Haoran in Reykjavík

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February 21, 2012
by Lev
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Icelandic Names

You know what I’ve always wondered ever since I arrived in Iceland? Why the hell do all Icelandic people have -dóttir or -sson in their last name? They might all have the same parents and those parents must have been really busy might be ones answer, but there is some logic behind it. I did mention Icelandic names were difficult to memorise, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

How Icelandic people get their names is an ancient tradition that you won’t find very quickly elsewhere. I’m just gonna use the names mentioned in the Visitor’s Guide I grabbed at the theatre in Reykjavík (of which I realised the book costed 980 ISK just now, but I snagged it without paying! Woops.) since I’m not too good at making up examples of Icelandic names.

First, if a man is called Leifur Eiríksson and he marries Thórdís Haraldsdóttir, Thórdís Haralsdóttir will stay the same. That’s already one difference from most cultures we know, where the woman will take over the name of the man. Second, if Thórdís and Leifur have a son, he would have Leifsson as a last name while a daughter would have Leifsdóttir as a last name. These suffixes readily state if that person is a son of daughter of said prefix which is the father’s name.

First names are way too common and because the last names refer to their fathers, Icelandic people are always referred by their first plus last name, never alone is the last name used.

Funny, innit? I would be called Hao Ran Shenglisson and my son would be called X Haoransson (Haorannesson? Harrson?). Haha. I am curious to hear how you would have been called!

The Golden Circle

February 11, 2012 by Lev | 1 Comment

TheGoldenCircle-6

Icelandic people might not find The Golden Circle the most interesting attraction anymore, but boy did we enjoy our first trip outside Reykjavík! The Golden Circle consists of Gulfoss (a waterfall), Geysir and þingvellir (a national park where history has been written). It was everything I expected it to be, it was gorgeous. Totally worth getting up for at 7.30 in the weekend. This post will contain quite a few photos, so without further ado click for more!

View the pictures →

This gallery contains 12 photos

February 10, 2012
by Lev
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First Week Is A Fact

The last couple of days has been met with mixed feelings regarding the hospital life.

When I had finished with my surgery rotation in The Netherlands, I knew for sure that I would want surgery for Iceland as well. I tried to switch, but unfortunately was unable to anymore as everything was fully booked. Sigrún, our coordinator here in Iceland, said that if I had been earlier, it still would have been possible. Talk about pouring salt on the wound. Alas, nothing to do about it and I would just have to make the best of Internal Medicine here in Iceland.

Internal Medicine is all about communication and for someone who doesn’t speak Icelandic, it is terribly hard for me to work efficiently in the hospital. Even after you’ve introduced yourself as a foreign student many people tend to speak Icelandic. Don’t get me wrong, Icelandic people (not just those in the hospital) are very nice. Many of them have been very helpful to me. It’s just that in the hospital I have to ask for a translation many times and it gets really tiresome.

My usual day starts in the morning with the report, a summary of patients that were admitted the past 24 hours. Some students have said that there is some education at times as well, but I’ve not had any so far and thus every report has practically been useless for me. The discussion of patients after that is alright as the doctors there try to involve me as much as possible, but the rounds are mostly a waste of time again. Most people in General Internal Medicine are crippled, old people who don’t speak English very well so I can’t go and speak with them for myself either. I hope you understand that this part of the morning is not always something I look forward to.

I plan everything ahead when it comes to school (not nearly as much in my private life though) and you can’t imagine how lost I felt in the afternoons. I didn’t have much of a roster. Staying at the ward in the afternoon is not a very good idea as it mostly consists of administration and filling in forms. There is an occasional venapuncture, but I’m not going to wait all day for just that. So what the hell am I supposed to do then? Other Icelandic interns have lectures (see the post after the previous for that…), practicals and other things in the afternoon, all in Icelandic. Okay, maybe not all of them as one of the practicals of the surgical (!) interns was given in English because I was present (which was actually pretty good). I’ll be trying a hematology practical next week. Luckily, I finally managed to go to the OR and just asked if I could join a surgery. Even though I wasn’t able to scrub in (I was so close being able to, but then the surgery intern came in at the last moment), it felt great to be in the OR again.

