Instituut:Landspitali Reykjavik
Beschrijving:I went to Iceland for an ifmsa clerkship, in August 2011. I was placed in both my first and second choice departments in Landspitali Reykjavik: two weeks in gastroenterology and two in pulmonology, respectively.
On my day of arrival, I was picked up from the bus station by my contact person Kristín. See showed me where the two main hospital buildings were (Hringbraut & Fossvogur) and took me to our house, a doctor’s residence right next to the third hospital building, which happened to be the psychiatric department of Landspitali, Kleppur Mental Hospital. Because Reykjavik is fairly small, everybody knows Kleppur, so it was always amusing to see the taxi driver’s reaction when you tell him to take you ‘home’ to Kleppur.
The house was great by the way, really spacious and clean, with two bathrooms, a nice kitchen and a big garden. The TV didn’t work but nobody cared, and Tamas, student from Slovakia, had fixed a wireless connection from the hospital network so we did have internet.
Since I was in internal medicine, I did not have the opportunity to do a lot, as do students in surgery who get to scrub in, for example. My day existed primarily of attending the radiology meeting in the morning, shadowing the specialist and the residents on their round, but I also got to see a lot of things as gastroscopy, colonoscopy, abdominal paracentesis, drainage of hematothorax and ERCP procedures. The people in the hospital were very nice to me, and always willing to help. When there was nothing interesting in my department, I could just go to surgery, put on scrubs and attend whatever surgery was going on that moment.
In the hospital we had access to a locker-room for international students only, we had lunch at the ‘matsalur’ every day – great meals by the way – and the best thing was a student room with couches, pc’s, a TV and even a refrigerator. It was a good place to meet Icelandic students too.
The local IFMSA also organised a social program for us, consisting of an international food party (all of us had to bring some typical food from our home country), an Icelandic food party, a weekend trip to Vestmannaeyjar, and beside that we went out with contact persons from time to time. Furthermore we rented a four wheel drive-car by ourselves on the first weekend, and went to the countryside to see what Iceland really looks like. We also went to the Blue Lagoon. Lots of tourists there of course, but still a must-see when you go to Iceland.
Extraordinary things about Iceland, or some things that are different from Holland: the nights are very short during the summer. In June, the sun doesn’t even go down at all for some days! Furthermore you should know that only 320.000 people live in Iceland, of which 120.000 live in the city of Reykjavik. When people go to medical school in Reykjavik, they are on average older than in Holland. They study medicine for 6 years, and then work another year in Landspitali as ‘kandidat’ before they can start their spec
Huisvesting:Een oude dokterswoning naast het ziekenhuis, tezamen met de andere internationale IFMSA studenten
Taal:Ijslands
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