Hi
everyone! I decided I really wanted to write a Blog about my internship this
month, especially since it’s kind of consuming my life. I also have to write a
ten-page paper about it saying how it contributes to my career goals and what
I’m learning in Germany. I think I’m going to use this blog as a basis for what
I want to say and then just translate it at the end. And this way I can share
my clinical experience in Munich with anyone who would especially be interested
in German medicine, or doing an internship in the future. I hope you enjoy going
through this journey with me, although I must forewarn you all that this blog
may be obnoxiously long (but what’s new, right?).
Picture of the front of the clinic:
Picture of the outside of the Kinderklinik:
I began
my internship on June 1st of this month and will be there until the
29th. On my first day I was absolutely terrified of going because I
had no idea what to expect, especially with the language. I didn’t know what my
responsibilities would be or whether I would be able to handle everything.
There was another “Praktikantin” going through the training the same day as me,
which really helped me a lot. Her family is from Turkey, but she was born and
grew up in Germany, and therefore also knew perfect German (well, you know what
I mean). She was really nice, and helpful, and we got put with a lady from
Yugoslavia named Irine.
Irine is
the best because she has such a lovely attitude, she’s patient, and she’s just
a loving person. She is in her fifties and lives near the clinic with her
husband, who is also from Yugoslavia. She has three children all living back at
her home and she says they go to visit frequently because they miss it so much.
She’s already been at the clinic for twelve years and has three to go until her
contract is over. She said when her contract is up she and her husband will be
moving back home. She says she loves Munich, and it’s beautiful, but it’s not
home. She also got into the habit of calling me “Amerika Jessica”. The way the
Germans speak my name and America out sounds really similar, and every time she
said it she would giggle at herself and smile. It was adorable.
A lot of
what we were trained to do at the clinic is how the machinery works and
learning the different parts of the clinic. Machinery meaning when the dishes
need to be washed, we need to know how to turn the wash machine on, where the
detergent is, etc. What I’m doing is called a “Plegepraktikum”, which means I
do the behind-the-scenes work. I don’t work directly with the patients like the
other students do, because they’re actually at the University learning for
something medicine-related. However I am the one that goes in and cleans up the
patients rooms, gets their dirty laundry, changes out the beds, delivers
breakfast, lunch, and dinner, etc…so that interaction time is also enough to
get to know them a little.
There
are however two rooms that I’m forbidden to go into without very special
permission. They call those patients “Therapie-Mädels”, which means therapy
girls. I thought they were possibly girls who just go through basic counseling
in dealing with depression, family issues, etc until one day Irina and I were
preparing breakfast and she told me to hide the bread knife behind the
breadbasket. I asked her if it was just to keep the kids from getting their
hands on it, and she said not really because they can’t reach the counter
anyway. She then said it was to protect the therapy girls from themselves. I
just stared at her and she asked what I’d thought the girls were in the clinic
for. I kind of just looked away.
One of
the rooms is for girls who have attempted suicide, and the other is for
anorexia and bulimia. The first room is on suicide watch and there are cameras
located throughout their room, which allow them to be monitored at all times
from the office. The anorexia/bulimia girls have a super strict diet, and
everything they eat has to be recorded and monitored. They are also required to
drink a ridiculous amount of water every day. The youngest girl is twelve and
the oldest is sixteen. I have eaten breakfast with them a few times and
recorded their food and liquid intake, so I knew about the eating problems, but
I guess part of me just had a really hard time believing that kids at that age
could struggle with such intense diseases. And what also amazes me is that
these girls are remarkably pretty. Like “above average” kind of look. And the
crazy part is that despite the beauty they already have, they still ended up in
a clinic to help them with a very serious disease.
Other
patients that have passed through are kids born with diseases like Down
syndrome, undiscovered diseases that they are still trying to figure out,
babies born with serious health problems, serious cases of Diabetes, random
pains throughout the body, alcoholism, Epilepsy, over-exhaustion, etc. The
reasons and issues range from the smallest complication to serious ones. I’m
also always really surprised at how many teens have to come in overnight
because they blacked out from drinking too much, especially recently while the
UEFA cup has been going on and Germany was dominating.
This
clinic is also the section for the people who have regular insurance in Munich,
therefore a lot of them come from different countries, which makes communication
harder sometimes. In Munich, health insurance kind of supports the wealthier
side more. For example, if you drop by the doctor’s appointment to ask a
question about something during the same time as someone with the higher
insurance, they will get to go before you. If you’ve been waiting and another
person comes in with higher insurance as well, you will have to keep sitting
and waiting until that person has been checked on as well.
I’ve
enjoyed however the international interactions, and have even been able to
translate for people between English and German, which seriously makes you feel
incredibly smart. In the last week of my internship, there was a lady there
with her 5-year-old son, who has Epilepsy, and every time I walked by their
room I thought I heard her say things like “Come here, baby-cakes” and “Darling,
yer gonna be fine”, but I wasn’t sure. Turns out she is from Texas, but was
born in Germany on an American military base, came back here for school and
married a German. Not to mention, her German was crazy perfect.
The
shifts in the clinic are always around eight hours or so, assuming a full shift
has been worked. The “Krankenschwestern” (or nurses) are in charge of each
station and are also responsible for everything that goes on. The
Bereichsleitung (head of department) is above the Krankenschwestern, has the
final say on everything, and is also the one that determines our work
plans/schedules. There is “Frühdienst” (early shift) in the morning from
6-14.30 and “Spätdienst” (late shift) from 12.30-21.00. I have basically the
same job for each one; it’s just a different time of the day, with different
meals being served.
