Mexico - University of Hidalgo Nickey Jafari Background Information
Population: 129.2 million
Most populous Spanish-speaking country
Predominantly Catholic Pachuca capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Hidalgo
About 2 hours by bus from Mexico City
Clinical site: General Hospital of Pachuca, publicly funded
Primarily rotated through OB/GYN: Urgent care, surgical floor, and postpartum Topic of Interest: Managing healthcare costs/ Working in low- resourced settings
Cost a hot topic of discussion for us here
US #1 in health expenditures - can we learn ideas from other places?
Mexico, like us, has a mixture of public, private, and employer-funded healthcare
A few health metrics at a glance: the US and Mexico both lead in obesity, but Mexico has a higher diabetes-burden and maternal mortality rate. Things I noticed...
Cost-control measure: patient friend/family is given a list of items to go to get from local pharmacy for patient’s hospital stay
- Think about how a hospital benadryl can cost exponentially more than your one from home?
Hardly any use of epidurals for labor.
- Is this just a resource issue (anesthesia and labor?) or a “pain is relative” one? Or both? Because the women handled it very well. Continued:
No patient expectation for own hospital room.
Lots of hospital beds lined up in hallways. Cultural Experience
Mexico has some of the most incredible natural beauty I have ever seen. Highly recommend visiting Valle de Bravo, Iztaccihuatl (first pic), and Nevado de Toluca (second pic). City of Museums...
If you love museums, Mexico City has about 150.
One of the best anthropology museums in the world.
My personal favorite museum was Museo Jumex, if you also love modern and contemporary art. Here I am pictured from their balcony, and you can see Museo Soumaya in the background. Other:
The average person I interacted with was way more genuinely kind, warm, and friendly than what I am used to.
The doctors I worked with are doing the best they can with what they have, and their dedication to patient care is unparalleled.
Resident work-hour restrictions may not be only factor contributing to fatigue/burnout. No restrictions in Mexico, but, at least the residents I interacted with, seemed a lot happier than most I have encountered due to a sense of camaraderie.