At my home university, it
is a requirement for 4th year dental students to complete either a 2 week
elective placement in a country of our choice or a 3 month Erasmus Exchange
programme at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Making this decision was easy
for me, and I chose the latter with no hesitation.
From a personal
perspective, I chose to go on exchange because I wanted to challenge myself by
living in a country where I did not know anyone, did not speak the language and
have never visited before. I believed that over a few months, I would be able
to immerse myself in a new and exciting culture, meet new people and gain
a sense of independence. Talking to older students who had also completed
this exchange and attending informative talks about electives/exchanges given
at my home university cemented my desire to study abroad.
From a dental perspective, learning that the
Nobel Prize in Medicine is awarded by the Nobel Assembly at KI and
about the technologies that the dental students are exposed to, such as CEREC,
confirmed that I would be studying at a prestigious university where I
would be able to learn to use different dental techniques and tools not
taught at my home university. In addition, amalgam is being used less and less
in dentistry as a restorative material and I knew that I would be using the
main alternative material (composite resin) at KI a lot as amalgam
has already been banned in Sweden, and therefore I would be able to
improve my technique.