Today was quite the experience. The group made a trip to Bad Oeyrnhaus (sp?) to visit the herz-und diabeteszentrum (again, sp?), a heart and diabetes specialty hospital, a rather small operation, but growing. I got picked to be in the Surgery group, even though I had been put down for ICU, but it was a very cool experience none-the-less. We got led around to the different operating rooms, and got to pick from an infant heart operation, an atrial valve replacement, and an emergency aorta operation. Mas and I got the atrial valve replacement, complicated by the fact that the patient's previous bypass was very near the sternum and could be damaged when the chest cavity was opened. Sure as anything, as the doctor opened the patient's chest and tried to separate the tissue, he nicked the bypass, plugging it quickly with his fingers and calling in other doctors. We didnt' get to see much of the actual operation because most of the time was spent dealing with the bypass error, procuring a replacement bypass vein from the patient's leg, and then slowly working through the scar tissue from the bypass. The whole experience was pretty surreal, especially how the doctor was using his fingers and pulling tissues apart like he was cleaning a chicken or something. It struck me how much surgery is an imperfect, rather impromptu act, very make-shift at times. Seeing as the human body is naturally a non-uniform working space, it makes sense, but it's still odd to see someone poking and prodding and digging around inside someone's body, literally holding their life in their hands.
We later went around to see several different imaging systems, all of which were quite interesting, though the explanations took quite a bit to understand. I'm not sure how many people followed on the PET explanation, or if I even understood it quite right. On the way home, and most of the time after we got back, we spent putting the Amsterdam expedition together. It was a bit hectic, since I kind of took it upon myself to get everybody's accomodations figured out, and with everybody trying to do everything at once, a lot of people got flustered and pretty frustrated. In the end, it looks like everybody's got their places to stay and now we just have to find train tickets. Hopefully, everything will run smooth, and we can stop bugging out and relax and enjoy the weekend. Tomorrow, we have some more german classes, which are pretty much review for me right now, and some german culture classes, before heading off to Cologne to tour the city and see the Dom, or church. Cologne sounds like an amazing place, just like most places I've been so far, and the German culture classes seem to be pretty true to what I've heard already. The language class seems like it's moving a little too fast for most people to be effective, and focusing maybe too much on areas that could be skipped over. That, or it was just way too hot the first day of language classes. Either way, tomorrow's going to be fun, and this weekend is going to be awesome. If not, I might be beheaded.
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