There and Back Again...

The funny thing about the Germany trip is that it felt like a dream as I was living it, and still feels like a dream as I try to remember the faces, places, and events I experienced through it. I feel like everything we did, everywhere we went, is starting to melt into one big glorious, colorful dream in my head. At first I found this a bit worrisome. Did everything I learn just float out of my head the second I left Europe? But then, as I talk to people about the trip, about international events, about health care, or about almost anything, I find myself incorporating the knowledge that I gained in Germany. I think that’s the best part about experiences like the History of Medicine program: it doesn’t feel like learning when you’re living it, but the knowledge that you gain carries a deeper understanding that is ingrained in you, whether you feel like you remember it or not.

Going to medical school next year, I’m so thankful for this deeper understanding of medicine and health care that I’ve gained through this trip. I went into this trip very uncertain of my views on “socialized” health care. I felt like its proponents and opponents had equally valid points, if those points were accurate, and I wasn’t sure how to take sides on the issue. But visiting the hospitals in Germany, learning about the medical care offered in Europe, the US, and third world countries, and talking to physicians like Dr. Kleistein, I felt like I was living a 20/20 episode where I got as many perspectives and experiences as I needed to at least start to take a well-informed stance on health care policy. I’m also finding myself more interested in the issue now that I understand it better, which, as I said, is perfectly timed as I enter medical school.

But of course, the knowledge that I gained isn’t limited to health care or medicine (although images of moulages of syphilis and small pox patients, anencephalic babies, and the mega colon flash through my mind just as vividly now as if I were standing in front of them). Having traveled around the country and abroad in similarly sized groups before, I went into this trip fully aware that a big part of the trip is the people you’re with. The country can give you culture and history, but it’s the people that make the memories. I absolutely loved our little group. I think any group that can survive a couple of nights living in the same room in a city like Prague must have been assembled by some divine will. We were remarkable in how we worked with one another, how we organized ourselves so that everyone could do what they wanted, how everyone took leadership without stepping on anyone’s toes, and how everyone was so willing to share, and I think all of this played into what I feel is the most important thing to gain from experiences like this: a deeper awareness of yourself and the world around you. I learned that the key to being comfortable around people, even those you’ve just met, is to be completely comfortable with yourself first. (Cliché, I know, but sometimes you have to re-learn lessons the Disney channel taught you years ago.) I learned that it’s important to laugh at yourself and know what you are, especially in another country where it is quite certain that you’ll make a fool of yourself more than once. I learned that, as beautiful as Germany is, as ingenious as its train system is, as old and peaceful and rich in culture as it is, I love, love, love, love America. I’m so proud of us for being the example that Europe follows in science and medicine. I love that even in terms of music and culture, we’re a favorite in Europe. Having been open to another culture, another society, I found that I love the American spirit; I love the American culture. It’s home, and I find myself being far more grateful for the life I’ve been given here than I’ve ever been before. I also learned that beer, when chosen correctly, isn’t half bad, but Viennese white whine is ridiculously delicious. I learned that even in a country like the Czech Republic, where it’s nearly impossible to find someone who speaks English or to decipher the hodgepodge of random letters and symbols that somehow make Czech words, everyone knows the words to Rihanna’s We Found Love. I have seen how effectively time can heal some of the worst wounds of history, but how the scars still remain and how people as removed from it all as the children of this generation still have to come to terms with it. I could continue for pages more, but I’ll spare you. There aren’t any words that can effectively summarize the full worth of the experiences I lived over this past winter break. I don’t even know if I’ve fully comprehended how valuable it all was. However, I can see the knowledge I gained popping up as I finish up college, through medical school and even through my medical profession. I hope to keep in touch with the amazing individuals that I met through this trip and I hope that this trip is available for generations of college students to come.

