This
week again was another busy one, especially considering we were in three different
cities within five days. On Monday we learned about the history of anesthesiology,
such that when nitrous oxide was first tested in 1845 by William Morton that it
did not work, but when Ether was used just a short time after it worked and was
then used in surgery. The next day we went to the Stoeckl Museum for the
History of Anesthesiology, which was fantastically set up. It was also very
cool to have Dr. Stoeckl himself give the tour of the museum that he had
personally founded. We had a lecture in the afternoon about “Medicine in the
West” where I learned, among other things, that the medical school in Salerno
chose the Galenic form of medicine over the Methodist form, which affected all
of the other medical schools in countries such as Italy in the future.
On
Wednesday we departed for Hannover. Once there, we went to the MHH (“M-ha-ha”),
the medical school in Hannover. This was one of my favorite visits of the
entire program thus far, I think mainly because we got the opportunity to meet
with not only a heart surgeon, but also some of her patients that have had
“artificial heart” LVADs put in. The doctor overall was very encouraging, and
even though I personally don’t want to go to medical school, she made me
seriously think about it through seeing how much she enjoyed doing what she
does. I can’t wait to be a part of medical development some time in the future,
hopefully helping to develop even better devices for patients like the ones at
this hospital. After that, we went to the Axolotl Rehabilitation Research
Center, where we learned from Dr. Reimers about the factors that allow
Axolotl’s to regenerate different parts of their body. She also showed us how
the research done on Axolotls is used to apply to human medicine and how they
are currently applying their research to mice. I enjoyed seeing the curiously
cute and amazingly regenerative Axolotls a lot. What I did not enjoy as much
was the spider room, in which there were free hanging spiders hanging
everywhere you looked, whose webs are used to apply to medicine as well for
wound healing. I wish we could have stayed longer in Hannover to explore it
more, but in the few time we were there I learned a lot and enjoyed every
minute of it.
The
next morning we departed for Norderney. After getting off of the ferry to the
island (on which we were able to see seals), we went straight to a bike rental
location. We got on the bikes and went to the mud flats, which are extremely unique
to the region. I have definitely never experienced anything like the mud flats
before, but being ankle deep in the mud was actually quite soothing. We also
got to learn about the mud flats from Mr. Rahmel, who showed us some of the
different species living there such as crabs and worms. The next day was
started with a bike tour of the island from Mr. Rahmel as well. Along with
seeing the absolute beauty of the island, we got to learn about different birds
that live there such as the one which travel the longest nonstop distance to
migrate out of any other bird in the world. After that, we went a health clinic
on the island, which works with patients through the island’s non-pollinated
air and temperate water through therapy in order to heal patients of
complications such as “burning out” and COPD. Presented with the data that
shows how and why the center actually works, it was intriguing to see how they
are able to help patients through simple therapy and relaxation. I can
definitely see why Norderney is a resort type of island where Germans go to
heal and rest, with it’s beautiful beaches, clean air, and laid back atmosphere
there is no way to not enjoy yourself there.
This
week (like the others) went by extremely fast due to being so busy, but
everything that we did was extremely worthwhile and I benefitted a lot from it.
I am definitely ready to be back in one location for more than two days though,
as travelling so much is exhausting.
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