Gettin' better, slowly...

You know what guys? I´m starting to like Switzerland! The weekend was great, finally the sun was shining and the weather was bright! I and three other girls went downtown on sat, Lucerne really is cosy and beautiful, it was the first time I saw the city during daytime! We had good Glühwein at Weihnachtsmarkt, walked hours around the city. It´s not huge, but there are many cute small alleys. And the lake with the mountains in the backround, I suppose I shouldn´t be complaining!

Well, working is hard. But isn´t it scary how fast a human being is able to adjust to a new working environment? In the beginnning of the week I already wanted to quit and leave this place ASAP, but now I´m almost totally used to having no life anymore during the weeks. And what is even more worrying, I´m fine with that.

On sunday we had planned to go hiking, but since it rained, we decided to drive to the capital, Bern. This was definetly a great idea, Bern is also, very beautiful! It´s really old, a medieval city. We had an audio guide (Ipod!) for about 4 hours, it was great, we propably saw the whole old city! And the grande finale was what else than Glühwein at the local christmas market, also Raclette bread! Nice! After a totally satisfying weekend I´m prepared to have no life for the next five days and almost ready to go to work tomorrow.

Some swiss medicine

To my finnish colleagues : all the new inpatients have to be examined completely, no matter what the symptoms are, EVERYTHING must be examined: skin, nails, mouth, eyes, heart, lungs, abdomen, thyreoid, lymhp nodes, arteries, neurology and of course, rectal status! Like a patient coming to a coronary angiography, I had not examined his arse, so I had to do it extra afterwards! And the highlight, I today had a patient with lumbago (discus prolaps susp) coming to internal medicine!!! Since when is that not a surgical problem... It seems that all kinds of patients are advised to internal medicine for examinations for further investigations and then we have to solve all their problems. This is so not my speciality... I want to be the surgeant who only has to cut people and someone else organizes the tiny rest of the process.

The germans

And not to forget, the many germans. It seemes like most of the doctors are german, where are all the swiss people? Somehow all the german interns found (and wanted to) each other immediately on the first day. And when I asked a german guy about the nearest grocery store, he answered:” There´s an Aldi in Küssnacht am Rigi.” To you no germans, Aldi is like Lidl, even cheaper and worse, but you know the germans, stingy as... A so typical german answer to my question! The good thing about the germanisation of almost the whole universe is, that I do totally understand the language and what people are gossiping about!

Word of the day: Chaos

Day 3: Chaos continued, frustration grew, allthough I already was getting used to having no life anymore, living at the hospital instead of at home (my new home was still as chaotic as the day I moved in). No parking license, car somewhere, hopefully no false parking fees, yet. Haven´t had a chance to go to the police and registration office yet, great, when? Am supposed to take care of the department all by myself tomorrow afternoon.. Yes, I have done it many times in Finland, but here, I feel like I´ve never even heard about medicine. Everything is so different.

Oh boy, when am I supposed to be able to enjoy to live in the beautiful Lucerne and Switzerland?

Living in a fairy tale.... not

The first day at work was an orientation day, very succesfull! I got to know some of my new colleagues, nice! I had some introduction at the department. I felt quite frustrated, because I could not help my resident doctor, but at the same time I enjoyed the easy beginning. A new resident had also his first day, my team mate so to say, a cool guy! Got home totally tired and headached, went straight to bed.

The ”older” resident was supposed to help out the new guy at the beginning, but she was sick on te second day. Not good, at all, since we both were new and did not have a clue! And above all, the chief was coming over to see the patients this day! Our senior doctor already was totally stressed out, the chief is tense. Well, luckily the chief was prepared to meet unprepared younger colleagues and everything went fine.

I also started to realise, how different the system is in Switzerland compared to Finland. Not delighting at all. The good difference to Germany is, that I don´t have to take blood samples or set infusions. But the system in Switzerland doesn´t seem to differ that much, since the doctors have to sort the papers and carry urgent blood samples to the lab themselves. Aren´t there any secretaries? The way of working is very uneffective. Furthermore old fashioned not to forget the hierarchy. Every morning there is a radiology meeting about the photos taken the day before and the inters have to introduce the patients in front of maybe 40 specialist doctors! Guess how quickly my heart is beating in situations like this?!? I miss Lohja hospital sooo much!!!

One thing I forgot about Africa

Funny language or funny way to pronounce english. Moffat our safari driver said : ”Laino!” Everyone looked eagerly after a lion lying on the grass. Somehow no one found a lion and after a while came out, that we were supposed to observe the Rrrrrhinos. And the many other misunderstandings : ” See the Clocodile in the livel, neal the glas and the tlee? Butches and bats meaning bushes and birds.” I was nicknamed as the plofessional photoglaphel. And my brother was the ”Young man”,who often was asked,: ” Do you smell the food? Are u sleeping? ”

Trip to suisse (wed 28.11.- sun 2.12.)

Might sound terrible, but actually it was just fine! A long journey naturally, by car, in the rain and dark, but it wasn´t that bad! On wed I took the ferry from Turku to Stockholm, drove on thu through Sweden (550km) and Denmark (200km) to Lübeck to visit friend! We had a nice Glühwein at a finnish stand at the Weihnachtsmarkt, then ate an awesome sushi dinner. I had been dreaming of sushi since Amsterdam airport on the way back from Africa...

On fri we drove to Berlin also called Big B, to hang out in my old hometown, it was nice to visit the place, but I was also glad to be able to continue the journey. I bought Onitsuka Tiger shoes, those are the most comfortable sneakers I´ve ever had!!! And we had a delicious lunch at Mr. Vongs´! After about four hours of driving we reached Marburg an der Lahn (by Frankfurt).

The weekend was cool, a cute city, great company, loads of food and booze, and the most, for free! Thanks to the sponsors of finnish med students in Germany ;) On sun I had the last part to drive, I took another friend with me to Freiburg (what a cute german city, again!). We had a good Döner (kebab), thank god, since I had been dreaming of a Döner since sat night... Surprise! After a few hours drive I already had found my way to the beautiful Lucerne!