My German Love Affair

Miss you guys! :)

I've been dreading this blog for a while now. Not because I dislike the topic, but because it forces me to remember something so amazing and wonderful that has been and gone! If it wasn't made obvious by the previous blog posts, I enjoyed my time in Germany tremendously! Every single second and minute of my time there was enjoyed to the fullest, and I miss it so much. I definitely experienced a type of disappointment when I returned to the states. I wasn't one of those people, however, that spat at everything American once I came home, but I can confidently say I enjoy the European lifestyle much more. Even though I've been abroad before and have experienced the laid back yet active lifestyle of Europeans, I had never been so immersed in it until this trip. I think it partially had to do with the fact that I wasn't with my family and I also had more contact with the "natives" than I did before. I loved getting to know the other students on the trip, learning more about German culture, being immersed in the history of medicine, and being in gosh darn Europe! But while all those things were amazing, I think this trip impacted me most because of the change it caused in me.

With each passing day on the trip, I noticed my confidence and my sense of adventure growing. As a Biomedical Science major, it is SO easy to get wrapped up in the "right way" of doing things. Your path is determined for you the day you set foot in the classroom. Keep a high GPA. Shadow as many doctors as you can. Apply for professional school junior year. Graduate in four years. Go to professional school right after you graduate. All of these things are ingrained in your memory from the very first day. I'm not saying this is a bad thing because for many people, this works out very well for them. I feel like I was one of those people before I went on this study abroad. I didn't really allow myself to dream, I just followed the motions. I knew I had to take a year off from school (gasp) because I thought I wasn't graduating on time, when in actuality, I will be graduating in May. I was really nervous about my year off before I left for Germany, because I had NO idea what I was going to do. All of my friends in my major were already planning where they were going to live and how they were going to deal with the stress of medical school, dental school, etc. While I was twiddling my thumbs, freaking out inside because I was clueless as to what the future had in store for me. But one of the most valuable things I learned on this trip was that it doesn't matter how you get to where you want to be, it just matters that you get there. Eventually.

This trip has opened my eyes to a whole new world that I couldn't even fathom before. It seems so stupid to me that I was so worked up about taking a year off, when it is actually a blessing in disguise. I literally can do anything I want. Of course all I want to do is travel now because this study abroad definitely gave me the travel bug. I'm applying for internships in different cities in the U.S. and in cities in Europe as well. I'm anxious to get back to Europe and to actually get to live there for months at a time. It's so hard to explain how this trip had such an effect on me, but it definitely turned my life around. I'm more optimistic about my future more than ever, and I know eventually I will become a physical therapist if that's what I truly want to do. But for now, I think I'll enjoy living a more spontaneous life :)

This study abroad has truly been a life changing experience. I made life long friends, I learned more about a culture I knew nothing about, and have a completely new outlook on life. Now all of my friends are jealous of ME for having a year off! Something I never thought would happen. Every time someone asks me about my study abroad experience I can't help but smile and gush about all of the wonderful things I took from it. I am so thankful I was able to participate in this experience and will always be grateful for everything it has taught me.

Hopefully I'll be doing an internship in London in the fall (fingers crossed!) So expect a trip to Germany from me then! :)

Auf wiedersehen!

Back to Stateside Life

Having been back to the States for about a month and a half now, I can definitely say there is evidence that my perspectives have changed upon returning home.
First, as my lung condition has required me to have several biopsies taken and make various trips to the hospital in Houston for all sorts of tests, I have a new appreciation for being privileged to have health care.  Since I have just come from a place where the societal mentality is that universal healthcare is a moral obligation of its citizens to provide to one where it seems to be a free-for-all, I can only imagine what someone who has an illness like mine but no healthcare must be thinking.  In fact, if they're anything like me, they believe that it's just a chronic cough.  However, if they had the resources for a CT and some blood work, they would see that the problem is much more serious and that if they could get these tests they might at least be on the long road to recovery.  I feel like my insurance company must be kicking themselves every time a request for something I need comes in, and they probably do this because they are providing the care that I literally need to keep this from becoming something fatal.  Free enterprise is good, but I have a new understanding of why people believe some things ought to be universal and why anything less than this is unacceptable.  I also have an appreciation for reasonable regulation.

