This week started with a trip to the teaching hospital in Bonn. Stone and I witnessed a few nose tumor resections and the removal of a septum. The doctors were great to learn from and had bounds of knowledge. It was interesting to see the rate at which these doctors were performing their surgeries, especially when the surgeries would take a few hours in the United States. The doctor I followed primarily was explaining to me how for over one hundred years, the majority of research and papers written were done in German, but only over the past few decades have they been done in English. This resulted in many English-speaking (mostly American) doctors inventing new surgeries. The doctor told me that American doctors felt they had invented completely new surgeries and alternative ways of performing them, when in reality they were, to quote the doctor, “too lazy” to read through the German manuscripts to realize they were imitating surgeries already being performed and passing them as new, inventive surgeries.
On Wednesday, we travelled to Cologne and visited the Cathedral. The Cathedral was enormous and one of the most beautiful, ornate buildings I have ever seen. It was fantastic to see a building that took over six-hundred years to complete, surviving many generations and World War II bombings. Without a doubt, it was one of the most awe-inspiring experiences I have had.
The remainder of the week was consumed with History of Medicine Lectures. We learned about different ways people and animals can slow their metabolic rate and the history of the Nuremberg Trials, where many Nazi doctors and scientists were tried for their involvement in war crimes. What I found to be very interesting and something all nations and people must take heed of is that Germany takes full responsibility for its actions in World War II and for the concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which is the German term for “coping with the past.” The German people are self aware and feel the need to remind the world that these atrocities must never happen again.
We also took a trip to the Horst-Stoeckel Museum, an anesthesia museum here in Bonn. It was amazing to see the rapid growth anesthesia has seen over the last one hundred and fifty years. I found it interesting that many of the ways people used to receive anesthesia resulted in countless doctors and surgical teams being knocked out as a side product of gas escaping into the air.
This weekend, Robert and I traveled to Frankfurt. We explored the Cathedral and the city center while trying to find somewhere to buy a Germany football jersey. Saturday night we went to Commerzbank-Arena, the home to the Eintracht Frankfurt football team, to partake in a watch party with 10,000 other German soccer fans. Up until the final thirty seconds of extra time the German fans were disappointed and angry. The goal in the final thirty seconds was one of the best goals I’ve seen and resulted in the arena being filled by screams and thrown beers. Fans were hugging and kissing, knowing that had they not scored, their team would have been out of the running. If you have yet to see the goal, I highly recommend watching the replay because it was amazing! This was an unreal experience and paralleled the Super Bowl watch parties in America.
Until Rome,
Matthew
No comments:
Post a Comment