Wuhan, China

Erika and I are in Wuhan, China for our capstone project. We live on the medical campus of Wuhan University, which is only a fifteen-minute walk from the main campus located across the east lake. The students have been very helpful showing us around and we travel with them to our clinical site. It takes us one hour and two crowded bus rides to reach the Community Health Center from Wuhan University. The buses briefly stop to allow passengers on and off and we are often forced to chase after buses and compete with other eager travelers. Passengers freely smoke on the buses even though there are signs stating that smoking is prohibited. The students help us to buy breakfast from street carts that line a long alleyway leading to the Community Health Center.

When we arrive at the Community Health Center we change into our student nurse uniforms, provided by the HOPE school of nursing. The uniforms resemble traditional clothes worn by nurses during World War II. They consist of a long white button down dress, matching pants, and a hat. By 8:30AM we are on the traditional Chinese medicine ward of the Community Health Center. This area of the clinic offers acupuncture, cupping, massage, and herbal treatments. The students spend a lot of time practicing their skills on each other.  They often leave the clinic with extra bumps and bruises they get from practicing the different techniques: big dark circles from cupping, tiny pink dots from acupuncture. Erika and I have been reluctant to let the students practice on us, until they improve their skills. Even so, the students are more than willing to let Erika and me cup their backs and experiment with different treatments. Before we leave Wuhan, the students offered to take us to a medical supplies store near campus so that we can buy some of the equipment and practice what we have learned back in America.

When Erika and I are not at the Community Health Center we spend our time exploring Wuhan. During the Chinese national holiday we went hiking at Lu Shan, a famous mountain about five hours from campus. For three days we toured the mountain with a group of students from Wuhan University.  We visited temples, hiked up different sides of the mountain, and watched movies that featured Jet Li. It took us about three hours to climb stairs, cross rope bridges, and jump across rocks until we reached the highest point of Le Shan. The mountain was beautiful and we are trying to plan a trip to another site close to campus.