My amazing adventure in Las Terrenas

My name is Caroline Neite. I worked with the organization Aldeas de Paz in Las Terrenas for six
weeks. I worked there as a volunteer in a private hospital because I participated in a medical
project. In Germany I am currently doing an apprenticeship as a nurse, so I can to study medicine afterward, therefore I saw the project as a great opportunity to improve my medical knowledge and to get more working experience in the professional field. What I can say after six weeks in the hospital is that I really learned and saw more things, which I did not learn or see in Germany before. It started with measuring blood pressure and later I was allowed to give intramuscular and intravenous injections. In addition to that I could assist in small operations, most of the time caused by accidents with “motoconchos“. When I had questions the Doctors and nurses always helped me a lot. That’s the reason why I have learned so many things about the effects from medicine and of course I could improve my Spanish a lot in speaking with the staff. My highlights definitely were to see bigger operations like a c- sektion or an ablation from an uterus. Of course the standards are a little bit different in comparison to Germany but the clinic is very modern and the methods they are using in the hospital are working very well.

About the organization I can say, that they always had time to help me when I had something I
wanted to speak about. Additionally I really enjoyed the time with the other volunteers and that
we all had our apartments in the same house. Every week on Monday we had a group meeting to speak about everything that is going good or bad. I liked that kind of exchange with the group and I would work with the organization again anytime. But not only the people I worked together with are really friendly, also the Dominican people are really openhearted and try to help whenever they can. I am sure that I will come back to Las Terrenas one day. Thanks for the great time!