Exchange report - Student at KI
Home university: Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Study programme: Health Informatics (Master's)
Exchange programme: INK
Semester: Spring semester 2012/2013

Pre-departure

Health Informatics or Medical Informatics is a widely used and practiced subject in the health care of developed countries and Sweden along with the member state of European eHealth area are working hard to improve access and deliver quality health care to the people. Being a student of KI, I got the opportunity to know about the network of health information exchange, many astounding tools to use the information effectively and new projects to make things even better. But what is the state of its usage in a developing country? How much the subject is in use? How the users feels about using IT where a doctor to population ratio is much lower and they health care stuffs have relatively much less time to deal with technology out of their daily routine tasks? These are the questions that mainly drove me to look for an opportunity to have a visit to a developing country and apply for an exchange to TISS, India. 

Being here in the safe and sound environment of Stockholm for a long time, the decision to go to India for the Exchange was a bit scary for some, especially for the field work. But the exchange and study abroad Information provided by the partner university and KI helped a lot in preparing for the exchange, not to mention the help from the personnel of International Students office of both the Institute regarding queries.

I did not required to be vaccinated or to bring special documents that made the travel arrangements easy. The visa process was also very straightforward and quick with the help of the people at KI.

 

Arrival and registration

There were no mandatory instructions for pre-arrival and it was upon students discretion. I arrived there a few days early before my schedule. TISS had a pick up service but unfortunately due to a technical error, the car was not ready for me at the pick up. Even though it was late the student coordinator at TISS helped me with directions and it was not of a problem to hire a pre-paid Taxi and to reach there though heavy traffic of Mumbai took a lot of time. 
After reaching the campus, everything was easy and nice going. though there were not any pick up person, the security of the campus were well aware about my arrival and was ready with clear directions to reach my place to report.
The introduction in TISS are conducted in a more friendly person to person basis. The Students at TISS were friendly enough and lead me to an unofficial introductory tour to the campus during the night of my arrival, which was more elaborate than the official one enriched with tips and tricks to enjoy more of campus and city life.
One thing to mention though is getting a SIM card or internet line without the help of student office is quite hard for a foreign national. One have to wait a while or ask other students to use his line for communicate with home till you get one.

Economy

The cost of living in comparison to Europe is not that high. There are some minor fees in the library if you cross the quota of free usage. other than that there are no obligatory fees to continue the exchange.

I got a Linnaeus-Palme scholarship that also waived the tuition fees of TISS which helped a lot. 

Acommendation

Accommodation was arranged by the host university in their campus. The standard of the accommodation was average and the cost for accommodation was a bit high in comparison to the standards of the city.  The accommodation was of shared type flat, where each room of the apartment is shared by two person. All the basic utilities required were there that made the stay easier.
Though the price was a bit high, considering the utilities and the support provided by the institute, the hassle to find one outside campus, the location of the provided accommodation, and  as well as for security reason, I would recommend using the accommodation provided by the institute. The accommodations are within the campus and it takes only a 2- minute walk to move between the two campus.

Studies in general

I went to TISS for field work purpose and was not taking any courses there. hence this part of the report is reflects my experience for the field work.
Visiting my supervisor for the work and getting his appointment was easy. Whenever I felt a problem and wanted to meet some teacher in a discipline other than my supervisor, I always got a warm welcome and encouraging help from them. Appointments were usually one phone call away if they were not in their room. 
Getting permission for the field work from respective authority was not that easy. there were too many administrative issues that at times were frustrating but with the active help of the institutes all the obstacles were hurdled. Transport to and from the site of field work was an issue for me as it usually took almost 90 minute to reach there from my campus and the journey was a bit tiring being used to in the relatively luxurious transport service of Stockholm, not to mention about the hot weather.
Nevertheless the people at the study place were friendly and helped a lot during the period. Once I got the permission, the rest was not that hard except for the travel, which was also cooled and eased often by the exotic food and cooling refreshing drinks of India.

Courses during the exchange period

Courses corresponding to semester 4 at KI

Degree Project in health informatics

Language and Culture

I knew Hindi and thought that it would not be a problem to communicate with local people and to conduct my study. but things didn't went as planned. My place of study uses another local language (Marathi) which was quite different from Hindi and I had to seek additional help with the language. I had to involve an interpreter for the study. TISS offered me an instructor to teach me the local language that helped to understand it a bit but not enough to communicate within the short time.  

Leisure time and social activities

Social activities were the heart of the institute. something was always going on, tournaments, cultural shows, drama, processions, rally everything was there. the students at TISS were friendly and we, the foreign students, were always invited to participate in the activities. It was quite hard to be alone, and too feel lonely. 

Summary

The experience was quite a mix. TISS, being a social science institute, and the subject unknown to the mass, to do something with Health Informatics, required explaining a lot starting with "what is Health Informatics" to almost all. Some degree of adjustments to my work was required at points to speed up things and to avoid lengthy administrative issues (like state government of India's permission). To summarize things in a word, it was quite worthy for me, but was tiring at some occasional moments.
My intention for the exchange was to get the idea how and in what extent health informatics have been utilized in the country and how people are accepting this. The exchange did help me to understand quite a bit of the issues and this will definitely help me in my future profession of utilizing the subject in the field.