Well, I did it.  I made the return trip to Whataburger and ordered the Triple Meat Triple Cheese.  A bad I idea?  Undoubtedly.  Delicious?  Absolutely.  Somewhere between balling up my greasing sandwich paper and experiencing what I can only describe as my body's unequivocal rejection of the lipid-loaded delicacies did I look around and notice there was a high concentration of obese people around me.  Even in Houston when I make my trips to the hospital:  obesity.  It's a plague that seems to be fueled by the way we get from one place to another.  Being the individualistic culture that we are, I've noticed how everyone has a car.  Well, just about everyone.  We are very individualistic (not that our European friends don't have some of this as well).  But more than that, we don't put much thought into our public transportation.  Perhaps its geographically inconceivable when you consider the sprawled-out nature of Houston and other American cities.  All of this makes for less walking as their would be in a major European city, where demographics are more dense.  Although, Berlin seems rather large and it had a fantastic train system.  Point being, we aren't a very "fit" nation, and our current method of city planning and lifestyle does not lend itself towards burning calories.

On the note of transportation: Texas.  Trucks.  BIG trucks.  Giant wheels.  Let's be real.  We waste a ton of gasoline on trucks and SUVs that we often don't need.  We complain when prices go up, but nobody's behavior is changing.  It's a reality I'm not certain people consider around here.  We don't live in a place where space is an issue, where we've got everything the world has to offer.  By the way we live our lives (I've noticed our lack of recycling) we seem as a culture to be lacking in gratitude.  Since I've been to places where conservation is a legitimate issue, I think I'm just more aware of how our society can improve in this area.  I don't mean to play the "America is evil and Europe is enlightened" game, but we do have a few things to learn.

America is typically one of the more outwardly religious nations in the world, along with Russia and a few others.  However, in comparison to Europe, College Station might as well be a monastery.  I do have an appreciation for a spiritual pespective, and feel it is something valuable in itself when not entrenched in unrelated political dogmas.  The churches in Europe felt a little empty and a bit like relics of a past that seems more like a shadow of its former self.

There's been a high dosage of classic A&M conservatisim since settling back into campus.  While I have an appreciation for much of what these people believe and say, I also wonder how how many of them have come to these conclusions after exposure to a number of radically different opinions.  I think it is better to know why you believe something rather than simply what you believe.  In this way, reason tempers extremes and lays a foundation for rational philosophical ideas.  Who says having some diffrerent people around will make us unfriendly anarchistic atheists?  I think that's a perspective shared by some here, and I think an overhaul might be good for the soul of campus.  I would like to see myself and the people around me challenged by diverse relationships as much as they are by their education, even if they don't agree with the opinions to which they are exposed.  Again: to learn from others, engage them, and then understand one's reasoning--this seems wise.

I'm glad to be home, and despite the stark differences between here and Germany, I am happy to find myself where I am.  I know that I have brought back something quite valuable.  However, I think it may take a bit longer to fully unravel all of what I've truly learned on the other side of the Atlantic.

5,300 Miles, a Handful of Beautiful People and an Experience Worth a Million

Having traveled abroad before, I had an idea of what I was in for when I decided to study abroad in Germany, but, looking back, my experience in Germany, Prague, and Austria was 100% unique from my experience in Spain. I can’t exactly pinpoint what it was that made it so different, but
it just was. I chose to go to Germany for the world experience and the opportunity for personal growth, which I obtained and took advantage of. I think what was so wonderful about my experience was the context. I got to spend every day with people who get me (well better than most people in the general population) and these people are interested in the same things I am. Even when interests differed among our group and the people we interacted with, I was intrigued by new ways of thinking and new ideas. I think this is what I loved the most. A world and a people that is a little more open, accepting, and overall interested in things.

