Wien

Vienna is such a beautiful city! It made the travelling from place to place an adventure of its own. On our first day, we went through Vienna on a medical history walk. We saw a statue in memory of Guttenberg and a memorial for Mozart, where his home is now a department store but the best was seeing historically influential doctors’ former homes. They look like regular apartments and don’t have markers, but some of the most brilliant people in medicine lived behind those doors. After lunch, we explored the catacombs of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, one of the most interesting parts being the bones of plague victims. Then we went to the Museum of Vienna. Austria is another country that we didn’t seem to focus on in high school history classes, so I enjoyed learning more about Ottoman Empire’s influence on Austria and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. We also saw several city maps and models to see how much Vienna changed and grew in the last several hundred years. In the evening, we saw The Magic Flute! The story was light-hearted and fun, and it seems like Austrian women in stories can be just as dramatic as the women Shakespeare’s plays. Even though I don’t think that I’ve heard of The Magic Flute before Dr. Wasser mentioned it in the orientation classes, I was surprised to find that I recognized some of the music. Going to an “opera” was definitely a great experience!

Friday morning, we went to the Medical University of Vienna to learn more about medical education in Austria. With the formation of the European Union, the member countries are becoming more unified. For example, once someone finishes their medical education, they are free to practice in any EU country. The entrance exam system is used in India, as well, so I’ve heard of it before, but after we get the importance of having extracurricular activities, research and doing well during interviews drilled into our heads, the concept of just one test determining a person’s admission still seems foreign. We, then, visited the University of Vienna to see the courtyard lined with busts of distinguished professors and students. I never knew that people could be so concentrated in one university. To name a few: Doppler, Freud, Kaposi, and Landsteiner, who received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of blood groups. After lunch at a restaurant where the customer decides the price, we went to the Josephinum which houses anatomical wax models used for military surgeons in training. The models were very detailed and oriented towards learning, when they were in use, students could take them apart and look at organs from different angles. It was impressive that the models were still in the original cases made of Venetian glass and how current the artists tried to be when designing them, even if that meant giving one too many lymph nodes. Later, we went to the Federal Pathologic Anatomical Museum. Here there were different specimens and models of all sorts of diseases, from tuberculosis to tumors and a pick axe murder to a suicide attempt. There seemed to be mostly skin presentations of different diseases. The building used to be an insane asylum, which added another layer to the history of what we were learning.

Saturday, we went to the hospital in Mödling to see the cardiology unit. We were able to see the doctors look for a stenosis in a couple patients and they showed us all of the catheters and explained their functions in more detail. The doctors then showed us ultrasounds from just the day before. One patient’s tissues around the valve were thickening and one had a tumor on a valve. You know a case is good when a doctor says he’s going to publish it. It was also really great to talk to an actual patient! After having cake for lunch, we learned about the Austrian Red Cross from the CEO himself. The Austrian branch is so extensive and I didn’t realize how much emphasis the Red Cross puts on neutrality, even creating the Red Crescent and Red Crystal movement in Muslim and Jewish countries. Right after, we found out more about homeopathy. On the surface, it seems like an outdated, Middle Ages discipline, but after Saturday, I would be open to learning more about it. It is a hard concept to understand, because it goes against almost everything we learn in about biochemistry.

Sunday morning started with a lecture about Sigmund Freud in his former house, no less, of fifty years. Unfortunately there were only pictures of the couch. I’m not sure I have the right vocabulary to describe Freud, but his relationships were certainly interesting for someone who spent his life interpreting them. That afternoon, we went to the Natural History Museum. The place was huge. The tour guide only went through some of the exhibits and even then, only touched on the major pieces. The building itself was beautiful, too. It was a bit strange to see a T-rex skull next to the intricate crown molding and a wooly rhino beside marble stairs.

After only three weeks, I was not ready to head back home, but the final days in Vienna were fantastic.