Las Mujeres de Argentina

This placement in Mendoza is full of them. The Work the World house consists of 4 women and 1 man. El Hospital Lagomaggiore obstetrics department is made up of 21 women and 1 man. All the nurses on the wards are women. Every single one of my patients is a woman.

And I love it! I get to wear nail polish in hospital, even for Cesarean sections. I know this because all ht eother doctors do it too. Can you imagine choosing a nail polish that matches the colour of your surgical scrubs? And there´s food everywhere - one of the residents loves baking cakes, and at the house there´s always biscuits and chocolate (given I haven´t finished them).

Yes, there are downsides. Yesterday I was kicked out of the doctors room because the residents needed to discuss something. For the next 30 minutes, no one was allowed into the room. When the door finally opened, every single doctora that walked out was red-eyed, blowing their nose, or full on sobbing. My Spanish isn´t good enough to ask what happened, but I did understand the odd word: pelea (fight), extraño (strange),  demasiado hormonas (too many hormones), and something to do with being overworked in a public hospital.

Geez, I´m only just wondering if all 21 of them are on the same cycle.

The cabinets in the doctors room are hilarious:

1. Obs&Gynae textbooks and research papers 
2. Biscuits, sugar, coffee 
3. Contraceptive pills and antifungal vaginal pessaries 

And I´m talking tens, no hundreds, of boxes of pills and pessaries.

I don´t know if it´s a nation-wide cultural thing, or just this particular social demographic. And I know it´s only been 2 weeks. But these women are spirited, steadfast, understatedly sexy, and excude a warmth and sincerity I have never before experienced so clearly nor so immediately.

¡Que buenas ondas!