My main
goal in applying for this internship was to gain a personal and realistic
perspective on German medicine, application, execution, ideology, and work
environment. I am also very interested in becoming a doctor one day and always
assumed I would attend a medical school in the United States. However, after
living in Munich for a year, I’ve considered studying elsewhere. I was hoping
that by doing an internship with this teaching clinic, I would be able to make
that decision much easier. However, as I now write this portion of the blog on
June 24th, it hasn’t become much clearer to me. I also decided to
not sign up for the TestDaf exam next month, which is what allows me to study
later on at the University. I think there is a bigger part of me saying to
wait, that I can always take the test later, and to not go through the money
and time if it’s not something I really desire to do. I feel like I will be
back in Munich for something though. Right now I’m just not sure what.
Germany
has a different approach to medicine than we do in America. They focus more on
“Homöopathie”, whereas as we get a little crazy with drugs at times. Germans
tend to focus on the more natural methods, and the less drug use, the better. I
have actually seen that here throughout the clinic when each kid is taking
their dose of medicine for the day. It’s never pills—it’s always some form of a
liquid/nutrition/energy/hydration mixture. I kind of always wonder how our
society would respond to using such methods when we are already so used to take
pills for almost everything. And at this point I wonder if switching methods
would even be beneficial anymore.
As I’m
writing this I’m in my last few days at the clinic. I just finished a Sunday
shift at the clinic. It was okay…I’m tired of the language barrier. Today was a
little frustrating because one lady and I had a miscommunication, and I wasn’t
allowed to explain myself. I was so flustered I’m not even sure if I would have
been able to at the time. The lady, who is German, wasn’t sure about some of
the food in another food wagon, and asked me about ir. I told her that normally
someone else turns that one on to heat up the food, and I therefore wasn’t
exactly sure of how it worked. She went ahead and turned it on, saying we would
get it later.
After
the food was finished she had gone to sit with the Therapy Girls to watch and
record their food and liquid intake. As I was pulling out the tray, I noticed
the girl’s name on the paper was someone who’d previously eaten at lunchtime. I
remembered wondering how she got food because I hadn’t given it to her,
assuming that she was on some special diet from someone else. I went to the
lady to ask about the girl and the food, and she immediately got extremely
irritated. She asked me where I got the tray from, and I replied that I got it
from the food wagon. She then asked, “And then what do we do with that food
from that particular food wagon?” I realized she was being condescending and
immediately shut down linguistically. I kind of stared, completely caught-off
guard by her response, and she got up, slammed her board down, and led me back
to the food wagon. She then told me that that food wagon was for patients with
diabetes. “If they have diabetes, what do we do with the food?” she asked. I
still wasn’t sure how to respond because I was still so taken-aback by how she
was acting. When I didn’t answer in the two seconds she gave me, she then
pointed to the eating table not too far away and said to just take it there. She
then just walked off and didn’t look back.
I stood
there completely dumbfounded. Part of me was fighting anger and the other part
was trying so hard to let it go. I know I’m supposed to just let it go, and
assume it was just a small communication problem. However, its times like these
that really make me want to go home. When speaking German I’m not allowed any
time to think about what I want to say because if I don’t answer right away,
it’s assumed I didn’t understand the question and “I can answer in English if I
want”. It’s a very demoralizing feeling to battle with. Not all cases are like
the one from today, and some are truly me not understanding exactly what is
being said. But I am getting to the point where I am ready to not have this
language battle anymore. In a way it’s even helping me prepare myself for going
home. My vocabulary and way of speaking isn’t necessarily the brightest in
English, but it is mine, and I miss that being enough.
As I’m
writing this last part of this blog now, I am in the Deutsche Bahn headed
toward Bamberg for the weekend to visit some of my friends from Clemson. I’m
really excited to hang out with them, and get out of Munich, because I haven’t
left to go sight-seeing since I went to Kenya in March. It’s too easy to travel
around here to not take advantage of traveling opportunities. I think I’m also
finally starting to let it sink in that it’s the last day of June, and I’m
going home in exactly one month. And now I have the feeling that I just want to
travel everywhere.
Anyway,
last section, I promise. I finally finished my internship yesterday, and the
last week went really well. I really enjoyed a lot of the patients this week
and none of the students were there, so I got to learn how to do a lot of the stuff
they normally do, like taking the patients temperatures, blood pressures working
with the diabetes patients, while still doing the work I normally do. I was
very exhausted every day, but also really proud of the fact that I stuck out
working seven straight days in a row, with eight hour shifts, all in German,
along with school and my research. It was really tough, but the week is over,
and I am going to enjoy the time I have now in Bamberg, because I need to.
After
finishing up this internship at the clinic, I can say with 100 percent
certainty that I want to become a doctor and work with kids. I’m not sure what
specialty exactly—whether infectious diseases, inborn diseases, eating disorders,
etc, but I definitely am heading in that direction. Medicine is a wonderfully
rewarding job. It’s a lot of pressure, and schooling, but for me, I think it’s
the field I find most worthy of pursuing.
So until
the next blog, which I will make about my weekend in Bamberg, I wish you all a
wonderful weekend!
Love,
Jessica
