There are some people who are just born to be good teachers. Dr. Pacheco is one of them. He is passionate about OB/GYN, he absolutely loves teaching, he is wonderful with his patients, he is a thorough, skilled clinician, he is compassionate towards his students, has an excellent, open repoire (boy I can't spell that word) with them, his students trust him and have fun during their time with him. He makes his patients comfortable through laughter. He is efficient without being careless or brusque to the patient.
An example of his greatness. . last Thursday, the mean doctor Erin was working with (who I am now working with - Dr. Juan Carlos) screamed at two students for not knowing some miniscule information and then kicked them off of his ultrasound service (a 2 week rotation). What drama and what an asshole. Of course Dr. Pacheco accepted them and counseled them and joked with them about it - and now he is teaching them about ultrasound and encouraging them to make sure they don't lose their human touch.
He has been so wonderful with me - really taken me under his wing and I am learning a lot from him. And he has been so patient with my inability to do things (like measure cervixes - although last night during my guardia I did it so many times. . woo hoo!).
I've also had great conversations with him about health care in Mexico. One of the things he is trying to battle is myths that are spread by doctors at public Health Centers throughout Mexico. For example, on Friday a 24 year-old woman came in for a check-up. She was on her 5th pregnancy, so Dr. Pacheco quickly brought up family planning and the idea of recieving a tubal ligation (they are very popular here - I think the Catholic church sees it as an ok method of contraception since conception never occurs, but that's speculation, not fact). At first she refused, but Dr. Pacheco pushed further to figure out what her reasons were. Her reasons were all based on misinformation she had received from her doctor at her health center (like you can't have sex). Although it was the end of the day and hot, Pacheco reassured her, reeducated her, and strongly encouraged her to consider the ligation (you are 24 and have 5 kids - do you really need more?). He also encouraged her to counter bad rumors about ligations when she hears about them.
Afterwords we talked about how important patient education is and how it is such a crucial part of a physician's job. When I asked him what he thought she would end up deciding, he seemed doubtful that she would decide on a ligation, but he remphasized that what was most important was the reducation and the hopeful spread of information.
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