Exchange Report

Exchange report - incoming students

Home university:

Universidade de Lisboa

Study programme:

Dentistry

Exchange programme:

Erasmus

Semester:

Spring semester 2012/2013

Name:	Ana Filipa Correia Gonçalves
Email address:	afgoncalves.89@gmail.com

Arrival and registration

I didnt had the chance of going to the introduction day because my exchange only started some weeks later.

It was dificult to find the students health centre to do the MRSA test because no one seemed to know where it was (refering to Huddinge campus), but there the reception and other professionals did excelent job)

Acommendation

I got a student room at Jagargatan 20. It was better than expected in terms of general environment, but the rooms are small, i already knew that when i applied.

At the begining we had several problems with some KI exchange students that didnt cleaned their dishes, but after they left, everything was fina at the kitchen.

The cost is very good, the location as well.

Leisure time and social activities

I participated on campus Huddinge friday afternoon parties at dentistry pub, it was nice! Global friends had every week amazing activities for us, but i only had the opportunity to participate on their bowling session. The international students department from Dentistry Student's Union created a group to inform about activities, and i participated on most of them, specialy Narmina B. was awesome, very kind and helpful. I made swedish friends yes, specially from my dentistry class group.

Pre-departure

The exchange information provided by KI was very helpful! My university didn´t help so much as KI.

I've chosen KI because, between the two options Dentistry Lisbon had (Sweden or Belgium), i thought Sweden and KI had the best dentistry program, with better clinical rotations organization and better resources that allowed me to work on my thesis (amazing Library!)

Courses during the exchange period

ETL002 : Child and Adolescent Dentistry - Odontology

I wasnt so lucky like my other portuguese colleagues, i didnt had the opportunity to train procedures that i would like to had trained. Most of my patients were adolescents, then it wasnt very challenging to manage their behavior, o understand it's easier for a foreign student to only deal with teenagers in CAD, but i didnt had the opportunity of train behavioral management and that its not the ideal. The teachers and reception were very nice, always trying to get me more patients, a lot of mine kept insisting on skipping sessions. The reflection session before starting work was always very useful!

ETL001 : Comprehensive Care - with subject specific courses

I loved the Adult´s Clinical Rotations. I trained almost all the procedures i wanted to train, and the teachers and receptionist were absolutely helpful. The working conditions were impeccable, and the patients were motivated with the treatments i provided. The dental nurses sometimes insisted on turning off the lights when time to finish was close, and i think it wasnt cool at all; patients get nervous with this, and light amount gets in a sudden insufficient to be safe to continue working, so i always stopped when the lights go out. It wasn´t nice! Besides this, the dental nurses were helpful enough, limited sometimes by their English language fluency. When i was adapting to the dental software (OPUS) it was hard because it's all written in svenska, so i had to learn a lot of technical vocabulary to learn how to insert information in the computed. But i think after all this was good for me to learn more svenska!

Ett av Prags största sjukhus Motol.

Summary

This exchange was one of the best opportunities i had in my entire life; it allowed me to get to know how swedish dentistry schools work, train different techniques and exchange life experiences e knowledge with erasmus students from other countries, the diversity amazed me!

I have made friends for life, future dentists and teachers, having the chance to know them made me a better person and a better health professional. Now i think "out of the box", because of Erasmus KI Denstristry Program! The only thing i really didnt liked was the cold winter, i had exchange between February and May and only had time do enjoy 2 weeks of swedish spring, it was hard to deal with so much snow!

Language and Culture

I didnt participate on Swedish language course because i didnt had time available to attend to the scheduled classes; i had to work on my thesis.

I väntan på en operaföreställning på Nationalteatern.

Studies in general

Swedish study environment was good in my opinion, i learned a lot in such a small time.

The relationship student-teacher there depended of the teacher, because in dentistry we have plenty of different teachers. But in general it was good, they helped us when we asked, they let us train giving us the proper space and self security to do it; they discuss our treatment plans without impose their own ideas.All my patients were very nice and cooperative (except one that was psychologically complex and he didnt liked dentists), and they spoke very good english (i think it was amazing the receptionist work selecting patients because they were disposed to speak english with us and they were very patient).

I didnt had theoretic education because the classes were in svenska.

På väg till praktik på Neurologiska kliniken.