Groβe Post Part II

Wien (July 25, 2010)
Looking back over the past week in Vienna, my first thoughts are of how hot it was there. It's been pretty warm for most of the trip, but Vienna seemed particularly steamy. Of course, the heat hasn't been as bad as it is in Texas right now, but without air conditioning, any room can get a little stuffy. Ceiling fans aren't popular either. Earlier in July the air conditioning on the Deutsche Bahn (German train system) went out and people were passing out. Since that weekend, the trains have been quite comfortable but most other places like restaurants, museums and hotel rooms can be unpleasant at times.
Out of all the cities we've been to so far, Vienna seems the most like image of Europe I have in my head. It's not so much a modern Europe image, but one of royalty, palaces, and horse drawn carriages, basically Cinderella. I guess this observation comes mostly from our first city tour which included seeing the Hapsburg palace and Lippizans. There were also some really neat medical aspects of this excursion. We went to the AKH, the second largest hospital in the world. I wasn't sure where the hospital began and the city stopped! The hospital had its own subway stop, and at first glance the interior looked like an airport or shopping mall. There we had a little lecture on how the medical school application process works in Europe—students take a test after high school for admission and go straight into a six year program. At this point in my education, I wish I lived in Europe. Then I would already be in! I particularly enjoyed the tour of the Narrenturm, the old psychiatric ward of the AKH. It was built with circular hallways so patients were less likely to get lost and now holds an anatomy collection on one of the floors. The halls are lined with moulages, wax models of diseases, and a few of the old patient rooms were open to us to see lung and skull specimens. Most of the lungs had been affected by tuberculosis or black lung. Other highlights of our trip to Vienna were the Sigmund Freud house/museum and the operetta, Die Fledermaus.

Praha (July 25, 2010)
I've always heard that Prague is the most beautiful cities in Europe, so I was so excited to get to go, even if it was only for a day. Once we arrived in the train station, I realized that the picturesque Prague image I had in my mind didn't apply to the train station. The station was undergoing renovation and nothing was labeled very well. If there were signs, they were in Czech, a language completely indecipherable to me. By the time we exchanged money for Czech kroners and bought transport passes, it was pouring. It took a while for us to figure out the bus system with the rain at night, so we took a taxi to our hostel, Sir Toby's.
Sir Toby's was so homey! The workers at the front desk gave us a little orientation as soon as we got there, and the breakfast buffet in the morning was wonderful. The rooms had big wooden doors, old portraits adorned the walls. Besides sharing a room with nine other people, I would have much rather gone there than any hotel. Maybe that explains why there were so many people there with infants. It was a great hostel, and should definitely be considered by future students!
We didn't have a strict agenda for our day in Prague. After breakfast and a tram ride, we started our own walking tour of the historic area of Prague. We began at the Czech Senate and then continued to the Prague Castle. The rain made Prague so much cooler than Vienna was, so wandering around wasn't too bad. We walked around the older parts and the newer districts of Prague while taking plenty of touristy pictures with the St. Charles Bridge in the background along the way. Prague was the first city that I noticed art vendors on the street. One of the other girls and I browsed all of the little stands. I bought one little painting, but I wish I had bought a couple more.
Prague was one of the prettiest cities we've visited. There wasn't litter everywhere, and none of the buildings near the historical area had been commercialized. The language was so different and some of the areas looked very Eastern European. After this day in Prague, I'm really excited to head to Berlin in a week to get a better picture of the contrast between the East and West.

Surgeries in Bonn (July 26, 2010)
Today was a great day! We weren't able to observe any surgeries other than a horse castration in Hannover, so Nils arranged for us to have the whole morning to observe at the University Hospital in Bonn. Our day started early, so James, our host dad, drove us to the train station as he usually does on our early mornings.
Not knowing exactly what we would be seeing, we changed into scrubs and green clogs. As we waited to be separated into different operating rooms, we drank coffee in the lounge. Dr. Wasser, Michael, and I were in the same operating room. When we walked in the surgeons were already operating on a man's leg. He had been in a motorcycle accident one year earlier and was having a muscle graft from his calf wrapped around his leg. He had a huge scar on his thigh, surely from the same accident. After this surgery was over, we still had time to see another one, from beginning the end. We saw the patient talking with the anesthesiologist, a young doctor struggling with intubation, and the initial incision. The patient had fallen a few days earlier and fractured her wrist. The surgeons were putting in a metal plate to help the wrist heal faster. The procedure required intra-operative x-rays, so everyone in the room wore a lead smock. An interesting fact we learned about this procedure was that most German patients have a second operation done to take out the plate because it is covered by the insurance plan that the state provides.
All of the surgeons and medical staff were so welcoming and eager to explain and answer questions. Several of the staff asked if we would be there all week; I wish we could have gone every morning that week. It also would have been so interesting to see those patients from beginning to end.