I love Texas, and it will always be my home, where I am from, no matter where my journey of life may take me. My life growing up in small town America and my education at Texas A&M are part of me forever. Lord knows this accent gives me away anyways. That said, my views of Texas, College Station and the US did not really change upon returning home, but I guess I never let myself think that everything American was necessarily perfect, correct, or the absolute only
way to do things. I am well aware of the close-mindedness of some Texans and Americans, but I do not let that drown out the other people more like myself, who want to see different perspectives and ideas. I am a person interested in things, all sorts of things, even just finding out what interests other people. I always knew there was more to the world, including places equally (or even more) beautiful, comfortable, and great as well as wonderful people with
different experiences and different thoughts and ideas from my own. My trip to Germany was a way for me to get out there and experience all these things I knew existed, but knew very little about. The need to become a better world citizen is now apparent to me, and I am working on that. My favorite thing about Germany and perhaps Europe in general is that it is more comfortable in that people are more accepting of others. Sometimes I feel like my appearance is being constantly judged by someone here or maybe we just tend to be more self-conscious around people we know. Another thing I really linked is that people get out more. The go meet up for a beer, go get coffee, go read, go listen to music. I feel like Americans tend to sit at home, or each other’s houses, too much. We need to get out and meet people. Our lives would be so much more intriguing and we could find out so much more cool stuff about the world, even if it’s only our little 40-square-miles-of-College-Station world.

When I think about myself and my life in the future, I definitely see the horses in the pasture outside my bedroom window, and the closet filled with an obnoxious number of pairs of handmade cowboy boots, but now, more than ever, I feel that I need to travel and learn and get out in the world outside of my little one. I would love to spend a period of my life somewhere away from my little world filled with dirt roads and diesel trucks. I hope and pray that I can have
opportunities in my career or life in general that allow me world experiences so that I can make a bigger difference in my world and the lives of others near and far.

Body Parts and Crazy People [written Friday, January 13]

Did you know that all the hair (ALL the hair) on the anatomical wax models in the Josephinum was from real people? This was a bit of the vital knowledge that we gained today while walking through the extensive wax model collection that was once used in medical schools to help teach medical students. We saw an incredibly detailed construction of the lymph system (though there were too many lymph nodes) and also a pregnant lady called Venus whose wax uterus had a translucent window through which you could see her early-stage baby. There were also a number of in utero models of birth complications like babies coming out the wrong way, delivery of twins, delivering aborted babies, etc. After the Josephinum, we visited the Narrenturm, a big cylindrical grey brick building that looked absolutely picturesque against the ever-grey sky, especially as it loomed up from behind a black skeleton of a tree with a carpet of lush green grass stretching out before it, now lightly dusted with the newly fallen snow. ‘Twas beautiful. Anyway, in this building where lunatics (from the Latin, luna, lunae, for moon) were previously housed, is now stored an entire museum of pathological body preserves and moulages. We saw an entire assortment of syphilis complications, adenomas, breast cancers, traumatic skull wounds, etc.

The rest of the day was used for a fair bit of relaxing. We found a coffee shop where I ordered a banana hot chocolate (It sounds weird, but it was delicious.) and then spent about two hours writing. We then wandered the streets of Vienna, looking for somewhere to eat dinner. One thing that I can’t seem to understand about Germany and now Austria is why on earth everything shuts down at like 6:00pm. It’s dark, to be sure, but even restaurants and streets that seem to be busy shopping areas become completely desolate so early in the evening. And they don’t open that early either. It was especially frustrating tonight, but even at an economical level, how on earth do stores make money here if their business hours only span such a small window of the day? Anyway, we found a Chinese restaurant and I bought dumplings. Yum. And then, following a bit more wandering, we ended up back in the Hotel Deutschmeister, where I am comfortably concluding the documentation of yet another wonderful day in Europe. Only two days left. I’m going to pretend like I didn’t just realize that.