That last part and the conversations with my supervisor, Jón,  and intern coordinator Gunny has given me some hope again. Jón is a gastroenterologist and actually studied in Eindhoven and Nijmegen so he speaks Dutch, a very nice surprise. He was very kind and gave me lots of things I will be doing during my stay in the hospital. Gunny is also called the ‘grandmother of all interns’ and I can see why: she takes such good care of us. She gaves us a tour through the hospital, a locker, some practical papers, a list of Icelandic words commonly used in the hospital and their translations…and so on. Plus, we finally got our ID cards. I thought that Dutch people had trouble pronouncing my name, but try Icelandic people! I’m glad I can finally just show them my ID card after introducing myself because my introductions will automatically follow with either “what?” or a horrible pronunciation of my name.

Here are our cards. A læknanemi is a medical student, a Kandidat is a 7th year medical student (more like an ‘arts assistent’ in Dutch), a læknir is a doctor and a sérfræðingur is a specialized doctor.

It may sound I’m not having a very good time at the hospital, but that’s not true. I just whine a lot. I guess you all know. Tomorrow is something to look forward to: The Golden Circle! Finally some real photos of what Iceland’s got to offer! I’ll see you!

 

February 7, 2012
by Lev
1 Comment

I Looked Like A Lab Guy From the Pressure Cabine

Remember how I was talking about those godforsaken ugly clothes and how I would bring my own doctor’s coat? And so I did. The difference between the nursing clothes and my coat is that it has short sleeves, is longer and does not come with horrible trousers. That is what doctors in The Netherlands wear. Apparently, that is also not what they had in mind in Iceland. The doctors in Iceland wear a coat with long sleeves, no trousers and it’s a bit shorter than our coat. So not that much of a difference right? Wrong. After having worn my lovely coat all morning including during lunchtime the specialist of my department, who I was going to see some outpatients with,  said what awful clothing I was wearing. I’m sorry? She quickly went with me to the basement where the clothes are stored and made sure I got one of these coats all of the Icelandic doctors wear. The people working there were already wondering where the hell I got my coat from. The specialist and them were talking and laughing a bit and on the way back to the outpatient clinic she said I looked like a lab (or tech) guy from the pressure cabine (where they treat people with diving sickness) or even the women who take bloodsamples from patients for tests. I was actually kind of insulted, I like my coat! But I guess it’s just not what they’re used to here. As my roommate and fellow intern Cécile stated: “So…You were there as pretty much the only asian guy in the hospital wearing, in whatIcelandic people would say, women’s hospital clothings?” That’s my bad karma for laughing at you guys (and the wind kept blowing like mad!), right there.

This day was tiresome and I’m not sure why. Probably the same reason as it would have been in The Netherlands though: getting up at 06.30 o’clock is just not doing it for me. O well, time to go to bed.

February 6, 2012
by Lev
3 Comments

First Day In Fossvogur Hospital

Twas windy, twas cold and I did not want to get up at 07:00 o’clock. How is that any different when I’m in The Netherlands? It’s not.

It would be my first day at the hospital in Fossvogur and while I wasn’t excited at all a week before, I still didn’t sleep very well yesterday. Nevertheless I got up, had breakfast and we went out for the busstop. Did I mention it was windy? Man, it blew and I did not like it! Apparently the weather in Iceland can change in an instant and it is very unpredictable. One day you’ll have some sun with a reasonable temperature, the next day it can be snowing and freezing. You know, I was laughing at you guys in Holland with temperatures going below minus 10 degrees while we were comfortably sitting at around 0 degrees. It definitely did not feel like 0 degrees today however and I sure hope I don’t get a payback from y’all for laughing at you.

We met with Sigrún, the coördinator for Maastricht University in Reykjavík, who was already speaking with another exchange student from Denmark. A nice guy who said he was living in an apartment which wasn’t even bigger than our bathroom (7 m²). Our apartment is way too big for the two of us and we were glad to have him if he chooses to live with us. We’ll see!

Sigrún gave us a tour in the hospital and after getting our godforsaken ugly hospital clothings (which, in hindsight, were actually nurse clothings) we were dropped off at our departments which was General Internal Medicine in my case. And that was pretty much it. What the hell am I supposed to do here? Helga, an endocrinologist, introduced me to some people who I would follow for the first two weeks. They were really nice. An Icelandic intern who was also new explained some things to me while we doing rounds, a Kandidat (a 7th years medicine student if you will) who was very kind and gave me suggestions what I could do after the visits and a studying Internist who offered to drive me home!

