Hola, amigos de Estonia,

Maarjo

The Barcelona school life is very interesting. All the lectures /lessons are in Spanish and the powerpoints are in Catalan – we understood quite lots of them, because the medicine language is Latin and everything bases of Latin. We made new friends at school and we like the lessons.

Then we had an Easter about week: we visited Sagrada Familia (cathedral –one of the famous sights in Barcelona), Parc Güell, where everything had very beautiful view over Barcelona; Montujic Parc ( famous National Catalan museum and watersource shows) and then I had a birthday on the restaurant, where we tasted paellas (Spanish/Catalan national food).

We were waiting for a long time our practice and finally, at 6th of April, it started at Sabadell and the hospital name is Parc Tauli, which was one of the biggest ones in Spain. The first day was very interested, we had a meeting and excursion to hospital. And we were showed many rooms.

Now we are staying in the hospital for a week and we like it. The co-workers are very helpful and friendly. The day starts at 8 clock and finishes about 15. 30 ( - 16.30, it depends). I take the blood everyday and I try to put the catheter and I do the EKG.

Kertu

Sorry that I haven’t wrote to here long time. I have had really busy time and also here are many problems about the internet. And every time when I went to the campus office and complain about that I don’t have internet again, then the lady in the campus office smiling and saying all the time, sorry, we can’t to anything today, maybe tomorrow, because the info technology specialist went to home already. And it is quite common, that the IT man come to your house 1,5 or 2 weeks later, because in here people have a lot of time:D:D Usually they don’t hurry. It is so typical Spain. If I skip this part, then everything is superJ.

Now a little bit about the hospital. The name is Parc Tauli. I am on the nephrology and vasculatures and Maarjo is in oncology. I really like mine department. Work is very interesting there and all crew is really friendly and they are smiling all the time. People are always positive and this is definitely one thing what we should learn to themJ.

We had to wait 5 weeks all together get a nurse, who can speak English, but mine cant speaks much, but she can understand, if I speak slowly and using the simple words. She is speaking mostly Spanish to me and I am speaking English to her. But it’s not problem for us. We used really mixed languageJ. But still, I am very happy, because, she is my reference nurse. She is a good teacher. She really wants that I can understand everything. If I can’t understand at the first time, then, she is explaining again, if it isn’t still helpful, then she try to draw or show me some thing what can be helpful. Also she really trust me..on my 4^th day in hospital, I did almost everything what she is doing usually. In Estonia in my mind reference nurses don’t trust the trainers very much and firstly the can do only really easy things, like take a blood presser etc.

In here I can do injections, take a blood, clean and treat the wounds, do a blood transfusion and teardrop infusion etc. It means every thing. It is really nice and I am learning a lot at this practice time.

There are also some differences between the Estonian and Spanish hospital, but they are not so big like I thought before. There are thing which are better in Estonia and the other thing what are better in here. For example, in here people don’t have to do waste separation, what we always have to do in hospital. It is not use to me. But in here nurses have to fill some more papers and the have to put their signature almost every where. I think it is good for the security aspects.

Hasta bronto,

Besos,

Kertu and Maarjo J