Soccer and Butterflies

This afternoon was the training session for the annual blood draw for the cohort study of dengue transmission. A large group of nurses came to the health center to learn about the project and to practice drawing blood and labeling the vials. It's quite a sophisticated operation - each time they take a sample, they record the details electronically in a PDA(Palm Pilot). The whole thing is going to start in early July, and teams of nurses will go out into the community and take blood samples from all of the children who are enrolled in the study. This year, they are trying to make things easier for the nurses and they will encourage the parents to bring their children to the health center. However, those who do not come to the health center will receive a visit from the team of nurses to their houses.

As part of the training I agreed to participate as a volunteer for a role playing exercise. I thought this meant that the nurses would pretend to draw my blood and would learn
how to label the vials and enter the data in the PDA. What I didn't know was that I had actually volunteered to have my blood drawn. It went fine. They used brand new, sterile Butterfly needles (the same kind that I used my first week of medical school when I learned how to draw blood). And when the needle entered my vein I didn't feel a thing. It was actually the most painless blood draw I've ever had.













Afterwards I went to a local bar with William and Mario (the two guys who manage the database) to watch the World Cup match between Mexico and Argentina. It was a good game, and Mexico played well, but in the end they couldn't come up with a second goal, so their World Cup dreams came to an end. Argentina moved on to play Germany in what should be an excellent game.