From the UK to Turkey
I was very happy when I found out I had been placed in the UK, in Nottingham, for a clinical interchange, when I was in Paris on the Erasmus programme. The opportunity to do a training period in such a prestigious country, and to meet other students from around the world, was a promising prospect. And it lived up to my expectations.
Nottingham is a small, charming city, known as being the birthplace of Robin Hood. Despite having an impeccable transportation network, it wasn’t necessary to use it, as the distances between the centre, the lodgings and the hospital were easily walkable, which was a great benefit.
There were fifteen of us, students from Portugal, Spain, France, Slovenia and Canada, orientated by five local students who organized a programme of social events for us so we could get to know each other better and swap experiences, which was very positive. Besides organizing trips together at the weekends, when I had the chance to visit Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff, Lincoln, Edinburgh and, at the end of the exchange, London, the social programme was also rich in activities, such as ice skating, bowling and an international evening when we tasted food and drinks typical to each person’s country.
The fact I was staying in a residence for English medicine students allowed me to mix in better and to understand how the system in the medical schools worked, the type of exams, the hospital training periods, the books they used and also how Access to the specialty exam and the internship functioned, obviously not forgetting the cultural interchange among us and all the help they gave me during my stay.
I was very surprised by the fact that my house mates and the students in general that I met were very approachable, friendly and helpful, and mostly very nice, which goes against the preconceived idea that we have of the English. However, one immediately notices some differences, such as going to bed early and only going out late at weekends, having dinner early, among other details to which it is difficult to adapt.
Nottingham has two hospitals, Queen’s Medical Centre (the biggest in Europe), and the City Hospital, which is smaller. I was placed in the City Hospital, which is a little further away from the centre, implying about half an hour on the bus from Queen’s, a bus that is free for the whole community. My training period was carried out in the Intensive Care Unit, which had been my first choice, for two main reasons: I’m very interested in the area and there isn’t a lot of training in Portugal for students. The doctors received us very well and immediately set us to work, letting us carry out some tasks after a while (examining patients, filling out forms, introducing patients on medical visits). When the visits were over the teachers were often available to give us a class (and there were only three of us on this service), during which they explained something they considered to be of interest to us in detail, always with a lot of patience and dedication. I learned a great deal of things that I am sure will be useful in the future.
My opinion is that it is extremely important to experience new realities as medicine students, including all aspects: linguistic, practical and theoretical. The recently introduced accreditation of interchanges will no doubt promote student mobility, which seems to be very positive to me, even when it is only for a short time.
For all of these reasons I recommend this experience to students; I am sure you will not regret it.
Ambivalent Constantinople – Experiences on the Other End of the Continent
Ricardo Racha Pacheco
FMUL Medicine Student (6th Year), ricardorachapacheco@gmail.com
It was last August when within the scope of the IFMSA (International Federation of Medical Students' Associations) student Exchange programme I left the Western Portuguese beach on my way to Istanbul, a city of impressive historical proportions and a crucial mark in the history of civilization since its founding, in 667 BC.
Knowing myself to be someone with rather broad horizons in relation to the cultural diversity that populates the different corners of our planet, the small doubts that had emerged in relation to conviction about going were soon dissipated, albeit not denying the moderate apprehension I felt during the first hours of my stay in such an – at first sight – chaotic and disorderly hubbub. The original view of a place that turned out to be extraordinarily interesting went through an evolution and adequation during a process of the fading out of dogmas and of real regional, social, religious and cultural understanding.
