A Great First Meeting

My parents arrived to Prague this Thursday with 6 of their friends to see me, take a tour in the city, drink beer and eat great Czech food. Me and Kristýna planned to take them all to something more than just city sightseeing and could, with much and appreciated help from her mother, plan a trip to Hrád Karlstejn during the Saturday.
However, first I booked a table for 10 at Ambiente, an amazing Brazilian live restaurant, close to the Old Town Square. I strongly recommend anyone having parents or friends over that want to have a food experience to go there if a restaurant in the more exclusive range is to be preferred.

During Sunday we spent the whole noon walking the Czech nature at Prachovske Skaly with my parents, as the friends already left. It was a nice walk with amazing forests and rock formations not too long outside of Prague.
It felt great to work off the heavy food and beer from Ambiente and other smaller pubs.
However, when we went back to Prague we didn't have much time to rest before we were supposed to meet up with part of Kristýnas family for more food and beer.
This time we went for regular Czech cousin specialities - probably the best I've had so far here.

The weekend was great and it was very nice to see my parents, their friends and to see that they got very well along with Kristýnas family.

I believe that another week of hard work demands this kind of "rest"...

My Medical School Paradox

The more I study, the more enlightened I become.
However, the further I advance in enlightenment,
the more I realise just how little I actually know -
and it is really frustrating...

The 'Death' by Kagan

I’ve been looking a lot into philosophy lately.
‘Philosophy’ you might say – ‘what is up with that grown up shit?’.
Well, we all find interest in different things and after getting hooked up on the debate of religion I sort of took a short detour to the subject of philosophy – which, after all, is not very much unlike the former. Together, both subjects play a role in everybody’s life at some point.
For example, when was the last time you imagined death and your chest got all filled up by that dreadful feeling of unease and complete discomfort? Personally I remember that I used to do anything to avoid these kinds of thoughts, not too long ago.


Shelly Kagan during his lectures on the topic 'Death'.


As I think of it I had many periods, especially as a kid, when I found myself thinking about it while falling asleep and almost every time I ended up with a feeling difficult to translate into words. It was, and even to a certain degree today is, a quite uncomfortable issue to wrap my mind around. However, breaking it down help you see it from an interesting point of view.
The topic regarding ‘death’ is just a single fraction of the great philosophical questions raised but it’s a juicy one that I’ve recently been digging my teeth into.

So call it what you’d like but I’d bet you’d also get interested if you were to here out the lectures ‘Death’ by Shelly Kagan, Professor in Philosophy of Yale University. Not only is he a great character, sitting on the front desk with his legs crossed illustrating large questions with tiny schemes, but he is also an extremely great thinker. I don’t just say this because I share his ideas to at least 90% but rather because I think it does not matter whether you agree or not – you just can’t help but to get blasted away by what his and other philosopher minds are capable of stirring up.

Sunny Daze

My summer was the most amazing summer in a long time, or rather, for all time so far. Since histology was my last exam and my flight back home to Sweden was the very next day I had a lot of pressure on my shoulders to make it and go home to recharge. At least this was my plan and I believe I’d be a little bit devastated if I would not succeed. However, as the previous post reveals I did make it and could fly with a feeling of relief the next morning. Kristýna accompanied me and more than just my dad met us up at the airport - he also brought the best weather possible.

We sure did hit the best weather in a long time.
The risky thing about taking vacation on the Swedish west coast is the weather. If it’s with you you’ll have an amazing time but if it’s not appealing at all then you might as well stay at home. Of course it was a bliss to see my family again and to spend some quality time with them and Kristýna but it’s funny how the weather decides so many things.
   For example, we wouldn’t be traveling with our family boat to the very extent that we did this summer. Swimming and sailing in rain is no fun either. The only thing I’d still do, even if the weather would hit us badly, would be to play around with the jetski. However, I won’t waste time writing pessimistic words about the perfect summer – I’ll let the photos I'll post later speak for themselves.

