In our home university, the MBBS course is
of 4.5 years, plus an added 1 year of internship, which is quite short and
compact compared to the Swedish curriculum. Hence, the study pattern is
relatively relaxed here. Also, our university still has the practice of allotting
marks to individual students in an evaluation as an assessment of how they have
performed, compared to here where what only matters in a test is pass or fail.
Although I felt this system takes off undue burden form the student’s
shoulders, it does come with its fair share of problems, one of them being; you
as a student can never assess how well or how badly you have performed. But the
Swedish curriculum gives ample opportunities to develop your other concurrent
skills, being of a much long and easy-going variant, something which the Indian
system has a long way to go before it can achieve.
The doctor patient relationship was extremely cordial and respectful. The
doctor spends about 30 to 45 minutes with each patient, taking a complete
history, doing clinical examination and ordering appropriate investigations.
This is in sharp contrast in India, where we have about 7000 OPD patients in a
day, and each doctor sees about 50 patients in a single day. So, the doctor
patient interaction time naturally comes down to a maximum of 10 to 15 minutes.
Secondly, the healthcare in Sweden is paid for by the government. This leads to
a way more better standard of care than what can possibly be achieved in India,
mostly because we have a huge population, and about 80% of them struggle to
make two ends meet, let alone afford medications and investigation for
treatment. Hence, we might never be able to achieve the healthcare milestones
achieved by Sweden, life expectancy and quality of care being a few of them.
Despite all this, Sweden does have its fair share of problems, lack of hospital
beds being the most important of them. And the most astonishing part, despite
having just 8 hour shifts and a forty hour week for every working personnel in
the hospital, it still manages to keep going as smoothly as it can be done.
This is in such a sharp contrast to India, where some doctors, mostly juniors,
work about 20 hour shifts 7 days a week, and are totally deprived of their
social or family life.
The Linnaeus-Palme exchange program to
Karolinska Institutet marks the best period of my life I have had, and it is
something I am never going to forget. It will always hold a special place in my
heart, the people, the places, and the culture. I just hope that more such
exchange programs are started so that more and more students can avail this
opportunity, and get a taste of the big and beautiful world out there.
I would like to sign off with a quote by the famous
English author, Sir Terry Pratchett, “Why do you go away? So that you can come
back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra
colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where
you started is not the same as never leaving.” This same thing has happened to
me. The 3 months abroad has made me realise the beauty of my motherland with
renewed intensity and vigour, and I am indeed proud of belonging to such a
country.
Goodbye, Stockholm. Goodbye, Sweden. Goodbye, Europe! TACK, for everything!!!