After the visits I really had no idea what I could do because the staff said that it’s mostly paperwork in the afternoon. I asked the Kandidat (sorry, I forgot your name! Icelandic names are hard to memorise…) what I could do and he honestly didn’t really know either. He said he knew some foreign students who’d just go home at 13:00 because there wasn’t anything interesting left to do for them after the visits. I wasn’t really planning on going home that early so he then suggested I should have a look at other specialties and see if I can do anything there. Coincidentially, a very friendly anesthesiologist came in and he offered me to come with him to the OR. He explained where I could get changed, where the surgeries would take place and that I was welcome if I wanted to attend some. Awesome.

That’s good and all, but not everything went peachy. The Icelandic intern said they have lectures in the afternoon and I asked her for an email so that I could mail the lecturegivers to see if they were prepared to give their lectures in English. The guy from the email forwarded my request to the lecturegivers and they gave me a reply in Icelandic which sounded something like this (after using Google Translate): “In my opinion, it is unreasonable to change this. He does not belong in these lectures. He’s either already had them or otherwise he will get them later.” The rest of the lecturegivers all sent a mail saying they all agree. That’s such bullshit. I mean come on, what kind of education is this? They’re either too lazy, too scared, exceptionally bad in English or a combination of those three to translate their lectures. Well screw your lectures, I’ll go do something more useful.

Other than that, the day was good. And I’ll definitely bring my own white coat tomorrow! I’ll see you guys!

 

 

February 5, 2012
by Lev
4 Comments

Iceland: Arrival and First Few Days

Together with my sister, who was seeing me off, I left Arnhem for Schiphol airport with much excitement. However, heavy snowfall caused huge delays in many departures at Schiphol airport and after waiting for over three hours in the plane, it finally took off. My excitement quickly faded as I was getting cranky because I had only eaten one sandwich and figured I could buy lunch once I arrived at Keflavík airport (Reykjavík airport is only accessible to import flights). The flight itself luckily went without any problems. The first thing that struck me upon arrival was the vast emptiness of the landscape. There is literally nothing. Just some snow, rocks, grass and mud. My ride to Reykjavík, about 45 minutes, had WiFi which was a nice surprise and I made good use of it to tell friends and family that I had arrived safely. No point in looking outside anyway since it was dark already, even though the time difference with The Netherlands was -1 hour.

I called the landlord of the apartment, Stina, and she said she’d pick me up from the bus terminal. A nice British guy overheard me while I was calling and asked if it was my first time here in Iceland. He gave me some tips regarding Iceland and said he didn’t speak Icelandic very well due to the fact that many people here, apparently, speak English quite fluently. Stina, a very nice Icelandic lady, arrived and we took off to my apartment. She took a little detour to show me where I could buy some food for the evening. A quick tour through the apartment and she had left for her dinner meeting.

I was starving and quickly went to the shop Stina showed me. I looked at the prices in Icelandic Krona and didn’t have a clue of how expensive it would become. Two packs of juice, one pack of milk, six eggs and some mini pancakes costed 1600 ISK. I remembered the ticket I ordered to get from Keflavík to Reykjavík which was 1900 ISK, about 13 euros. Holy shit, did I just spend 10 euros on those groceries?! Most of the fresh vegetables and fruits were imported from, you guessed it, Holland…The irony.

The apartment is huge: 128 m² for me and another intern who had yet to arrive. Two large bedrooms, a big diner room with a kitchen, a living room just as big and a nice bathroom. And all of that within 300 meters of the centre of Reykjavík. We’re very lucky. One thing that I noticed was the smell of the hot water: it smells like eggs. This is because of the sulphur the water contains and takes some getting used to. I wasn’t very sure whether I was clean or not after showering…

I was tired from all the traveling and went to bed, ready to do some exploring in Reykjavík the next day.