Kristýna left after three weeks and I stayed another in order to see some friends and just relax. I knew what was coming for me because we’d been planning a trip to Austria and my first visit in real mountains. I’m not much of a hiker nor walker or runner but I do like camping and being in the wild and I must say that Austria totally changed my mind. The nature was ever so beautiful and climbing mountains are really a fun quest to conquer.
   It was a battle not only with the mountain but also with my self – I wanted to reach those damn tops. But, I do have an issue with heights and this put extra rocks in my backpack. However, during the last climb I somewhat overlooked the feeling of dizziness and felt actually pretty damn confident.  I think it takes practice, just as with anything else.
    MedSchool was not really close in my mind at this point and it’d take me another three weeks before I really started to plan in my head for the upcoming second year – and now I’m all of a sudden here,  sitting in the park next to campus having lunch and reading biochemistry.

Time flies by...

Histology Final Exam

The last days have held nothing but good weather, hence the long trip with the boat both north and south of the west coast. However, we didn't have to travel far - the very best spots are close to the harbour.

The jet ski have been a steady companion and together with the newly imported GoPro HD camera mountable on pretty much any solid surface I've snapped some rather amazing photos and videos - videos that are to be retouched and edited into a neat film later when the weather is getting worse.
As promised, I will give a recap on my preparation of the final exam from histology.
Straight after anatomy I booked histology in the end of June. However, as I finished anatomy the relief took over and the motivation of studying was completely absent. I took almost a week off, spending time with Kristýna and fixing in the apartment. The fact that Kristýna wouldn’t be done with school until the end of July, due to internships, made me rearrange my plan. One day before the deadline I cancelled the term in June. My plan was that, since I would stay in Prague until August anyway I might take the time to study properly.

Rushing things are never good, but after the event I think it was a bad choice.
As I previously posted, there was quite an unfortunate issue with the sign up system and I did not get a term. I could blame it on the system, but I’d rather be honest and say that it was my bad from the beginning to cancel the first term. However, more students were struck by the lack of slots in the July term and together we managed to open up more slots.
I now spent almost 4 weeks of studying the histology with increasing intensity towards the end. It was very difficult to sit inside studying when the sun was shining, knowing that I could have been done already. Kristýna was a huge support, kicking my ass to study and took me places to rest my head in between.

The histology questions are divided into three categories; cytology, systemic histology and embryology. I finished off the first part during the first half of the second week of repetition. It took me way more time than I had anticipated. My plan was to finish the systemic histology in the next week and leave one week for embryology. I was told that embryology was manageable in one week but since I didn’t really keep up during the lessons it would prove to be a lot tougher. The systemic histology took a bit longer as well, and in the end I had only 5 days for embryology.

Drawings are essential for embryology in order to understand the developmental steps which are rather complex. There are different books to study from and I recommend one that is well illustrated.
The day before the exam was like every other day before an exam, freaking out feeling like a complete idiot with no knowledge stuck in the head whatsoever. My exam was scheduled at Friday and my flight to Sweden the very same day. I knew it would be stressful so I contacted the histology department in order to change it to Thursday. It was a bit of a problem but after much doubt they agreed and let me in to the exam – as the first student. I got Prof. Kucera, a young professor who I had no contact with earlier, since he was not holding any seminars.

The exam is held in two parts, first the oral examination and then a practical microscopical examination from three slide preparations. The oral part contains one question from each chapter, as mentioned earlier; cytology and general histology, systemic histology and embryology. My three questions were:

-          Blood Smear, preparation and interpretation.

-          Islets of Langerhans

-          Development of the Heart

Really nice questions, indeed. However, I had quite a hard time at the exam. I didn’t know the questions as well as I’d hoped.
It was a success after all, and I could finally finish the first year.
Now a lot of preparation must be made for the upcoming second year. But first, vacation.

Early dive into the cold

I woke up from the neighbour boat playing a fanfare on his horn at 7 o clock, or more accurately ten to seven. I didn't mind since I being here for only a couple of days have brought me back to my early habits and schedule that I used to follow before going to Uni.
   Yesterday's intense jet ski ride with Kristina "at the helm" took the leg power out of me since her only mission seemed to be to try to throw me off - she almost succeeded - and in the evening I fell asleep at the deck with our dog lying at my arms.

