the evil eye

It was around 11 o´clock on what i call a slow night of being on call. Just when u hit the stage of "oh well i guess i´ll lay down in bed", someone walks in the emergency room to be evaluated. And poof I had my first encounter with dealing with mal ojo syndrome (aka evil eye syndrome). A set of parents had broughten their 1 week old infant out of fear that he was sick and had diarrha secondary to someone who had an evil eye on them. After talking to one of the doctors and Jacinto the guatemalan nurse, it turns out that mal ojos or evil eye is a common held belief that when one gets jealous about someones fortune they have an evil eye on them that imposes misfortune on them. After a through history and physical, reassurance was the only thing we could offer.