Saksa

I was in Giessen, Germany during the period 1.6. - 30.6.2007. I worked at the Justus-Liebig University hospital in a cardiological department. At the same time with me there were two local "PJ's" (practical year students) on the ward. I did most of the things they did, like taking blood samples and ECG's. I also visited the cardiological polyclinic and the emergency room.

 

I spent my internship exchange month in southern Germany in the city of Würzburg in a small teaching hospital called Missionsärztliche Institut. Würzburg is a city of about 130 000 inhabitants and it has beautiful landscapes with rivers and hills. I travelled there by ferry to Stockholm and by 2 night trains through Copenhagen. I had got information from my contact person long ahead byt email, and she helped me all the time very kindly and showed me around everywhere.

I worked in Johannes Gutenberg Universitätsklinik in Mainz, Germany in the department of neurology.

 

I travelled to Germany with Ryanair, which was quite conviniet since Ryanair flies directly from Tampere to Frankfurt-Hahn. From Frankfurt-Hahn airport I took the airport shuttle bus (10,50 e, www.hahn-airportshuttle.de) directly to Mainz and my contact person met me at the main station and took me to my appartment.

 

I worked in the clinic of heart surgery in Klinikum Grosshadern which is a university hospital of Ludwig-Maximilian University. I chose heart surgery because I had studied cardiology the last semester and surgery was recommended to those who cannot speak German very well. Although my German is fairly good (I understand it quite well), I don´t speak it much. During the month, however, I got to speak German more than I expected.

 

I had my clinical clerkship in Germany, Düsseldorf in July 2006. I got the clerkship included in my studies. The idea of participating in an exchange programme like this had crossed my mind more than once before. To be honest, after hating myself through the whole of summer 2005 for not having applied to a exchange program I decided that next summer I must do it. So when the time was ripe I applied and after a while started writing motivation letters and gathering the required documents - the most annoying part of this program. Then