definitely a very good environment to study in: not too much stress, no pressure.
although I definitely think that I work harder under pressure, it was very pleasant to feel so comfortable at the hospital - each supervisor was very keen on teaching, and you were more than welcome to ask lots of questions - while back home you would sometimes feel stupid when asking so many. You don't have much hierarchy in Sweden: even the student gets respect and you don't feel much tension between nurses, doctors etc.
I only took full-time rotations so I can't really compare theory / practice.
Emergency medicine: This rotation has definitely been the best one so far in my medical studies. I have been able to do so much by myself - taking patients alone, doing lots lots of sutures, taking blood samples, setting lines, taking ABG... much more than I did so far. It was quite busy there (4 weeks in Södersjukuset) that I felt a little bit "lost" at the beginning, but I got quite confident after a couple of days.
Surgery:
I spent 4 weeks in Huddinge hospital,
on the upper and lower GI sections. I thought I didn't like surgery
before, and I "forced" myself to take this rotation - but
now I changed my mind as I liked it a lot. My supervisor was very
understandable about what we already knew and what we expected -
though I had to fight a lot to get very involved when in the
operating room; I only made a couple of sutures and stood behind the
surgeon most of the time; while back home, senior doctors would be
more than happy to leave the OR before the end of the surgery and
would let the resident and the student finish it up themselves :)
I spent at least 50% of my days in the
OR.
Oto - Rhino - Laryngology:
Same here, thought I wouldn't enjoy the
rotation, but I eventually did. I used to find ENT a little bit
disgusting but well, I must admit that ir was pretty interesting to
combine medicine and surgery in a single specialty. I spent 2 weeks
on the throat section, 1 in the nose section, and one in the ear
section.
This rotation was in Huddinge again.
Quite useful to be able to make a full ENT clinical exam!
Internal medicine: A very good rotation to start with! 4
weeks at Södersjukhuset: 2 weeks cardiology, 2 weeks lung
disease.
very friendly supervisors and an
excellent atmosphere to learn.
I definitely enjoyed it!