My first week of uni
Last Monday I started with my first course: Surgery, which will continue until the end of this month.
I also had "Czech for Erasmus students" (where I'm in the advanced group after taking part in the Intensive Language Course, only 7 students showed up and I'm afraid I'm going to be the only one this week...) and "Tropical Diseases" as an elective subject.
All my subjects are organized in blocks, so I only have one subject every day for a couple of weeks, then I take the exam and after that I start a new course.
In Surgery I only have lectures on Monday, all the other days are "practical days" and on Friday uni starts later than usual "because it's a Friday" ;).
Every day we can choose whether we want to go to the ICU, the ambulance, the traumatology ward or the operating room - depending on our choice we either have to be there at 8 or 8.30 am.
On my first day I went to the ICU (= Intensive Care Unit), the standard is about the same as in Germany - in fact they use a lot of German products, too.
Unfortunately the doctor's English wasn't very good, even though he kept trying, it took him several minutes to form a single sentence which I found very frustrating.
Therefore I decided to go to the ambulance on Wednesday which proved to be a good choice as the doctor who was assigned to us explained us a lot, he also kept asking questions and seemed really enthusiastic about what he was doing. :)
We were even allowed to perform single tasks like taking the stitches out, cleaning wounds or assisting in day surgery - one day I even got a cast (see attached photos) ;).
Today I went to the operating room, but just as I expected it to be there were about 20 other students and employees in a tiny room, so we couldn't see anything at all and therefore concluded to leave after about 10 minutes.
We then strolled to the ambulance, but again the doctor's English wasn't extremely convincing and there were some Czech medical students there as well, so he kept talking to them in Czech for quite long periods of time. :(
Much to my surprise I found that the hygiene standards are quite different compared to Germany and on my first day I thought I was going to faint (would have been the first time in my life at the hospital and I've already seen quite a lot of operations ;) ): they don't have a lot of single-use products - e.g. the linen on the stretcher is not a paper roll that gets exchanged after every patient, but rather a sheet that is replaced once a day (if at all).
Moreover, they have something they call the "sterile box" which in my opinion is not sterile at all - they take the instruments and band-aids out without wearing (sterile) gloves, mostly even with their bare hands.
Then they pass them on to the doctor who also doesn't wear gloves most of the time - once we had a patient who suffers from Hepatitis A, B and C and the doctor just said "Normally we don't do that, but now I'm going to wear some gloves." - Niiiiiiice.
Last but not least it's not very common to disinfect the hands - sometimes you can't even find disinfectant in the room.
I also believe that even though the disease patterns are about the same, the stages are often much more advanced and money plays a bigger role, too - e.g. they use bandages instead of compression stockings as a prevention of thrombosis ("It's a lot cheaper.", one of the doctors told me).
My Czech Class was not really interesting as the pace was rather slow, but since I already bought the text book I think I'm going to stick to it. Our homework is to write an essay about our family - that is to state the names and talk about their professions.
In contrast to that, "Tropical Diseases" really sparked my interest in the course - we talked about the differential diagnosis of fever after returning from the tropics.
Since I would like to go to Africa for an internship I think the knowledge I will hopefully gain in this course could really come in handy. :)
As I didn't feel like I was working to full capacity with just two days of afternoon classes ("Tropical Diseases" is just once every two weeks), I added another course called "Clinical Empathy" to my schedule.
This course concentrates on the proper rhetorical and body-language techniques and is meant to teach us how to treat our patients empathically without getting emotionally involved as well as how to improve our communication skills in general.
It's a brand new course and the instructor is a communication skills expert, corporate soft-skills trainer and coach from the United States, so I think it could really be interesting. :)
I've also planned quite a few trips / activities for the next couple of days and weeks which include going to the Czech Film Club tomorrow night, an activity that is organized by the International Club - tomorrow they are going to show a movie called "Samotáři" (Loners); taking part in a trip to the town Kutna Hora this Saturday and attending the "Erasmus Welcome Party" next Monday where we will be officially welcomed by the faculty.
In addition, I will go to Český Krumlov, a small city in the South Bohemian Region that's also a Unesco World Heritage Site from the 2nd - 4th of November.
the lecture theatre
Oh, I just remembered a nice compliment I got the other day:
When I went out for dinner with a German and a Spanish guy, an American couple that was sitting next to us interrupted our conversation: "So whereabouts in die US are you from?" I just grinned at them and said: "Try again, I'm not from the US..." They seemed extremely surprised and asked: "England? Australia?" Naaaaw.... It's awesome to hear that English native speakers actually think I might be from their country! That really made my day! :)
What have you all been up to? I'm looking forward to hear from you! :)
I also had "Czech for Erasmus students" (where I'm in the advanced group after taking part in the Intensive Language Course, only 7 students showed up and I'm afraid I'm going to be the only one this week...) and "Tropical Diseases" as an elective subject.
