I finally found some time to start translating this blog to English, I really hope that you're still interested in my experience in the US! I think I will make the English version a bit different than the Hungarian, because in the original entries I tended to explain many things you guys are surely familiar with in a really detailed way, this time I'll try to focus on the experience itself.
As you can see, this whole seperate page looks like one big blog entry. I don't really know how to make a separate page where I can post like I can do it on the main page, but I don't think this is gonna be a problem, because I'm planning on finishing the translation in five or six days, after it I think it's gonna be more convenient to look at the story as a whole. In the meanwhile, you guys just have to go to the bottom of this page to check if I have updated it or not.
So, let's just start with my first entry, the welcome message...
I basically explained how I got to the US, told the people to keep checking my Facebook account for photos. I also told them about the nickname I use here (LL), it's a long story, the only reason it's important for me is that it's in connection with my big dream I have had for 6 years. I also stated that I would only use first names if I mention someone I met in the US.
The flight - 12th July
My flight took off on Saturday morning and as usual, I hadn't slept during the night before. The itinerary was Budapest - London - Chicago - St. Louis my first flight on my own, its whole duration was about 20 hours with layovers in Heathrow and O'Hare airports that are considered big wordwide, so I was freaking out a bit. I had two hours for the layover in London which included a 2-km-run to get to the connecting passenger buses. The bus took me to the other terminal, where I had quite an unpleasant security check, fortunately without any problem, then came another run to the gate where boarding started in minutes, so I was very lucky that I didn't get lost anywhere.
The 8-hour-flight wasn't as terrible as many people say it to be, I was provided a blanket, a pillow, a little tv on which I could listen to music and I was offered food and drink all the time, so it was bearable, but it might have been like this because I had been waiting for this for such a long time that I just didn't care about how long the journey was. As we descended underneath the clouds ten minutes before landing, the first thing I saw of the USA according to the map was Lake Mitchigan, and after a little while appeared the skyscrapers of Chicago, I don't think I'm ever gonna forget those moments... Other parts of the city looked just like SimCity houses (low wealth medium density), I see why it's so important to pack as many people as possible in a little space in the game. /This was strange for me because we don't have these narrow, brown houses here in Hungary/
The Chicago airport was quite chaotic for me, random people were shouting at different lines in front of counters about where to go, of course the British passengers understood everything right away, I found my place only after a bit of stuggling and asking some questions. I stand in line for half an hour to be able to tell the officer the reason I went to the US in one sentence, to be able to enter the country. After this, I had five hours for the layover in theory, I got to the other terminal by train, checked my bag in and bought my first American magazine, a Vogue. With that done, I went to my gate and sent some messages to my homies, and then it turned out that my plane was delayed half an hour and then another half an hour and in the end they put it to another gate which was at the other end of the terminal. From this point I really started to freak out, because I kept thinking that they would change something again, and then, after spending seemingly endless time with waiting (7 hours) I took the one-hour-flight to St. Louis. A faculty member from South-Korea picked me up, he was really interested in pharmacy in my country so I told him about it on the way. Then I finally arrived at the STLCOP dorms.
The beginnings - 13th July
Since Paula arrived on Sunday night, my hosts showed me around the city, took me to lunch, etc. I spent the day with Ana and her classmate Merin, later their friends joined us, too. We had a lot of fun because they have just finished their second years at the university, so we could talk about the subjects we had, our opinions were pretty much the same. A few seconds spent outside were enough for me to understand why the locals hate the weather so much it was so humid that it makes the usual Hungarian temperatures unbearable, it's like you're in a greenhouse. I made a bet that it was around 38 °C, but it turned out to be 32 only.
I asked for Ana's recommendation in terms of food, so we went to the Crépes. During that day I concluded that the variety of food is at least ten times bigger than at home - I've seen fruits I've never ever heard of, and the portions are so big that I almost got sick after eating them. All of this for a relatively cheap price, sometimes even below the usual Hungarian prices. (Here I was explaining the role of buzzers and not having to be afraid to leave your stuff at an empty table)
After eating we went to watch the first half of the final match of the Soccer World Cup. There weren't many people in the theater, I was told that there would have been much more if it was football or baseball. Everyone was rooting for Germany, but they didn't pay attention to the match like Hungarian fans do, they were rather laughing at the players rolling all over the field all the time :)
Since we weren't big soccer fans, we decided to visit the Art Museum instead of watching the second half. It was way beyond my expectations, completely free with many rooms of paitings from all eras of art and there were even mummies in the basement, I had only seen some in the British Museum before. After getting out of the museum, we went to Ted Drewes, I ate an Oreo-flavored ice-cream, but the regular size meant quite a big cup.
