While I was at Karolinska, I was able to participate in a couple of social activities. I think that the people that organized this things were always thinking in the diversity of students that they had at KI. They knew how to get people interest in any activity that they were planning, from cultural activites as visiting museums to social parties just to have fun and meet other students.
I went to a couple of different activities and I always found them very interesting. First, I went to Salsa&Bachata Thursdays, I think that was a really good idea, because as a Latin American girl, it felt good to have something similar to home in the other part od the world. There also I was able to meet other Latin American students that were in KI. There were 2 levels, and both of them were very good for beginners and also for advanced dancers. It was free for the MF students and it costed 10 crowns for the no registered students, so also de price was very accesible.
Second, I went to a trip in Cruise to Riga. Everything was very well organized, we were able to get for some spots and the price was very cheap. As foreign students, we got lost when we were going to the boat (we took the wrong bus), but luckly we were able to catched the ship before it left. We had a really good time in the boat and also at Latvia. Although we were going in the cheapest cabins, we were able to visit every place as the bars, discos, the pool, etc. We were able to interact with other students from the medical programm and also the other courses that KI was offering, and that was amazing. We also had an excellent breakfast when we arrived to Riga with many typical swedish and latvian dishes. The whole day we were able to walk through the city and visit places that we thought were interesting and between 4:30 and 5:00 pm we had to go back to the ship to begin our way back to Stockholm. It was a short weekend trip but for a very low price we visited other country across the baltic sea and also had a party with a lot of international and swedish students.
We also went to a dinner and party in a boat called Patricia. Eventhough we were not able to catch spots for the dinner because for that time we were not registered members, but they allowed us to go to the party and we had a really good time. Between other activities we went to Fotografiska, a museum of photographies, the exposition was of an artist from Siria that showed what was happeing in that area throuh pictures inspired in children, it was marvelous.
I suggest that as interational students, especially in few time courses, should attempt to go to every activity that they can because they are very good and let us knew as much of the new cultures as we could in the short time that we had free!
ELA005 : Internal Medicine 1
Internal Medicine was my first course. I started with two weeks at Gastroenterology, at Karolinska, Solna. As my first time studying in another country, with a different system and language, I was very shy to ask some questions at the beginning. My supervisor was very kind with me and tried to explain me as much as he could, but it was difficult, for example during the rounds because they spoke in swedish and I was not able to understand anything, but I was really interested in learning about the different patologies that the people from the nordic places had. Eventhough I was not able to understand what the patient was saying, my supervisor took care that I had at my disposal reading material about the different things that we saw everyday, so I can say that I learned a lot about diseases that are uncommon in my country, as Crohn's disease and Ulcerative Colitis. I also saw how they did some procedures as gastroscopies and colonoscopies, and the doctors there were always very kind and explained me everything, so I was able to learn a lot in every case. During the outpatient clinic, eventhough they spoke in swedish,before each patient the doctor took some time to explain me the backgrounds, what he knew about the patient, the treatment, the stage of the disease, between other things. And also, after each patient, he explained everything that had happened, every word that was said during the interview was explained to me, and I was free to ask if I did not understand something.
After saying how amazing were this two weeks, I have to comment that during this specific rotation there were a few times that I felt left behind, and I know that the majority of the time was not the doctor's fault, but it was the language as a barrier, because sometimes they forgot that I did not spoke swedish.
The next 2 weeks of internal medicine, I spent at the Emergency department in the Internal Medicine's desks. The rotation here was incredible, I learned a lot during this weeks. I was asigned everyday a different tutor and I followed him/her the whole day. There were amazing tutors, that explained to me everything about the patient and let me do many things as examine the patient, talk to the patient, take some gasometries, do some sutures, read EKG, and let me participate in any situation that came. During the emergencies, I was able to go into the acute room, and saw what they were doing, after the patient was stabilized I was explained everything and I had the time to ask what I wanted to know.