Viennese Cake, Flying Saucers, and Catacombs [written Thursday, January 12]

It’s absolutely beautiful in Vienna. The sun is shining across my paper as I’m sitting in front of the St. Stephens Cathedral nibbling at my Demel Cleopatretort cake made with raspberry jam. The weather is chilly, my cake is classy, and writing away on the cold granite bench as busy tourists and blue-blood natives scurry by with their ritzy-store shopping bags is making me feel quite cultured. I’m waiting for our tour of the St. Stephens Cathedral and its catacombs. The word ‘catacombs’ makes Edgar Allen Poe and The Cask of Amontillado come to mind. I’m hoping the catacombs will be Poe-style—cold, damp, and creepy. If I were on the St. Stephens Cathedral Catacombs Preservation Committee, I’d also recommend leaving a few old bones here and there to give tourists the full effect.

Today morning, we had an extensive tour of the city. It’s winding, narrow streets and the wall of buildings that line them remind me of Berlin and Bonn and all the German cities we’ve visited, but it’s somehow closer here, older, maybe. We snuck through a shopping mall to get a spectacular view of the St. Stephens Cathedral from about nine floors up. From here, one side of the Cathedral’s tiled mosaic roof with its double-headed eagle, symbolic of the past rulers of Austria was very easy to see. After the tour and lunch, we walked around Stephansplatz, stopping to listen to a guy playing a “Hang,” a round metal instrument that looks something like the stereotypical UFO flying disk with evenly spaced dents along the side, and walking through a German bookstore, which seemed rather small at first but then, after stumbling up one staircase and then the next that went both up and below the ground, it was evident that its book collection was probably more extensive than the average Barnes and Nobles’. We then found our way to Demel’s chocolate shop where I bought a case of marmalade for home and my wonderful slice of Cleopatretort cake. (It tastes divine, by the way.) The group has gathered. To the catacombs!

Of Kidneys and Salamanders [written Wednesday, January 11]

Today was wonderfully jam-packed with knowledge. We were greeted at the MHH by Dr. Kielstein who first gave us the doctor’s perspective into living and working with a social health care system. He told us about all the hidden drawbacks of Germany’s health care system, that, at first look, looks so appealing. Yes, for 14.5% of an individual’s income, their health care, all their treatments and medications, are paid for, but physicians’ budgets for prescribing medications and treatments are restricted, there’s a growing increase in the number of things that are not covered by the state insurance, and all this creates a push for doctors to do unnecessary procedures and make scarier diagnoses so that they can get more money and prescribe more treatments. Dr. Kielstein also discussed his view of palliative care: how people have attached to it a stigma of giving up and allowing the patient to die, how patients and family see it simply as a way for saving money, and how the fundamental concept of the practice is simply to do everything that is medically prudent but not that is medically possible because that only prolongs medical suffering. Dr. Kielstein then gave us an incredibly thorough tour through the dialysis ward, explaining the fundamentals of how dialysis actually works. The first dialysis procedure was apparently tried on a dog, and a sausage casing was what was first used as the semipermeable membrane. Though humans have 6-7 liters of blood and the dialysis machines can process 0.5 liters/min, during a typical visit, a patient must stay for over 5 hours for toxins to be removed from not only the blood, but also from tissue. This was just a taste of the vast amounts of knowledge Dr. Kielstein shared with us, and I frantically tried to absorb every bit of it before it was time for an incredibly filling lunch and our visit to the Axolotl Research Center. Axolotl salamanders are apparently excellent model organisms to study regenerative medicine because they have super fast wound healing and their cells have stem cell properties for dedifferentiation, proliferation, and redifferentiation and pattern formation. The salamanders themselves looked like miniature versions of the dragon from the movie How to Train Your Dragon and acted like little amphibious dogs, recognizing and responding to their scientist caretakers. We also went into the room where the silk spiders were kept, and while seeing the large spiders dotting the large curtain-like webs hanging from the ceiling of the room was a bit out of my comfort zone, they seemed like quite docile creatures. It’s amazing to see how science, after struggling to find the best way to advance medical technology, has finally admitted that nature’s already found ways to do it best. ‘Tis quite humbling.