The buildings of Reykjavík didn’t differ much from other cities except for the colors perhaps. I’ve seen yellow, blue and even bright green colored buildings. One thing that you won’t see so easily in other cities after just walking for five minutes: mountains. You’re surrounded by mountains and it’s amazing. Now I really want to go out there and explore Iceland’s finest nature. Alas, for now it was ‘only’ Reykjavík. Supermarkets aren’t the only stores that are expensive: pretty much everything is expensive around here. Clothes, eating out, souvenirs (I’ll do my best my dear friends)… I’ll just have to get used to that I guess. It seems that I’ve also had Iceland’s national food already: a pylsur (hotdog). There is a tiny van just near the dock called Baejarins Beztu who apparently sells  the best hotdogs in the country (and many even say the best in the world!). Say the magic words ‘eina með öllu’ (one with everything) and you’ll indeed get a delicious hotdog for only 300 ISK, less than two euros. I’m going to eat a lot of hotdogs here guys.

Do you guys see the image at the top of my blog? A 10 minutes walk from my apartment and you’ll see that. Beautiful, innit?

It’s like I’m writing a book after proofreading this post, but I guess that’s good thing. I’ll be posting!

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Bathroom
Bathroom
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Dining room with kitchen
Dining room with kitchen

My bedroom
My bedroom
Living room
Living room
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Hallgrímskirkja
Hallgrímskirkja
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Baejarins Beztu
Baejarins Beztu
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June 18, 2010
by Lev
6 Comments

Ferrara Day 28: Liver Resection

Today was another exciting day in the OR! I would be seeing a liver resection and finally had the courage to take some amazing photos and videos. I found it awkward really, because people would see it as a violation of the patient’s rights in The Netherlands while here in Italy, they don’t seem to care a whole lot at all. Obviously, I made sure that our (amazing) surgeon, who has been guiding us through every surgery up until now, knew I’d be taking photos just in case he would be caught by surprise.

The patient was an older lady who had liver cancer. During the surgery, they saw that a tumor had attached to the diaphragm and therefore got very difficult to remove. It seems that they punctured the diaphragm in the process which took a lot of time to fix. After they fixed the diaphragm, another surgeon was called to do an echo. It was probably to make sure they had the right part of the liver and to see from where to where they had to cut. Our surgeon let us knew what he’d be removing by showing the parts on the pictures but in reality, it was a lot bigger. It sure looked like as if about 75% of the liver was removed. As said before, I was finally able to take some photos and it can be clearly seen there how big the dissected part was. After the resection, we were allowed to feel the liver and its tumors. It was amazing. Again, I made videos of that too. Last but not least, I was allowed to stand really, really close to him so I could take some photos from up close. He’s an example of how every surgeon should be: an expert in his field and one willing to teach others. The surgery took over 4.5-5 hours but it was worth every second of it.

Surgery was never a field I had a particular interest in (nor a disinterest), but after seeing these surgeries, I must say that it has grown on me. Who knows…

WARNING: The videos and photos are not for the faint of heart.

Ferrara Day 28: Liver Resection
Ferrara Day 28: Liver Resection 2
Ferrara Day 28: Liver Resection 3

Gallery is after the break.

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June 18, 2010
by Lev
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Ferrara Day 24: Storm

Nothing much happened throughout the day. We were pretty much waiting for the house party of the man who is organizing Ferrara Maastricht Academic Medical Exchange (F.A.M.E.) at 17:30. Just as we were about to leave with the group and a couple of cars, all of a sudden a sand storm caught our attention. Boy had we no idea of what was to come. It began to rain and the wind got a lot worse. It was something I’ve never seen before and it seems that it’s not something that has ever happened here according to our (Italian) drivers. Quite a unique experience, even though it was devastating for the complex. Many windows were broken by the wind and even the roof of part of the complex collapsed. Either it was a really poorly structured building or people just didn’t think this would ever happen. I tried to make some videos and photos of it.

The storm quickly resolved and we were able to go to the house party. I had something in mind (some kind of villa; I thought the man would probably be quite wealthy). I was close. Wow, that house was huge. And very beautiful. Especially the surroundings were breathtaking and very tranquil. The food we were offered: delicious, just delicious. Real, Italian food. Man, it was good. Do you mind if we come again, sir?

Videos:

Ferrara Day 24: Storm
Ferrara Day 24: Storm 2
Ferrara Day 24: Storm 3

Gallery is after the break.

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