I am aware that I drift off far from posting anything that is even remotely related to school, although, in one way it surely is. Getting to rest in between the heavy studies are a key to success, if one is to believe Kristyna. When I packed my anatomy and genetics books with me she look at me with an evil look. The books still ended up in my backpack but I haven't yet opened them.
   I am very happy that I passed the last exam right before leaving, having to leave with it undone or uncompleted would result in feeling obliged to go back to finish it and I would not have the vacation that I now can have. My mind still drifts off towards school, however, they are thoughts of satisfaction and eagerness, to see what the second year will have to offer and what challenges it presents that must be conquered.
   There is a possibility to demonstrate during the first year student's winter dissection and I will do my best to pass the test and hopefully out rule the competition. The interest for the demonstrating slots are changing every year but I believe that more students start to see it as the great way to repeat anatomy, which actually is the core in medicine. However, the test to sort out the non prepared (after all you have to teach it) is different from the test seen in the first year anatomy. The slides one has to label are not taken from painters in atlases or computer graphics, they are rather photographs from the actual dissected body and if the rumors are corresponding to reality it ought to be quite the challenge.
   Another goal of mine is to help with the guidance at the first year's enrollment. I very much appreciated the system where guides from the upper years showed us around the vast campus in town and gave us pretty much all the information we needed in order begin the year with the question marks straightened out to exclamation marks.
   Ever since the military service, where I voluntarily took the position as responsible for the safety and working environmental issues at platoon level, I have began to see that doing something else on the side and to actually get involved in questions that are important to others (may it be the guy next to you in the trench or the colleague next to you in the school bench) is a rather appealing way to satisfy ones need of feeling important with out being egoistic. As you might have understood I enjoy sharing of, not just thoughts, but experiences and information - a personal need of, for me, great importance.
   This brings me to a third route. There is a scandinavian, or purely Swedish (this I do not know for sure since I haven't had time to look into it until now), group of people from all the faculties that engage issues and questions about the return of graduated doctors to their home countries.  Questions like these might be raised later even for me, although I have no idea what the future might bring, and I find issues regarding the Swedish system very interesting. It might seem early, but when they asked for persons to represent the first faculty, which surprisingly seems to be absent, I began thinking about joining in to see what it is actually all about.

I'm now sitting the the cabin of the family boat writing this (surprisingly fast) from my dad's iPad which I, not only hate to admit, but actually find really convenient. I'm not much for fruit and electronic hybrids - even if it seems they actually are resistant to worms...

It seems like the amazing weather will stay so today brings more jet ski, fishing and tomorrow we will travel north to other rocky locations in the West coast archipelago...
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Posted at the deep blue, via iPad

Jet Ski, Fishing and 20 sec Sunset

Today passed by almost too quickly, however, we got a lot done.
We slept at the mothership and woke up early (if you consider 8:30 early that is). After the breakfast we went into harbour to reload groceries and more importantly to get the jet ski.
At first the weather did not look too promising but after a while the sun overtook the clouds and the temperature increased.
Kristyna got her virgin ride and it took her by storm - she really enjoyed the speed, just as I anticipated.
Dinner did not end up at our hooks by lunch time, we had to cheat and use some of the fish my father caught at the oil rig. However, being patient and trying again later proved to be the way to go - four of them ended up in the smoker, and finally in our bellies.
The sun just set in the far west horizon and now we will settle in the mothership, open up a bottle of red, light up some candles and just enjoy the sounds coming from the sea.

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Posted at the deep blue, via iPad.

Finally my mind is set free

After three weeks being more or less locked up in my study room in Lipova the day of the final exam in histology finally arrived.
I'll give a full recap about in due time but at the moment I've relocated myself from dusty city to crystal-clear oceans.
Kristynka are with me and after one day in the west coast paradise we are sure enjoying it to the fullest.
My head is down at rest speed and set on jetski cruising, jumping off cliffs and eating the goods from the sea - the perfect recharge for the second year.
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Posted from the deep blue, via HTC Sense