Children's Hospital of Costa Rica

Our hospital visit was local today, so we were able to sleep in until 9:00. Of the three hospitals we have visited, the children’s hospital, which we visited today, was by far the best equipped. Martin, the hospital’s lead engineer and our guide, spoke only in Spanish, but I understood the vast majority of what he said. The children’s hospital was built in the 1950s, having been designed by architects in Washington, D.C. Martin then showed us a CT scan, x-ray machine, and a specialized head/face x-ray, all of them designed for use with child patients. When we didn’t ask him enough questions about the hospital and the machines, he began asking us questions. Specifically, he demanded that we tell him the things we learned since coming to Costa Rica that were uniquely Costa Rican. I answered, “Pura Vida!”  Our final stop was in the technicians’ shop, where Martin showed us an assortment of specialized diagnostic tools, often costing thousands of dollars, for use in testing electrical or pressurized-gas systems.

After the hospital visit, most of us elected to rest for the remainder of the day, which was great until I became ill, as I am now. I’m hoping to be better by five in the morning tomorrow, because I would like to go to the beautiful beach on the Pacific side for the weekend.

On a lighter note, this morning before the hospital visit I emailed the dean of the School of Computing and Engineering at the University of Missouri in Kansas City in order to ask him about the feasibility of starting a 3-2 engineering program with Eureka. He emailed back in only an hour saying that it sounded like a great idea and that such an agreement could be made quickly if both schools pursue it.