a tourist, and yesterday I visited the Mayan ruins at Xunantunich with Judy and her family. Today I had a Spanish lesson with a local elder who is kindly helping me learn Spanish, and then I swam in the Caribbean Sea, which happens to be in my backyard. Tonight I will be having dinner with some friends I've met.

---Tina

View from the front of my house (left), and back yard (below).

Wild black orchid (below)

Xunantunich(below)