In the end we went back to campus where I met Mary, who I spent the evening with. We checked out the Central West End, we compared things related to our univesities during that. I thought that the difficulty is pretty much the same, but there's more emphasis on practice in the US. We went back to the dorms, after a little while Paula arrived, and I met Ken, too.
First two days of retail pharmacy - 14th &15th July
We spent our first week in Gateway Aphotecary and Beverly Hills Pharmacy. Monday was rather like a demonstration, Chris told us about the history of his pharmacies, he talked A LOT about making money in the pharmacy business, he was checking the number of prescriptions in the computer system the whole day, how it fits in the awerage Monday statistics, he was estimating the profits based on that the whole time. We dealt a lot with the insurance system (because we have social security at home, which is different from the American system). My opinion about this whole stuff is that American pharmacy is much more business-oriented, money determines everything. A part of the pharmacy looked like a phone center, pharmacists recieve patients' calls here or even call them if they haven't received their monthly refills yet. If someone doesn't take his medications like he is supposed to be, they have innovative solutions, because they don't want the hospitals to get fined for readmitting the patient. If he's pathologically unmindful, they make him a box with all the tablets he needs for the next months, so he just has to tear the next packet every time he needs to take meds. The tablets are put in the packets by a robot. If that doesn't help, there's a machine that beeps every time the patient has to take the meds and if nothing happens, it makes a call in the pharmacy. When I asked who had money for all this, they replied it's still better worth it for the hospital than paying the fines every year. I asked if they dealt with compounding at all, the owner said they had a machine for that, but there are seperate compounding pharmacies in the US.
We saw a tablet dispenser robot in action in the other pharmacy. In theory, over 1300 prescriptions can be filled with that in a good day...
In the evening we had dinner in one of the oldest restaurants of St Louis, Blueberry Hill with three STLCOP students, I only ordered a salad, but I still couldn't eat that huge portion :D
We spent Tuesday with inventory in the pharmacy.
Express Scripts - 16th July
We had to continue with the inventory in the morning, so
nothing special happened, unlike int he afternoon, when Mary took us to Express
Scripts. Unfortunately they didn’t let me take any photos. We took part in two
tours, the first was more interesting and understandable for me, they showed us
the journey the meds take from being prescribed to being delivered. First the
prescription gets checked by a computer programme, then they are put into
groups in a way that each patients’s prescriptions stay together, so this way
time is saved, too. There are specific trays with holes in them, the orange
boxes are out in them. Each tray has a microchip in its corner, that is read at
the next station. Then the tray goes to the great filler, the boxes get filled
at four different towers – it was like the Parata we have seen int he retail
pharmacy, but a lot bigger. Before anything is put into the great filler, the
meds get checked for broken pills, dust is removed by ionized air, then they
scan the barcode, and only the appropriate box opens, so there’s no chance for
the pharmacist to fill int he wrong medication. If there are more generics of
the same substance, they are put in separate towers, so there’s no chance for
them to be put int he wrong box of the filler. These great fillers were the
most spectacular, when trays got underneath them, we could hear the machine
counting hundreds of pills, filling the 30 boxes on the tray in a minute, with
99,9999% accuracy… After this, there are separate stations for pills that would
break int he great filler, creams, injections and everything that’s given to
the patients in its original package. Then cups are put on the boxes, all children-safe, unless the patient asks for a normal one. The last two stations are refrigerated meds and narcotics, narcotics are protected by double security walls, only specific pharmacists are able to enter and everyone is inspected on the way out. After this a machine packages everything, prints the patient's address on it, the band throws it into the appropriate container, based on the patient's zip code - meds are delivered all over the US.
Hey guys, I'm really sorry for not updating the blog for such a long time, but pharmacy school has started here in Hungary, too, so I had a lot of stuff to do at the beginning of the new semester. I promise I'm gonna finish the translations ASAP, and I just really hope that you guys are still interested & following my posts.
Professional stuff, selfies and a baseball game! - 17th & 18th July
On Thursday afternoon we gave an interview to the school magazine, they asked us about first impressions, our goals and of course, differences. Ken helped us prepare questions that we asked Chris the next day. In the evening, we wandered a little in Forest Park, it was so huge that we only managed to see the very edge of it by the time it got dark. Then we went to Bar Louie with Mary and her friends. It was funny for us, Europeans, because we don't get free water in restaurants, but Americans drink it while they drink alcohol - it must be a hard (and expensive) job to get drunk this way.
