Remind me why I need travel insurance again?

Although I’m headed into my last week of the Rotary program, I only just experienced my second professional day. These are days in which we spend observing our profession during our stay in Rotary. The purpose is to cultivate international relationships within the profession, share and discuss various ideas, and observe cultural differences. Rotary told us we will have at least 5 of these experiences, but this has not been the case. Before Wednesday, no one had yet to experience a vocational experience except for myself, and this was only because my host the first week volunteered to take me to the hospital he used to work at. Unplanned but a good first experience, however, it was short and I missed out on the very cool scheduled group activities. This happened to be a tour of the local power plant which converts trash into steam energy, because in Germany it is no longer allowed to dump trash into landfills. (Got that, America?)

So back to my vocational day. I went to Markus-Krakenhaus, a small Protestant hospital in the outskirts of Frankfurt, where I was paired with a general surgeon. I was able to sit in on one of his surgeries, a lung resection, and later toured a gastrointestinal lab and the ED. Here are some things that I noticed:

1) Birkenstocks with socks are not only acceptable forms of footwear in the hospital, but it seems to be the social norm.

2) A shy, hospitable person can actually be a doctor. This woman showed me around and was very apologetic and shy and turned out she’s a surgeon herself! A SURGEON! Take note, aspiring surgeons out there. You would rarely see that kind of personality in the States.

3) Sterility is not really all that important. Well, actually it is but Germans are not as paranoid as Americans. I was in the OR with everyone, not having had an opportunity or being told that I needed to wash my hands, meanwhile shaking hands with everyone I met. Granted, they all scrubbed in after meeting me, but the atmosphere was much more laid back than ORs I’ve been in in the past.

4) Along with sterility, gloves share the same importance. No, they didn’t crack open someone’s ribs without donning gloves but lines were inserted and blood was drawn and handled without using “standard precautions.”

5) If someone is having a cardiac arrest, find an anesthesiologist STAT. I asked the surgeon where the crash cart was and she had no idea. She quickly stated the anesthesiologist was responsible for any codes and finished up with “Let’s hope I won’t ever have to use one because I don’t even think I know how [to use a defibrillator].” Hmmm.