As there were some good tutors, there were a few that I felt that they did not wanted to have me following them, or were too stressed to be able to explain to me what was happening with the patient. I really had this feeling a couple of times, and those days I felt that I did not learned as much as I would like to, but I was always welcome to use the computers there, so if they did not explained me something I always could read about it.
ELAXX6 : Surgery 1
Surgery was my second course, but my first one in Sodersjukhuset. Honestly I have to say that I felt very welcome in this hospital. A week before my rotation there started, I received an email from a group of the students there, that were very kind offering us their help if we needed something during our rotation there. This really made me feel good and very excited to to go to this hospital.
From the first day and until the last day, everyone treated us very nicely, it is not that I am saying that in the other place they treated us bad, but here I felt something different in the enviroment.
During this rotation, I had the impression that they are used to have students, and specifically international students, that do not speak swedish. Everything was very organized, before the rotation we received our own schedule of what we were going to do everyday of every week there. I enjoyed also the fact of having other exchange students with me, even though we were with different tutors everyday, we could spent sometime during the lunch.
I had two weeks in General Surgery, one of those, in Hernia and Acute Department, I really liked this week, because the resident and also de specialist were very nice people that included me in everything. Here is were I chose my case for my final presentation, my supervisor told me that he was going to do an uncommon surgery and after telling him that I was interested he let me met the patient before the surgery, be the first assistant in the procedure and also interview the patient after the surgery.
The other week was at the Lower gastric Surgery Department, I learned a lot here, my supervisor was a nice doctor that let me assist to a lot of surgeries and many times let me scrub in and assist her during the surgeries.
The third week was at Urology, I found this speciality quite interesting because I have never had this as a subject before, so everything that I saw and learned was new. One thing that I really like was that we had lectures in the afternoon with our supervisor and she taught us important things that we will use in the future, and focused in important aspects of each urological disease.
The fourth week we had Anestesiology, as the speciality above, I have never had these before as a subject so I learned new important things and for me it was very interesting. in my case I was asigned a tutor that was in Gynecology and I saw many astonishing procedures. My teacher letted me practice a lot like sometimes she letted me try intubation on a patient, let me put a periphereal line, ventilate the patient, and of course, perform the physical examination.
Although, the schedule was heavy, I had an amazing time in the surgery department and I earned skills and a lot of knowledge from this activities, and that I know that would help me during my career.
In this department besides the international classmates, I had also swedish classmates, the majority of them were very nice people and were very helpfully. The only thing that I would like the coordinators to change about this course was that once we had a seminar, together swedish and exchange students, the meeting was in english, but us, the international students, did not receive the cases, so we could not prepare the material, and when they put the cases on a presentation for us to develop the topic they were in swedish so it was really hard for us to follow the class.
2EE090 : Emergency Medicine
My last course was at Sodersjukhuset too, at the Emergency department. I enjoyed very much my time at this department, because my supervisor was a very nice person very opened to listen to us and always asking how things were going.
The emergency department, as is known, sometimes could be crazy but something that I learned here and that I will never forget is that no matter how hard is the situation you should always be calmed and try to think without stressing.
One day during the week was designated for the seminar with a different topic each one. We were able to prepare the material for the class and also we could decide when the next seminar was going to be. During this day we came studying and after hearing a case we discussed different diagnosis and all together, in the end found the solution and also gave the patient a treatment. I am used to this system because in my country we receive classes with this modality, so I felt comfortable paticipating. The cases were real, we disscused about daily diseases at the emergency department, very common things that I am pretty sure that will see in any hospital. In the last week, we had the last seminar, in which we were the ones giving the case and letting the other students discuss and this also was evaluated as a final exam.
Each day, we were asignated to a different tutor in different areas of emergency, so at the end we had spent time all over the place, and knew how every speciality worked in acute situations. All the tutor were selected carefully by our supervisor, based on their experience to interact with non swedish speaking students. Comparing to my rotation in the other Emergency Department, I can say that here they are more used to have students and they are more calmed. I practiced here a lot in things like taking blood samples, blood gas, examinating the patient and also some tutors let me interview the patient and after that, they let me gave the recommendations. This made me feet included and taken in account.