SMS received, from March till May, Ana-Sophia Burkard, a final year medical student at the University of Freiburg, Germany. She wrote about her experience at the Trauma surgery, Gastrointestinal surgery, and Cardiac surgery in Clinical Hospital (HC).

“Our final year in Germany consists of clinical electives disciplines that last four months each. We spend four months in internal medicine, four months in surgery and four months in a specialty of our choice. For my surgery elective I decided to spend two months in Brazil and two months in Portugal to get an insight into the surgical specialty in different countries and learn more about different kind of health systems. I already had done a 4-week elective in Brazil and loved the experience.

I started with Trauma Surgery where I followed the 6th year medical students in their emergency medicine rotation. I was really impressed by the amount of time and dedication the professors put into teaching the students. We mostly started the day with ward rounds, then had classes and in the afternoon depending on the day we attended patients in the ambulatory or had simulation training, my personal highlight. The simulation consisted of different emergency scenarios where we had to work as a team to save the patient and our work was analyzed in the end to figure out what could be done better. I felt like this was a great way of learning and furthering our skills.

In Gastrointestinal surgery I rotated through the different sub-specialties and had a chance to see a brought variety of surgeries. I learned a lot about the treatment of different diseases, examination techniques and postoperative care. I especially enjoyed the endoscopic center where I got to see patients with diseases like Chagas that otherwise I would not be able to see in Germany. 

In cardiac surgery I spend two weeks in the surgical center participating in a lot of different surgeries. I also accompanied the residents in their daily duties and participated in the weekly reunion of the staff members. 

Overall, I had an amazing experience first and foremost because of the amazing people I met. The 6th year medical students made me feel like one of their own from the very beginning inviting me to their parties, taking me out for ice cream and just being very friendly and welcoming. The residents where always looking out for me and letting me take part in the surgeries, giving me small tasks and making me feel very included. I was really impressed to see how much the professors saw it as their job to teach us and enjoyed sharing their knowledge. I am not used to having such a close bond to my superiors so it is something I will cherish.  

These two months went by too fast, and I just want to say thank you to everybody at HC/SMS Unicamp you made this experience memorable!”, said Ana.