On the road to Otto Bock. [written Monday, January 9]

We’re traveling to the Otto Bock manufacturing plant today. It’s a train and a bus ride away from Berlin to get to Duderstadt. We’re currently on the bus driving through the German countryside, flanked on either side by stick-straight trees—birches, oaks, firs—that seem to shoot for the sky despite the steep climb of the hills. The hills, the hills, coated with layers of red decaying foliage, ferns hugging the base of the trees and the moss-covered boulders as they peer out here and there like ancient ruins, echoing the solemnity of the grey sky and the quiet countryside. True beauty, true Europe, quiet and smaller somehow. Despite the great expanse of land, the gingerbread houses with their wooden trims and there tiled sloping rooves simply dot the land, as unobtrusively as their matchbox cars that scuttle around like little bugs, hurrying out of site. It’s so green here, green and grey, sad and beautiful. I like the gloom; it’s somehow calming, somehow peaceful, and yet somehow subdued, like the hush that falls over the sea after a storm, purposefully masking the memories of its violent and tumultuous past. End. We’re almost there.

Willkommen 2012! [written Tuesday, January 3]

The Fest Mile was magical! I felt like Penelope in the movie Penelope entering a glowing magical world filled with carnival lights, music, beer, and meat products cooked to perfection over an open flame. I tried a Berlin Pilsner and wasn’t too impressed, but the meat product I selected was this steak on a hamburger bun, and it was incredible. We tried to push our way toward the Brandenburg Gate, but the crowd was far too packed, and we resorted to standing in front of the big screen behind the Ferris wheel, waiting for the New Year to come listening to a strange collection of German and American music. Leaving the Fest Mile was an adventure in itself. The streets of Berlin looked and sounded like a war zone as sporadic fireworks went off at street corners and the unpredictable fire crackers were set off within a couple of feet distance from us. It was smoky and loud and absolutely surreal in all the chaos and the continuing festivities.

For all the noise and tumult of the night before, New Year’s Day opened with the quiet grey solemnity that I’m becoming accustomed to seeing in Germany. Danielle and I explored the city on foot, starting in the cemetery across the street from the Hotel Alex and continuing to the Brandenburg Gate (that wasn’t as glorious as it probably should have been amidst the tear down of the stage and all the equipment from the night before), the Holocaust memorial, and wandering down Leipziger Strasse, then Freidrichestrasse, then a few other streets until we found ourselves eating currywurst in front of the Berliner Dom. After making sure to hunt down crepes, we spent the rest of the evening following bursts of firework shows that took place at the most random places in the city: street corners, apartment roof tops, etc. Overall, I couldn’t have imagined a New Year’s Day spent better: exploring Berlin at one’s leisure, taking time to take in the city and not just its big tourist attractions, all of which was made even more meaningful when the tour of the city yesterday explained each of our discoveries.

We also did laundry! And while that would never warrant an exclamation mark back home, here, where the chances of using bleach on your clothes instead of detergent is substantially high and the concept of dryers running for only 5 minutes per 70 euro cent payment has never occurred to you, it is a big deal to do laundry successfully. And while we were not completely successful in washing and drying our clothes (after the driers failed us, we had to dry our clothes by hanging them on every piece of furniture available in our rooms), we did meet Max, Sebastian, and Thor, musicians from Germany, New Zealand, and Norway, respectively, who were in town to play at the Philharmonie on Thursday. It was the first time we’ve really spoken to people outside of our group, and it was interesting to gain the perspective of other people traveling through Berlin. It would be really neat to be able to attend the concert on Thursday. I shall keep my fingers crossed!