My anxiety in relation to the city and to several aspects typical to it were to different extents shared by the twenty or so colleagues (from Africa, Europe and Asia) present and given to medical practice with whom we contacted. Among these aspects was the way of being and interacting with the doctors and patients, the approach to the “medical hierarchy” set out by both of them, as well as the physical conditions of the city hospitals (which were extremely different whether this was a private or public institution). We were normally well received on the training periods we carried out, and we had the opportunity to get to know how the Turkish health system worked and the dynamics at its heart. In general terms there was a clear tendency, as well as in other aspects we observed, towards westernisation, in this case of approach to pathologies and to patients. Yet this trend is not free from the ruling socio-cultural view of the doctor (as an intrinsically superior/unreachable entity) or from the way that he is seen and makes himself (un)available. The relationship we established with the local students, some of them who were rather forthcoming and interested, allowed us to get to know not only the extremely rich cultural, religious and architectural heritage of the city, but also the way that medical teaching takes place, the foreseen reality of the profession and its aims and anguishes. Overall one gets the impression, albeit with different tones and subtleties, which are also conditioned by different personalities and levels of literacy, of an interesting national coexistence of lack of confidence and insecurity with marked conviction and pride.
In a country and city of contrasts it was also undeniably worth it to swap impressions with the interchange couples. After several educational experiences abroad, for me this was probably a first in terms of exclusive contact with medicine students, and I thus gained substantial personal and professional rewards. This came from close coexistence with colleagues of eighteen different nationalities and contexts, on different levels of training, and also had implications for the varied cultural and social experience that the stay provided, as well as in the understanding of a way of being and living that, among over ten million inhabitants, goes from the madness of a bazaar to the tranquillity of a Turkish bath, from the thousands of passengers on a ferry to the serenity of a view of the Sea of Marmara, from the degradation of some suburbs to the majestic and impressive palaces and mosques.
The initial image of disorder and confusion ended up being converted into a more adequate and broader view of the city. It was with this metamorphosed, more fundamented and founded view that I returned, now interpreting the “cultural disquiet” as part of the cultural richness of a city reinvented over the centuries, from the far-off days of Byzantium to the renewed Constantinople that is today the tumultuous and religious yet modern and cosmopolitan Istanbul.
“The world is a book of which those who do not travel read only one page.” (St Augustine)
Nottingham
Sofia Ribeiro
FMUL Medical Student (5th Year), sofy_ribeiro@hotmail.com
I was very happy when I found out I had been placed in the UK, in Nottingham, for a clinical interchange, when I was in Paris on the Erasmus programme. The opportunity to do a training period in such a prestigious country, and to meet other students from around the world, was a promising prospect. And it lived up to my expectations.
Nottingham is a small, charming city, known as being the birthplace of Robin Hood. Despite having an impeccable transportation network, it wasn’t necessary to use it, as the distances between the centre, the lodgings and the hospital were easily walkable, which was a great benefit.There were fifteen of us, students from Portugal, Spain, France, Slovenia and Canada, orientated by five local students who organized a programme of social events for us so we could get to know each other better and swap experiences, which was very positive. Besides organizing trips together at the weekends, when I had the chance to visit Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff, Lincoln, Edinburgh and, at the end of the exchange, London, the social programme was also rich in activities, such as ice skating, bowling and an international evening when we tasted food and drinks typical to each person’s country.
The fact I was staying in a residence for English medicine students allowed me to mix in better and to understand how the system in the medical schools worked, the type of exams, the hospital training periods, the books they used and also how Access to the specialty exam and the internship functioned, obviously not forgetting the cultural interchange among us and all the help they gave me during my stay.
I was very surprised by the fact that my house mates and the students in general that I met were very approachable, friendly and helpful, and mostly very nice, which goes against the preconceived idea that we have of the English. However, one immediately notices some differences, such as going to bed early and only going out late at weekends, having dinner early, among other details to which it is difficult to adapt.Nottingham has two hospitals, Queen’s Medical Centre (the biggest in Europe), and the City Hospital, which is smaller. I was placed in the City Hospital, which is a little further away from the centre, implying about half an hour on the bus from Queen’s, a bus that is free for the whole community. My training period was carried out in the Intensive Care Unit, which had been my first choice, for two main reasons: I’m very interested in the area and there isn’t a lot of training in Portugal for students. The doctors received us very well and immediately set us to work, letting us carry out some tasks after a while (examining patients, filling out forms, introducing patients on medical visits). When the visits were over the teachers were often available to give us a class (and there were only three of us on this service), during which they explained something they considered to be of interest to us in detail, always with a lot of patience and dedication. I learned a great deal of things that I am sure will be useful in the future.
