The "Study" in "Study Abroad"

After three very long days of orientation, I had almost forgotten why I was here.  I have now been to all of my classes, and I can honestly say I love them.  We have classes here that run Monday/Thursday and Tuesday/Friday, each an hour and 20 minutes per day (other than my core course, which is 2 hours long each day).  My schedule is great in that I never have a class before 10:05 am. Woooo!!

Yesterday my day began with Health Beyond Borders, a class on public/global health.  Didn't start off so well- I had the wrong textbook and couldn't do any of the required readings, but it turned out not to be a huge deal for the first day.  It is a class like nothing I have ever taken before, but I am so excited to learn about healthcare from an international perspective.  My professor, Siri, is brilliant.  She is Danish, received her post graduate degrees at Harvard, and worked for the UN until recently retiring.   Danes call all their professors by their first names- it might have something to do with the fact that Danes have the lowest score of all countries on how they perceive authority (this is what Siri told us, anyway).  Authority really does not exist, and it is not so much a lack of respect as an intellectual challenge in every interaction.  This class (as well as every other class) requires a ton of readings, something I am not really used to being a science major at Lafayette.  It will certainly be a different approach to learning, though I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet.

My next class, Medical Ethics, was also one unlike any other class I have taken before.  It is a philosophy class and raises questions with which all physicians have to grapple multiple times throughout their careers.  Like most Danish classes, there is only a midterm and a final.  Our professor told us how strange it is that Americans see grades as such a life/death situation; in Danish universities what matters most is the relationships students make with professors in their department and jobs they get within the department.

My last class of the day, Human Health and Disease, has the potential to be the best class I will ever take in my life.  It is the core class of my Medical Practice and Policy program, and it is taught inside of a hospital.  My hospital is Gentofte, which is about 45 minutes north of center city.  We're also lucky in that our professors work at some other hospitals and we will be able to have classes in about 5 of them. My professors are two female doctors, both dermatologists.  They are so enthusiastic and inspirational- each of them have 3 children (possibly the CUTEST children I have ever seen) and are extremely bright.  I was also impressed with their fashionable sense of style beneath the white coats they donned.  The classroom was so hygge (cozy), and there was coffee, tea, fruit, and cookies laid out for us.

I could get used to this.

In the class, we will be learning various basic medical school techniques, like putting in sutures and IVs.  We will be able to talk to real patients and conduct group differentials.  I literally could not be more excited for this practical form of learning.  Our professors gave us a basic overview on the process of becoming a doctor in Denmark, which is very different from the US.  For starters, medical school begins directly after high school (3 years general classes, 3 years in specific fields).  The biggest difference in my opinion was that they actually get PAID to go to medical school here.  While they don't make as much money as US doctors in the long run, I still think that being paid to go to med school is a more than fair trade off.  Being a doctor is not a high paying job, but it still is considered an extremely high social status.  After the 6 year program, doctors take the Hippocratic Oath and then specialize for 6 more years (1 year of an internship, 1 year of a specialty-specific internship, 4 years of a specialty-specific rotation).  In some specialties, like dermatology, a doctor must then pursue a PhD (another 3 years).  Both my professors are dermatologists, one of the most highly sought-after specialties in Denmark.  Another thing that I thought was very interesting was that there are many more female doctors than male doctors.  We have 4 males in our class of 20, which our professors said was pretty representative of the hospital.  An additional interesting fact: because of the universal healthcare system, patients do not have to pay for appointments or costly treatments such as chemotherapy and insulin, though medicine is not covered.  Dental care and mental health care are also not included.

Sorry about all that info; I just found it extremely interesting.  Making our way back from the hospital to our kollegium was an experience in itself.... thank goodness there was one other girl in my class who lives in my building.  We were so flustered at the train station that when the random person we asked for help turned out to have originally been from London (thus speaking English), the other girl screamed, "THANK GOD!".  We ended up making it back without frostbite despite how cold the weather was.

Today I had two classes, the first of which was Developmental Disorders.  My professor is Norwegian, not Danish, so his accent when he speaks English is a bit different from the professors I have.  He is really attractive.  This class is super exciting for me because one of the professions I might want to have is a child psychiatrist, which he is- he only teaches on the side.  I love that my professors actually work in their fields and have real-world experience.  We did a funny exercise in which we had to anonymously write down what we would most look forward to doing if we woke up tomorrow and were a member of the opposite gender, and then he read them aloud to the class.  About a third of the girls wrote "pee standing up," something that hadn't even crossed my mind. 

My final class was Danish Language and Culture.  Many people here are required to take that class by their home institution, but I am taking it of my own volition.  It will be so nice to finally be able to pronounce the street names correctly and go grocery shopping with ease.  I learned why I have been receiving strange looks at the grocery store when I ask where the kylling (chicken) is.... I have been pronouncing it "keeling," which is actually the pronounciation for the Danish word killing, or in English, "kitten". (Kylling is pronounced "kooling").  While the class will be extremely difficult, I am confident it will be every bit as rewarding.

I guess that's in for my first two days of classes! Let my first weekend in Copenhagen begin!