Vienna part 2 and We Have a Test!??!?

(Kermit the Frog Voice) Hey everybody!

Here is part 2 of the epic saga of Biosciences in Vienna!

The Thursday of Vienna was quite an interesting/gross/enlightening/freakadelic kind of day. We started the day off by visiting Medical University of Bonn and learning about the European medical system from Professor März. Did you know that they can go straight into medical school after high school? This is neat, but as the lecturer stated, it can be a hindrance, since the student might not know exactly what they want to do with their life and this is a big leap of faith at such a young age. School is 6 years, then about 4-6 of residency and clinical experience. I thought that this was an interesting difference between the two school systems of Europe and the U.S.A. This does cause problems when M.D.'s from Europe would like to practice in the U.S., but all of the countries in the EU will accept doctors trained in other countries within the EU. I was wondering if the newly trained doctors take different health care systems when deciding where to apply their practice and this lead to an interesting discussion about what motivates the medical doctors in general, which usually isn't money, and whether they would like to practice somewhere that may pay more money.


 Afterwards, we went to the Narrenturm, a museum that used to be Europe's oldest building accommodation of mental patients, it is now home of the Federal Pathologic-Anatomical Museum Vienna. The museum had some really neat, yet disturbing, collections of medical artifacts from late 18th century to early 20th century Europe. There were many wax models that depicted the various ailments of the people, including a disgusting "rash" that was cancer on a man that used to show his insides with an X-ray machine at the Vienna amusement park. That was one of the more pleasant wax models, there were a plethora of models depicting victims of syphilis, herpes, cancers, and many more diseases of the skin. Even though I do not plan on attending medical school, this was a good experience to show that medicine isn't all puppies, flowers, and Dr. House riddles, things can get pretty disgusting. Afterwards we went to the Josephinum, the former medical-surgical university of Vienna, which now houses a wicked was museum. The wax models were quite real and were probably very helpful to former students to learn about the human body. I thought it was interesting that the models of women had different hair colors for different regions, red for Ireland and the islands, Blonde for Germany and northern Europe, and Brunette for Italia and southern Europe!

Later that day we went to see the Wiener Symphoniker, one of Europe's most prestigious ensembles, who performed... I'll ask Dr. Wasser  about that, because this ticket is all in German.

The next day we went to a Focchenschuler, a specialized school in Europe that is similar to a university, but focuses on specific vocations rather than all around education. The campus was about an hour train ride from Vienna and it was in a nice city to the south that was relatively small but incredibly charming. The school was built in 1994 and looked new, compared to Texas A&M University, which was founded in 1871. We learnt about the structure of the school from a lecture and then a tour. We only toured the areas that had to relate to radiological health, and there were some interesting things there. I liked the fact that students had to complete a graduation thesis, because some of the ones that I saw were pretty interesting! I thought the 3D imaging of the body, using CT scans, were pretty cool, not something that I would like to do everyday, but fascinating. After getting lunch, we heard a lecture about a new procedure called ion radiation therapy, a new technique that is being developed to treat cancer. I liked the lecture, because I could relatively understand the complicated physics of the therapy, thanks to PHYS 208! They will be building a facility near the school to house an ion beam to treat patients and it should be in full use by 2020, according to the calculations on the slide show we saw.

Afterwards, we went back to Vienna and some of us went to the Albertina Museum, an Impressionist museum that had an exhibition of Magrite. I love, even more than I do Vienna, impressionist art. We could only stay for about two hours, but if I could have, I would have stayed another hour, at least. The paintings were amazing and there were some pretty interesting tid bits on the artists that were being displayed, one such as how Manet would sit for hours within a coffee shop and just sketch what he saw for hours. The Magrite exhibit was eye opening to say the least. Magrite had an interesting view on life shaped by defining moments in his life, such as seeing his Mom's dead corpse after she committed suicide by jumping off a bridge, quite chilling. I agree with what his paintings depict, life is mysterious and not what it seems, but rather windows, windows that we need to acknowledge exist. His paintings were so crazy and mind boggling, but I had to leave halfway through.

That night we feasted like kings. I will just show you the pictures and let you know that everyone ate more than they should have.



Our last day we saw the Freud house and finished our Freud lecture, an interesting and enjoyable combination. We saw where the couch sat, his study, and many more artifacts from Freud's life. It would be nice to go to London someday to see more of his artifacts. Afterwards we went to the museum of natural history to see some fossils and animals. The museum was massive and the exhibits were cool to look at, especially the parasite section, where we could look at live specimens under a microscope.

Our time finally came to an end and when I got back to Bonn, I strangely felt like I was back home, funny huh?

Till next time, au revoir.