My opinion is that it is extremely important to experience new realities as medicine students, including all aspects: linguistic, practical and theoretical. The recently introduced accreditation of interchanges will no doubt promote student mobility, which seems to be very positive to me, even when it is only for a short time.
For all of these reasons I recommend this experience to students; I am sure you will not regret it.
Ambivalent Constantinople – Experiences on the Other End of the Continent
Ricardo Racha Pacheco
FMUL Medicine Student (6th Year), ricardorachapacheco@gmail.com
It was last August when within the scope of the IFMSA (International Federation of Medical Students' Associations) student Exchange programme I left the Western Portuguese beach on my way to Istanbul, a city of impressive historical proportions and a crucial mark in the history of civilization since its founding, in 667 BC.Knowing myself to be someone with rather broad horizons in relation to the cultural diversity that populates the different corners of our planet, the small doubts that had emerged in relation to conviction about going were soon dissipated, albeit not denying the moderate apprehension I felt during the first hours of my stay in such an – at first sight – chaotic and disorderly hubbub. The original view of a place that turned out to be extraordinarily interesting went through an evolution and adequation during a process of the fading out of dogmas and of real regional, social, religious and cultural understanding.
My anxiety in relation to the city and to several aspects typical to it were to different extents shared by the twenty or so colleagues (from Africa, Europe and Asia) present and given to medical practice with whom we contacted. Among these aspects was the way of being and interacting with the doctors and patients, the approach to the “medical hierarchy” set out by both of them, as well as the physical conditions of the city hospitals (which were extremely different whether this was a private or public institution). We were normally well received on the training periods we carried out, and we had the opportunity to get to know how the Turkish health system worked and the dynamics at its heart. In general terms there was a clear tendency, as well as in other aspects we observed, towards westernisation, in this case of approach to pathologies and to patients. Yet this trend is not free from the ruling socio-cultural view of the doctor (as an intrinsically superior/unreachable entity) or from the way that he is seen and makes himself (un)available. The relationship we established with the local students, some of them who were rather forthcoming and interested, allowed us to get to know not only the extremely rich cultural, religious and architectural heritage of the city, but also the way that medical teaching takes place, the foreseen reality of the profession and its aims and anguishes. Overall one gets the impression, albeit with different tones and subtleties, which are also conditioned by different personalities and levels of literacy, of an interesting national coexistence of lack of confidence and insecurity with marked conviction and pride.
In a country and city of contrasts it was also undeniably worth it to swap impressions with the interchange couples. After several educational experiences abroad, for me this was probably a first in terms of exclusive contact with medicine students, and I thus gained substantial personal and professional rewards. This came from close coexistence with colleagues of eighteen different nationalities and contexts, on different levels of training, and also had implications for the varied cultural and social experience that the stay provided, as well as in the understanding of a way of being and living that, among over ten million inhabitants, goes from the madness of a bazaar to the tranquillity of a Turkish bath, from the thousands of passengers on a ferry to the serenity of a view of the Sea of Marmara, from the degradation of some suburbs to the majestic and impressive palaces and mosques.The initial image of disorder and confusion ended up being converted into a more adequate and broader view of the city. It was with this metamorphosed, more fundamented and founded view that I returned, now interpreting the “cultural disquiet” as part of the cultural richness of a city reinvented over the centuries, from the far-off days of Byzantium to the renewed Constantinople that is today the tumultuous and religious yet modern and cosmopolitan Istanbul.
“The world is a book of which those who do not travel read only one page.” (St Augustine)
Nottingham
Sofia Ribeiro
FMUL Medical Student (5th Year), sofy_ribeiro@hotmail.com
