Jyväskylä

Hi everybody!
I found some time again to tell you a bit about how I have been. The practice has been really great. I finished my first 5 weeks of musculoskeletal practice in the Center-Finland hospital 2 weeks ago. The practice was really good. I learned new things about surgical patients every day and it was really nice that although I didn't speak good Finnish, they didn't want me to just sit and watch- I could do a lot myself. And from the beginning, when I came here since now, my finnish has improved a lot, so I talk with the patients and my practice supervisors only in finnish :)
Now I am practicing in the Kinkomaa hospital, where there are neurological patients and it has been really interesting so far. Everybody is again very friendly, you always feel welcome and people are expecting for you. There are separate rooms for students, so you have your own kitchen and computers and so on in the hospital. For the patients there are different trainings that they can try. For example patients can try dancing, volleyball, balance training and so on- in addition to their normal physical therapy sessions. So the treatment is very diversified. Again I can do a lot myself, and it is also nice that they care a lot about your practice goals and they do everything to help, that you could achieve them.
It is also nice, that you can wear the hospital clothes and you also have your name tag with your picture- so you are like a normal worker here.

In my free time I have just been relaxing. I had my family visiting me last weekend, so it was nice to get some estonian food and to just hang around with them. The weather hasn't been really good. It has been snowing for a few days but I hope it will stop soon and we will have a warm spring too. This is it from me today. I'll write again soon. Bye!

Georg in Finland

Hello everybody!

I've been really busy and really haven't had time to write here, since the days are long and tiring, but at least i'm learning something new every day, or at least trying to..

At the moment i have started my practise in physiotherapy in surgery and have been to 2 parts of the hospital, the daysurgery ward (for people who leave the same day) and at the clinic, which are 2 really different enviroments; the first one focuses heavily on preparing for operation and explaining, while the clinic focuses more on the actual physical therapy part. People usually get 2-3 visits to the clinic after a surgery.
Mostly the patients have had some kind of orthopedic arthroscopic operation, for instance hip, knee and even shoulder replacements and of course back operations.
The practises and principles are quite different from Estonia, so i feel that it widens my view of things quite a bit.

Anyway it's only a ten-minute bikeride away and I love the little refreshing ride in the morning.

And i have been social too, built a snowman with my german friend and went for a fun night out with the guys.



All the best
Georg

Nursing students in Germany(1)

Herzliche grüße aus Fulda!

Greetings from Liisi and Sigrit from Germany. We are both Tartu Health Care College nursing students ( Liisi has 2.year and Sigrit 3.year). We chosed to do our practice in the heart of Germany. The town is called Fulda and it is located in the Hesse region. The population of Fulda is about 64 000, so it is smaller town then Tartu. This is very historical town and it is known because of it’s boroque archidecture.

We have had time to adapt with local lifestyle and surroundings.

Liisi arrived to Fulda on 10.march and is doing her practice in local Herz-Jesu-Krankenhouse in internal diseases and in surgery. First practice is in the half-way and impressions are positive. German language improves with every day, because you can’t do this job without communicating with patients and co-workers. It is clear also that Germans don’t like to speak English at all , so that‘s why it would be good to know some German before coming here. I have also realized how different nursing systems Estonia and Germany have and how different are the main tasks of nurses.

Sigrit arrived to Fulda on 4. April and will start her practice next week in the same hospital, where she will do her geriatrics and intensive care practice. The first welcome has been great in every way, the international students company is really pleasant. Fulda Hochschule has organized many events to connect all of us. With our semester ticket we got bonus to use free public transportation in Hesse. Thanks for this ticket we have opportunity to discover many places.

Germany is sweet and the local people are sometimes funny because of their pedantryand precise systems. In the beginning we saw it really clearly through lots of documentation that we had to fill. For our luck we had really nice school tutors to help us in every step of our way.

These are our first impressions from our Erasmus exchange. We will definately keep you in touch with our life in Fulda.

All the best!

Liisi & Sigrit