Week Four: Switzerland is the best country, change my mind.

My cousin Frederik and his wife Tina

OUR LAST FULL WEEK IN BONN!! I honestly don't understand how we got to this point. My morning after the weekend had an early start since our flight was canceled and we had to reschedule for 8:00 am monday morning. It was an early morning and stressful with a delayed flight and train back from Dusseldorf which ended in us running from the tram station all the way to Dr.Fajt's class with our luggage from our week in Norderney and weekend in Spain in tow. After a few hours of class and learning about clinical trials for different drugs, we had the afternoon free and I arranged to meet my cousin in Koblenz (where him and his wife live) for the night. I hopped on the train after class and when I got to the train station, him and his wife were waiting at the platform for me and honestly it was so nice to see family and be toted around for the evening with people who know the area and speak the language. We had dinner at a German restaurant and just strolled along the town, it was cool to see the place where the two rivers met. At the end of the night they offered to drive me back to Bonn so I didn't have to take the train, but I insisted I was fine and they walked me back to my train and waved goodbye as the train pulled away. I was honestly so sad that it was my last time seeing them on this trip.

The next day it was group B's turn to observe surgeries for the day. I was so excited because I hadn't had a chance to observe surgeries since the summer after my freshman year of college. I had an internship with an orthopedic surgeon and got to shadow both the anesthesiologist and surgeon, seeing everything from rotator cuff repairs, knee replacements, hip replacements, with the coolest being a hand reconstruction. Even though I loved orthopedics, since I had a whole summer of shadowing in this department and probably saw an upwards of 100 surgeries, I was very glad to be placed in the maxiofacial unit. When we arrived the chief anesthesiologist helped us grab scrubs and handed me off to another anesthesiologist who was just intubating a patient who was to undergo a removal of a portion of her jaw that was cancerous, followed by a reconstruction of the jaw and skin flaps to not leave the entire bone exposed. In the beginning of the operation, the surgeons were simply operating through this patient's moth and were able to saw out portions of her jaw with the only incision being her gums. But then I guess they came to a part of the surgery where they needed better visibility to the back of the patient's mouth so they made a large incision in the patient's cheek which exposed the back o f her mouth and jaw which was incredible to see. The reconstruction was equally cool as they took different portions of healthy jaw to help fill in the holes they left behind. The skin flaps that they created from the lining of her cheek were incredible to watch. After everything was in place, they must have did about 100 sutures that alone took an hour and a half. It was a neat and unique surgery to watch from just observing the surgeons, but also getting to talk with the anesthesiologists was a whole new perspective and I loved seeing them in action. I was informed in the beginning by the anesthesiologist who was mainly communicating with me that this was going to be a hard surgery because of the patients age and naturally low blood pressure. At multiple points in the surgery, the patients blood pressure would spike and then bottom out. The anesthesiologists handled it super well, but you could tell they were stressed and one mentioned they were worried about the patient stroking out. The patient's blood pressure never stabilized throughout the surgery but they were able to manage it with medicine. However since the surgery was stressful on the patient, it took them about 45 minutes of sternal rubs and pushing medicines to get the patient to come out of the anesthesia. The next patient that was brought in just needed a procedure rather than a surgery. The doctors, while they obviously wore gloves, didn't scrub in even though the patient was under to get their jaw wired shut.
The coolest part of this experience was getting to talk with the anesthesiologists who see so many different types of surgeries. I loved the two I was with, they took me on their coffee and lunch breaks and got me lunch, and wanted to know all about the medical system in America. One of the anesthesiologists just entered her residency and was telling me all about medical school in Germany. She has been out of school for a month and she seemed to handle the stressful surgery mainly by herself which was super impressive.

Another highlight of the week was the Cologne Zoo. I personally have never enjoyed zoos too much, they typically make me slightly angry because their purpose is to display these animals and some of the animal enclosures are much too small for the animals and the purpose of capturing these animals has nothing to do with conservation. With that being said I tried to enjoy the zoo, and meeting the elephant keepers who seemed to care a grate deal for the animals they cared for made me feel better. It was so neat getting to walk into the elephant enclosure and have the elephants walk right up to the gate.

Not pictured: the sheer amount of sweat 

Narnia or interlaken not too sure

Over the weekend we made plans to travel to Switzerland and I was honestly so pumped. When coming on this study aborad for the summer, it was the one place that I wanted to see before leaving europe and returning home. The best way to describe Switzerland was walking through the wardrobe and stumbling into Narnia. It was breathtaking and the glacial lakes looked like someone had filled them with Gatorade. The weekend was so fun, and after taking an over night train, we arrived and spent the morning exploring interlaken. In the afternoon we had booked spots to go paragliding. THIS WAS ONE OF THE COOLEST THINGS THAT I'VE EVER DONE!! It was beautiful and getting to see the scenery from above was just icing on top of the cake. For thirty minutes it felt like I was flying and I couldn't be happier about it. They next day, I somehow convinced the group to go hiking, and the views during that hike were so beautifyl. I didn't realize that the hike was a six mile hike straight up the mountain with super steep switchbacks, but somehow we made it to the top, where we spent a few hours just enjoying the view and rejocing in the victory of finishing that hike.

Other Highlights of Interlaken:
-The fondue
-Cute hostel with lots of fun backpackers
-Swiss chocolate
-Making dinner at the Hostel w/ my pals (thanks Megyn)

If you take anything away from this, everyone should go to Switzerland, even though some say it is expensive, it is worth every penny and I will be back very soon!!

-Arianna Lehuquet