On Tuesday, we had a presentation for EnModes where we presented what we though was a problem with their Ras-Q product so they could decide what they want us to work on for the rest of the semester. Ours was about how the average patient was older and from a lower SES, which led to problems in upkeep. We figures that if there was a screen on the side of the device or if it was somehow connected to your phone, then it would alert you when something is wrong and tell you what needs to be done to fix it. Our presentation went really well and we wont hear anything back from them until Monday on what our new teams will be.
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On Wednesday, we went to the Uniklinik which is a hospital at the university of Bonn. Somehow Dr. Wasser was able to get us into the surgeries and let us watch whatever procedures that they were doing that day. I think he had to tell them that we were medical students since here in Germany they don't have Pre-Med, so we got to be Pre-Med students for a day! They took us a few at a time and we got scrubbed up and then they dropped us off in different prep rooms where they were getting the patient ready for surgery. I didn't know this until a few hours into it but my dude was getting a Colorectomy. At first they were using an ultrasound to find the space between the 7th and 8th vertebra. At first I was confused cause they were drawing on his back with a marker and I thought that I was going to be watching a liposuction or something. It turns out that they were trying to find the right place to insert a needle to give him a spinal epidural. As many people know, I have needles so I was already a little uncomfortable when they were putting in the IV's but I could just look away for a few moments and then it was done. With this they had about a 6in. needle and the would insert it a little and then inject whatever was in the syringe and then go that over and over until almost the whole needle was in his spine... After about 30 seconds I walked out of the room cause it was just too gross for me and then as I was walking I started to get lightheaded cause I kept thinking about it. That was the first time that I have ever gotten lightheaded about anything so it was surprise to me. I ended up just going over and sitting against the wall outside and it slowly went away. A resident saw me and said that there was a break room where I could get water down the hall. Dr. Wasser was in there just hanging out so I told him about that while I was drinking and then I went back and stood outside with the other two residents while they finished up the epidural. Once they laid him down on the table, I went back inside to watch again. They put on a few more monitors and put in a catheter before rolling him into the OR.
I had been talking with the residents outside a little bit before going in a asked them what operation they would be doing and all I got out of it was that they were using the Da Vinci robot to do some type of surgery. So I knew it would be in the next room but when we walked into the OR I was internally jumping with joy because I was the lucky one to get to see it out of our whole group. For the next 30 minutes or so they get him prepped for the "docking" with the robot. Once they were done, they had made the few incisions and had metal tubes for the robot to "dock" to. They then turned on the robot and moved it over to the patient. (Side note: the patient was on an articulating table that could tilt so the robot could go in at a better angle which was pretty cool.) One of the doctors was at the controls while a few more were around the patient ready to change out the instrument on one of the arms if needed.
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This week I didn't do much other than school work but I did a few things:
My birthday was on Tuesday and when I woke up that morning, my host mom had set out candles around my cereal bowl and had a little present sitting on the table. She had gotten my a bag of candy and two Sudoku booklets since I had been helping her on the Sudoku in her newspapers. When we got to the AIB, we had an Enmodes presentation and then after everyone had finished, they brought out a cake and sang happy birthday. Petra had made a plum cake for me but it wasn't ready that morning before we had to leave so I brought it with me to our math class. We all devoured the cake after class and then we went out to Tacos to get drinks. I got a margarita and it was free since it was my birthday and then on our way home, Sid and I bought a bottle of wine to drink back at the house to end off the night.
The other thing that I did was go to the Drachenfels castle near Konigswinter. This weekend was special because it was the last weekend that the castle would be lit up. So I went with Adriana, Marcus, Vivian, and the other Ryan but somehow we got split up at the entrance. This was probably because i was busy looking at the Dragon statues and souvenirs that they had at the gift shop (drachen = dragon). So after looking at those and taking pictures of the outside, Adriana and I ended up zooming through the castle, looking at all of the art exhibits that thy have inside along the way. Once we were done with the second floor, we started to walk down the stairs and we ran into the others and talked to them for a bit before splitting up again. We then went through the garden that was lit up as well and then headed to the tram. We thought that it would go up further to the ruins that are farther up but apparently you have to hike up to that. So we ended up just going back to the bottom before we wanted to but we had already gone through everything so we were done anyway. Adriana left because she had to go home to eat with her host family but I stayed to wait for the others to come down since they said they would take the next one down. They ended up missing it and thought that the next one didn't come for another 30 minutes but they were actually running every 15... so they missed 2 trams trying to come back down and then finally made it to the bottom where I was waiting.
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