We started off today with a visit to a public health clinic, Thomas Reggio Primary Health Center. It is run by 5 nuns and has generous volunteer doctors, dentists, and nurses. They are independent but government and university funded, and are connected to a children’s center, Santa Marta Children’s Home. It was so interesting to get to walk through the clinic rooms, and talk to the nuns who have a variety of responsibilities such as being nurses and also managing paperwork and appointments. It was surprising that all their medical records were kept on paper and stored in a file cabinet. My favorite part of this visit was getting to interact with the children at Santa Marta. It is in the building next store the health clinic, and they give the children there free yearly checkups. The small health center sees an astonishing 1500 people per month. 

We then took a brief stop at Austral University’s business school for lunch, and worked with students to analyze similarities and differences between Argentina and the United States. 

After this, we toured Austral Universitys hospital. It is similar to Pitt in the sense that Pitt is conducted to UPMC. Austral is private, and has the capacity to employ and run the decently large hospital. Austral is split into two managements; one for the university and the other for health. Diving deeper into the health side, they struggle with adaptability and unconventional situations from the government. These issues are so different from Thomas Reggio center, as they are just focused on running and treating all their patients efficiently. Austral is interested in taking more steps to expand their clientele through insurance plans. They already have a sustainable organization system in place. We sat through two lectures at Austral, one about the hospital in general and another about insurance specifically. We also got to tour the Emergency  Center with two nurses. It was interesting to see the organization of the hospital- they had almost 20 specializations on one floor. 

Overall, I really enjoyed getting to tour both a public and private health centers, and witness how much of a difference there is in the overall conflicts they face and their organizational structure.