Generations of Myths

Peace Corps has an agreement with a designated doctor in all the large volunteer sites so that volunteers can go for a consultation and the doctor bills Peace Corps directly. The whole not having to pay part is of course nice, but we have found the quality of care to be lacking. When I arrived in Santa Barbara the doctor they had an agreement with was over 80 years old and although everyone says he was a great doctor and an important community figure I think he is a little past his prime. So, finally we got Peace Corps to find an additional doctor…He is in his 20s, very nice and just as Honduran as the last doctor. A while back I had a cough for a few weeks so I went to see him and at first he said it was an infection so he gave me antibiotics (the first course of action for almost any ailment in Honduras). The cough did not go away so I went back to him and he said that I had to move out of my apartment because something there was making me sick. Hmmm, this may very well be, but he has no way of knowing that without asking me detailed questions or seeing my apartment himself. I told him I wasn’t going to move. Then he said I had to clean my whole apartment and wash my sheets 3 times per week. I told him I would with no intention of actually doing it. Eventually Peace Corps gave me allergy medicine and my cough went away.

A little while after that I had a sore throat and after looking at my throat the first thing he asked was “Allison, do you drink cold water?” I knew where this was going…Hondurans have a belief that drinking cold water is bad for you and that taking cold showers after working out can cause serious damage. I told him, yes I drink cold water all the time and it has never caused me any type of harm. He then proceeded to tell me that drinking cold water was causing my sore throat and I had to stop drinking cold water. I told him I didn’t understand the concept and could he please explain it to me. He told me that dust and pollution is inhaled and causes irritation in the throat (I was with him so far) and that when we drink cold water it causes inflammation in the throat. He used an analogy of an ice cube to try to convince me; if you put an ice cube on your arm and leave it there for a while, when you take it off it leaves a red mark…so it is the same with your throat. Then I asked him if cold things cause vasoconstriction how can cold water cause the opposite (inflammation)? He was very impressed that I knew this concept and then proceeded to tell me I should be a doctor. After about a fifteen minute conversation of him trying to convince me that cold water was my problem I asked him what he was going to do to treat me. Antibiotics, he says. What!!!!! I said “If cold water is causing my sore throat why are you giving me antibiotics?” Well, it might be an infection, so we’ll give you antibiotics just in case. In the end he gave me a prescription for antibiotics (which I did not fill) and an anti-inflammatory (which I did fill) and told me that he would find some research on cold water and give it to me next time I came in and continued to encourage me to take up the medical profession.

I was actually on the verge of tears during this whole conversation because all I wanted was for my throat to stop hurting and not him telling me that cold water was bad.

I guess young and old alike are swayed by the beliefs of their cultures.