Walking on History…but not in a disrespectful way [written on Friday, December 30]

Cologne! Cologne! So much history! The cathedral was one thing, with its construction starting from way back in the 13th century and its golden encasement of the skulls of the three wise men, but along with the ancient Roman artifacts that were found just a few feet below the ground—grand mosaics, glass, regal tomb stones—it was all completely fascinating. I love Cologne, not only for its history but also for the experience we had simply wandering its streets during our free time today. We bought gelato, I bought Farina 1709 cologne (cologne from Cologne!), and then we spent about 20 minutes listening to a church service in the cathedral. It’s so rare that on these trips you have time to stop being such a tourist, stop trying to see and do everything, and simply pause to take it all in. We also visited the Elde Haus in Cologne, which took a much more somber tone than the excitement of the rest of the day. It was a bit spooky to see the writings of prisoners on the walls of the Gestapo headquarters’ cells. I find myself having to actively open up to the history; it all just seems so unreal how much suffering people went through and how much suffering one human could inflict on another.

Tomorrow we leave Bonn for Berlin and 2011 for 2012. Looking forward to the Fest Mile!

University Clinics and Tour of Bonn [written Wednesday, December 28]

We made it to the bus station on time today morning! This probably isn’t such a remarkable thing for everyone else in the group, but I’m completely baffled by the train system. All I know is that the blue stop will take me to a place where I can find some ATMs, which is useful information considering that I haven’t been able to withdraw money yet.

I saw a rectal cancer removal surgery today at the University Clinics. The operating room procedure was very similar to what I’ve seen in the operating rooms in the US, except that the iodine here is an unusually bright traffic-cone orange. The atmosphere here though was far more relaxed, and the anesthesiologist I was shadowing was very open to teaching. She was especially excited to point out a vial of propofol in her drug cabinet and explain its notoriety as the drug that killed Michael Jackson. Dr. Rainer’s tour of Bonn was quite a walk but gave us the chance to experience the grey, quiet, calmness of Bonn in greater depth. It was especially exciting to visit the excavated site of an ancient Roman villa, complete with a bath and a hypocaust system for heating the water. It’s remarkable how much history is under our feet even as we simply walk around the city.

Wait…I’m in Germany?? [written Tuesday, December 27]

It’s strange how you can be in a completely different country, on the other side of the world and feel like everything is exactly the same. As we drove from the airport today to the AIB dorms, the German countryside reminded me quite a bit of the Texas countryside that lines highway 21 on the way from San Marcos to College Station. No joke. It was greener, for sure, but something about the familiar construction of the highway with its intermittent exits and its signs and the land, empty for the most part, but speckled here and there with houses made it all seem not so foreign…or perhaps this is still my disbelief at actually being in Germany. I don’t think I’ve fully processed it yet.

After setting up shop in our AIB dorm rooms, we walked down to the river (the Rhine, that is). It is somehow incredibly peaceful here—quiet and calm. People were running, biking, walking their dogs along the river, and we took a few semi-awkward pictures of ourselves since we were too afraid to venture some German in requesting a passer-by to do it for us.

Right now, I’m all settled in our room after a grand dinner of jagerschnitzel and beer. That’s right, beer. I’ve never liked beer, but it wasn’t so bad. Next time I will have to try a dunkel.

Tomorrow, we go to the University Clinics. Day 1 in Germany, concluded.

Vienna [1/13-1/15]