All my subjects are organized in blocks, so I only have one subject every day for a couple of weeks, then I take the exam and after that I start a new course.
In Surgery I only have lectures on Monday, all the other days are "practical days" and on Friday uni starts later than usual "because it's a Friday" ;).
Every day we can choose whether we want to go to the ICU, the ambulance, the traumatology ward or the operating room - depending on our choice we either have to be there at 8 or 8.30 am.
On my first day I went to the ICU (= Intensive Care Unit), the standard is about the same as in Germany - in fact they use a lot of German products, too.
Unfortunately the doctor's English wasn't very good, even though he kept trying, it took him several minutes to form a single sentence which I found very frustrating.
Therefore I decided to go to the ambulance on Wednesday which proved to be a good choice as the doctor who was assigned to us explained us a lot, he also kept asking questions and seemed really enthusiastic about what he was doing. :)
We were even allowed to perform single tasks like taking the stitches out, cleaning wounds or assisting in day surgery - one day I even got a cast (see attached photos) ;).
Today I went to the operating room, but just as I expected it to be there were about 20 other students and employees in a tiny room, so we couldn't see anything at all and therefore concluded to leave after about 10 minutes.
We then strolled to the ambulance, but again the doctor's English wasn't extremely convincing and there were some Czech medical students there as well, so he kept talking to them in Czech for quite long periods of time. :(
Much to my surprise I found that the hygiene standards are quite different compared to Germany and on my first day I thought I was going to faint (would have been the first time in my life at the hospital and I've already seen quite a lot of operations ;) ): they don't have a lot of single-use products - e.g. the linen on the stretcher is not a paper roll that gets exchanged after every patient, but rather a sheet that is replaced once a day (if at all).
Moreover, they have something they call the "sterile box" which in my opinion is not sterile at all - they take the instruments and band-aids out without wearing (sterile) gloves, mostly even with their bare hands.
Then they pass them on to the doctor who also doesn't wear gloves most of the time - once we had a patient who suffers from Hepatitis A, B and C and the doctor just said "Normally we don't do that, but now I'm going to wear some gloves." - Niiiiiiice.
Last but not least it's not very common to disinfect the hands - sometimes you can't even find disinfectant in the room.
I also believe that even though the disease patterns are about the same, the stages are often much more advanced and money plays a bigger role, too - e.g. they use bandages instead of compression stockings as a prevention of thrombosis ("It's a lot cheaper.", one of the doctors told me).
My Czech Class was not really interesting as the pace was rather slow, but since I already bought the text book I think I'm going to stick to it. Our homework is to write an essay about our family - that is to state the names and talk about their professions.
In contrast to that, "Tropical Diseases" really sparked my interest in the course - we talked about the differential diagnosis of fever after returning from the tropics.
Since I would like to go to Africa for an internship I think the knowledge I will hopefully gain in this course could really come in handy. :)
As I didn't feel like I was working to full capacity with just two days of afternoon classes ("Tropical Diseases" is just once every two weeks), I added another course called "Clinical Empathy" to my schedule.
This course concentrates on the proper rhetorical and body-language techniques and is meant to teach us how to treat our patients empathically without getting emotionally involved as well as how to improve our communication skills in general.
It's a brand new course and the instructor is a communication skills expert, corporate soft-skills trainer and coach from the United States, so I think it could really be interesting. :)
I've also planned quite a few trips / activities for the next couple of days and weeks which include going to the Czech Film Club tomorrow night, an activity that is organized by the International Club - tomorrow they are going to show a movie called "Samotáři" (Loners); taking part in a trip to the town Kutna Hora this Saturday and attending the "Erasmus Welcome Party" next Monday where we will be officially welcomed by the faculty.
In addition, I will go to Český Krumlov, a small city in the South Bohemian Region that's also a Unesco World Heritage Site from the 2nd - 4th of November.
the lecture theatre
Oh, I just remembered a nice compliment I got the other day:
When I went out for dinner with a German and a Spanish guy, an American couple that was sitting next to us interrupted our conversation: "So whereabouts in die US are you from?" I just grinned at them and said: "Try again, I'm not from the US..." They seemed extremely surprised and asked: "England? Australia?" Naaaaw.... It's awesome to hear that English native speakers actually think I might be from their country! That really made my day! :)
What have you all been up to? I'm looking forward to hear from you! :)
christina_abroad - 16. Okt, 17:30
