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Today I visited Mora Lasarett (the hospital) for the first time. I found that they wear scrubs everywhere so all that effort I put into picking out the right clothes to wear didn't really matter. I will be spending the week in the Orthopedic Surgery department so I was introduced to a few of the doctors. I met Pierre, the main doctor I will be shadowing for the week. Pierre is a Swedish surgeon who speaks excellent English because he went to medical school in Budapest, Hungary and they taught in Swedish. I look forward to spending the week with him because he is extremely helpful and tells me more information than I can ever remember.
Anyways, he told me that we would immediately be going into surgery. It was a hand surgery (I can't remember the name) where the patient's pinkie finger was permanently flexed. The patient was a musician and because of this injury he could not play so it was very bad for him. So I was watching Pierre perform the procedure when I started to get a little headache. I suddenly felt very tired and my vision became a little fuzzy. I asked the nurse for
a chair to sit on and told them I felt a little faint. A few seconds later, they were half carrying/ half dragging me down the hallway, putting me in a chair, and having me put my head between my legs. I couldn't see anything and could not support my own weight. I had actually fainted on my first surgery at the hospital - how embarrassing! I guess I should have eaten/drank/slept a little more!
I felt better after only a few minutes and a couple glasses of water but one of the nurses gave me a banana and some juice just in case. I was mortified to return to the OR and face the doctor but they were very nice, telling me it happened to everyone. I was reminded of the Funniest Home Videos that I watched yesterday that showed bridesmaids and groomsmen fainting at the alter and falling into the bride or groom. It's amazing how weak you can get when your standing up for a long time and concentrating really hard.
So after that procedure I watched Pierre help a patient who had undergone a knee replacement but could not fully flex her leg. He
anesthetized her and used brute force to bend her knee - very scientific. He then gave me a tour of the hospital and introduced me to many of the doctors and nurses at the hospital.
Here is a list of interesting information that I found out about Swedes/Mora/Healthcare in Sweden:
1. Most Swedes drink about five cups of coffee per day. When I told them that I didn't drink coffee or tea, I was told that I was "pretty weird".
2. Putting tobacco under your lip is also very popular. I asked one of the nurses if it was ok to do this in the hospital - he replied "of course!" and pulled a tin out from his scrubs.
3. Most Swedes speak excellent English. When Pierre told people that I didn't speak Swedish, they would carry out their entire conversation, medical dialogue included, in English even when they were just talking to each other. Pierre's wife is fluent in Spanish, Hebrew, Swedish, and English - makes us Americans look pretty bad.
4. The area that Mora hospital treats is huge and very rural. Ambulances often have to drive for 1.5 hours to reach their emergency. I learned that last summer Mora Hospital closed their Labor and Delivery Ward and pregnant women had to drive up to 2.5 hours to give birth - pretty scary.
5. The hospital serves 80,000 people but in the wintertime the surrounding ski resorts hold up to 90,000 tourists. This keeps the orthopedic surgeons very busy with people who drink, attempt to ski, and come to the hospital with broken bones.
6. Doctors in Sweden cannot be sued, although patients can get a small amount of money if the government finds that the doctor made a mistake. If the procedure is deemed very risky or it is a repeat operation, the patient will not receive any money if something goes wrong.
7. Medical training is quite different in Sweden. They go to medical school for six years right after high school. They then have a two-year internship that resembles the rotations we have during the third and fourth year of medical school. Except, interns are often the only ones working during their shift and perform a lot of the procedures and care completely on their own, which would never happen in the US (probably because they can get sued). After the internship they have a five year residency in a specific area.
8. Several doctors said they got to operate on pigs in medical school (just like in Grey's Anatomy!)
9. Swedes do not have yearly checkups. The only screenings that they do are for breast and cervical cancer. They say that they do not go looking for problems, because this can cause more stress and health problems than the problems that they may find. This is completely different from the US's emphasis on preventative care but it seems to work well for them as they have a higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, and lower health care costs as a percent of GDP than the US.
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