"It's a Beautiful Day to Save Lives" - Week 11

Bonn, Germany

March 27th - April 2nd

Another week in the books. I'm so sad that my adventure in Germany is slowly coming closer to an end. There's only a month left and it will all be over, and become a dream that I will never forget. I've met so many wonderful people and have had lots of great adventures that I will keep with me for the rest of my life. What a great experience this has been. I couldn't be more grateful to have been given this opportunity of a life time. This week has been good as well. We had two excursions and only one test instead of the two that were originally planned. The homework load was also much more bearable which was a plus!

Uniklink (Bonn)

March 29th

Serious photo

"Squish in and act like you like each other."

This was one of the best field trips our program had planned for us! I got to shadow an anesthesiologist for a day and sit in on two surgeries at the hospital known as Uniklink, in Bonn. I had never previously been in an operating room or been given this kind of opportunity, so to say I was excited is an understatement. I have, on the other hand, shadowed a pathologist for a day, and got to see the froze section of MD Anderson. Also, while shadowing the pathologist, I go to learn about the process that goes behind the creation of slides which contain tissue samples from patients that surgeons or other doctors had removed, and how the samples are made, cut, stained, assessed and diagnosed. I was never able to get close to surgeries, only the specimens that come from surgeries, until this week. I saw endoscopic removal of a tumor on the pericardium and tumor removal on the lungs of a COPD/emphysema patient. I was required to wear scrubs, a hair net, a mask, and these awful crocks. I am flat footed and these shoes had some serious arch support in them. Let's just say, my feet were ready to kill me by the end of the day, but it was all worth it. For the first surgery, the surgeons made four incisions in the patient where they inserted some tubes. From there, they would insert a camera, a cauterizing tool, and some tongs. I watched as the surgeons would slowly cauterize away the tumor from the pericardium. This took four hours. About two hours in and I was kind of getting bored unfortunately. I didn't want to be bored but all I was doing was watching a screen that projected where their surgeons were moving the camera, and saw the tools being moved every which way to remove all of the tumor. In the end, the tumor they pulled out was about one and a fourth feet long, when stretched out, and an inch wide.  As soon as the patient was sewed up and ready to go, the surgeon cam over to me and asked if I understood why we did what we did. I said no and he further explained that the man suffered from uncontrollable muscle spasms and one of the ways to alleviate this and possibly allow him to take less medication, was to remove the tumors. They don't understand the correlation as to why this is so, but they know they it can help so they do it.

The second surgery began right after the first. We were prepping the next patient while the other patient was on the operating table getting sewed up. Once the O.R. was cleaned, the second patient was brought in and the surgeons made an incision in the man's chest to get at his right lung. From there, we collapsed the lung and the surgeons cut out some blobs that were on this man's lungs. Once the unidentified masses were taken out, they were sent to the pathologist to determine what they were. The results were slightly inconclusive but it was determined the masses were possibly carcinomas. The surgeons debated upon taking a lobe of the lung out of the patient to help with his condition but they have decided that it was too risky of a procedure considering the patients condition and past. The only option for the patient was to wait for the pathologist to run more tests and conclude whether or not the man should undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatment.

Anestisology Museum (Bonn)

March 31st

To conclude the work week, we got to tour an anestisiology museum in Bonn. The museum was created by Dr. Stoeckel who is a prestigious man in the field of anesthesiology. He was a pioneer in the field and to meet him was such an honor. Dr. Stoeckel had collected lots of anesthesiology devices and trinkets through out his career and created a museum for all of them. We got to see some of the first attempts at anesthesia all the way to the newer technology used today. The whole museum was quiet fascinating and the concepts behind anesthesiology were mind blowing.

Bonn Half Marathon

April 2nd

To officially end the week, I ran a half-marathon on Sunday instead of running with Astrid. As an organization, AiB (employees and students) signed up to run either the half-marathon or a leg of a relay race. Together we tried to raise money for the Marol Academy which was erected to provide education to people in South Sudan. The overall half-marathon course was nice except for this one stretch that last for 3 miles and you were trying to figure out if it was ever going to end because as you were running one way, you say other runners running the other direction across the street. The whole time, all I could think was, when does this thing turn around. The last 3 miles were a drag but once I was done I felt amazing. I had only previously ran 7 miles consecutively before the race and I was impressed that I could run the whole 13 without stopping. My legs were on the tender side after the race, but overall, this half-marathon didn't wreck me as bad as my last had, and I didn't train as much for this one as I did the last. When we all finished, we went into this little area meant for runners only where there was free food and drinks. Completely worth the 13 miles I ran when there's free food at the end. Not to mention, the weather was perfect. It was sunny and the high was 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Overall this was a good, very busy week. The half-marathon experience was the perfect way to end it.

Before the half-marathon...

And after