It was hard to get out of bed this Friday (the thirteenth!), but I managed it, and it was very worth it! Our first adventure on this day was to the Vienna Medical School. We had a presentation that basically compared medical schools in the US and Austria. We were joined by a student, Robert, who joined us and gave us additional input from the student perspective. We got to go to the Josephinium and see the extensive collection of wax models, including the obstetric models. The attention to detail on these wax models was unreal. They looked so real! They would be great for a student’s individual study or tutoring and it seems they are still true to their purpose as our group of pre-med students learned from them! The figures were true to size if not bigger, and intricately prepared. They were in their original casings of Venetian class, an impressive feat indeed! We got lunch at a unique restaurant that offered delicious Indian food and had an interesting business model based on a pay-as-you-like principle. We got to take a tour of the University’s main campus. It had a beautiful courtyard and busts of many important figures of academia! We made our way to the Narrenturm, which was at one time an insane asylum. This looming circular building has such an interesting appearance and really sort of emphasizes the fact that patients there were not at all treated like the rest of society. The building now houses the Federal Pathologic-anatomical museum which has more than is fair share of medical moulages and preparations of actual pathologies. I had actually hoped for more history of the Narrenturm as an asylum-- perhaps some case studies--but I really enjoyed the Museum tour. We headed out to a coffee shop. I had some of the richest hot chocolate that the world has probably ever seen and we had a little journal writing party. I headed out with Shelby, Chris, and Justin and we wandered toward Stephansplatz for a little shopping. We went into a store that contained the most chocolate I have ever seen in one place. We had dinner at Restaurant Führich and I give it five stars! We traversed the city for gelato; we grabbed a U-bahn toward the Danube and followed the lights to the water. We passed the St. Francis of Assisi church in Mexikoplatz. It’s not the most historical of churches, as some brief research tells me it’s only about a century old, but it is beautiful and it looks like a castle! Perfected by the snow falling and lights shining up on it! Finally, we made it to the river. Guten tag of medical school and museum adventures, guten abend of exploring the city!  January the 14th was a real mixtape! We took a train to Mödling where we visited the hospital’s heart station. We were introduced to many materials and oriented to imaging screens so that we could better understand what was going on, what the images should look like, and the problems that we would be seeing. We saw a heart catheterization via the femoral artery; it was very visible on the imaging screen as it snaked up into the heart. I learned a lot I did not know about catheters, wires, shunts, saline balloons, and other tools of the trade. We got to see an ultrasound of Zach’s heart and then some replay of some pretty dramatically abnormal ultrasounds. Later we got to visit the home of Dr. Frass, a homeopath and an MD. But first, Dr. Kerschbaum of the Austrian Red Cross presented to us an overview of Red Cross world involvement and philosophy. Onto the lecture on homeopathy, I strove to keep an open mind. It is important to understand the philosophy behind alternative medicine, and it was interesting how quickly his presentation told me that my assumptions about homeopathy were pretty much all wrong. I thought it was a nutrition-based doctrine; I thought it was like like eat some yogurt, take some vitamin C, and you’ll feel much better. In fact, homeopathy seeks to use a single remedy to treat all the whole patient, guided by the law of similars and prepared by serial dilutions and vigorous shaking. Most of it is based on case studies and the science that my “western mind” craves to back it up was scarce. However, the experience has served to at the very least broaden my definition of what some in our society considers to be Heath and/or Medicine. The way I see it, if it helps some people get over some illnesses or discomforts and it isn’t hurting anyone, I am all for it. However, it’s not an area of practice that I would like to be a part of. This night we had our first farewell dinner at an Austrian Restaurant where we at a long table in a wine cellar. The food, wine, friends, and intriguing conversations made this one of my favorite evenings. After we got back to the hotel, a group of us changed and headed back out to go dance (yayyy!) at a club that Robert suggested. It was called Volksgarten. We had a lot of fun finding it, and then dancing (part of) the night away! Note to future students: it is a very NICE club, so dress up! The 15th of January was absolutely incredible. We had lecture in Freud’s house!! THE SIGMUND FREUD HOUSE! After our lecture, we had a guided tour of the house, where he lived and had his practice. One very cool thing: his waiting room was intact. So many patients that we’ve read about sat in there! The museum was put together by his daughter, and one very unique contribution was home videos of the Freud family. I really enjoyed this experience. Our next stop was the Natural Historical Museum of Vienna and I enjoyed walking through their collections. Highlights include: the dinosaur room and the giant turtle skeleton, much of the zoological taxidermy, and the butterfly room. Then we went to our (really, it’s the last one this time) farewell dinner. Many of us enjoyed wienershnitzel, and we all sang a rather rousing rendition of Happy Birthday to Sophie! This was a fun night and a night for many thank you’s. I am so thankful that I was able to be a part of this trip and for each and every person in our group and each person who crossed our path to teach us, lead us, help us, or feed us!