Friday was our last day to work in the pharmacy, so Chris let us use the robots for a little while. And we met a really strange guy who thought every nation in the world uses English words for countries, and he also believed that everyone was using dollars (He was the one and only person we met during our stay, but it was strange). We spend the morning with taking selfies and other pics, but in the evening, we were going to a baseball game. The game was 3-hour-long, the athmosphere was just unbelievable for me, the cheering, and everyone, seriously everyone in Cards T-shirts, the fireworks at the homeruns and when they won the game. The game itself wasn't that interesting for me, Americans on the amfiheatre so much the more. Then we went to Ballpark Village. It was weird that there were so many "old" people and we were asked for IDs everywhere, you really couldn't get in any room under 21. I can't really conclude many things, because on the one hand I'm not much of a partyface, on the other hand I've only been to two places, but so far my experiences are that people don't trample on each other at all (like they do in Hungary). And yeah, the legend is true, African Americans really can dance, just like in movies :D
Zoo and Hannah's BBQ party + shopping time - 19 & 20th July
We went to the zoo on Saturday morning, its size was similar to the one's we have in Budapest, but I liked its design much better.
Hannah was sooo sweet because she invited us to her BBQ party at their place which was organized by her family and cousins (there were about 20 of them). We had a great time there, we liked the food and drinks, everything original American, and of course, the original American drinking games, beer pong, washers and flip cup weren't missing either, so the party got funnier and funnier as time passed. I met approximately the fifth American person here, who has been to Budapest, it's so strange, because they actually have good impressions about our health care systems and that we learn languages at school. So most Americans really do know about our existence, so the Hungarian stereotype turned out to be false (as I was always telling my homies). I met an exeption, but he must have been too drunk :)
On Sunday Mary took us to Galleria Mall, where I bought lots of stuff. I liked that shops assistants were very polite and accomodating despite my surely significant Hungarian accent. The size of the mall wasn't much bigger than the ones we have in Budapest.
The first day of our hospital rotation - 21st July
My first day in BJC was quite a though experience, as it was in the psych unit, and I have always been a little bit afraid of patients having a mental illness. The hospitel itself seemed incredibly modern and huge to me.
I took part in the meeting at the beginning of the day, then Misty, my new preceptor explained her role in treating patients, we met two local students spending the rotations at the unit, then we went to see a patient. She was an old woman, it was strange, because at first she seemed normal to me, maybe because her pronounciation was different than the usual, so I might have not understood everything she said. The only unusual thing about her that I noticed was that she started laughing in random moments and sometimes she wasn't answering the questions she had been asked. The next patient was very young and uncommunicative, she didn't really get what we were asking her, the only thing she showed interest in was weed. The third patient suffered from deep depression, we had to explain the interactions of a new medicine to her, she was behaving normally. Unlike the last patient, who didn't let us in her room and was telling us about non-existant things like her being pregnant, and she wasn't looking in the eye of any of us while she was talking.
In the evening, Ken and his wife took us in an Italian restaurant, where I could hardly eat my portion despite the fact that I was expacting it to be big. Finally I got to know how I was chosen and we talked a lot about how many foreigners go to school to or live in STL. It was just so different for me that an American professor is so aware of everything, has travelled all over Europe and many other places, knows all the drawbacks the most prosperous country of the world has, and wants to change the ones that are under the scope of his authority (for example organizing international programs at the university), and what the most incredible for me was, that he was discussing this with me, an unknown Eastern-European student in a restaurant, and this hasn't been the first time for him to spend his day with us taling about these topics...
The second day of the hospital rotation, Places for People - 22nd & 23rd July
The setup of the hospital was the same as it was on the previous day, consultation in the morning, then meeting patients, listening to some presentations. For some reason we entered the unit in which the patients with the most serious conditions were kept, I was afraid a bit, a female patient wanted to convince us that doctors were secretly cloning people, but we saw a very dangerous guy, too, who was supervised by a cop. In the afternoon we took part in the active therapy of the patients in the best condition, which means they are let into a room where they can play table tennis, snooker, train, play nintendo, read books, surf on the internet or play board games. One of the American students played table-tennis with the young girl having problems with weed, it was quite funny, because the girl didn't say more than two word is ten minutes, but she was very good in table tennis. Then we played snooker with her and another patient, we were quite hopeless. We saw court as well that day, the case belonged to an old woman having schizophrenia, she was staying in the hospital involuntarily. Unfortunately she didn't accept that she wasn't supposed to talk while the doctor was doing so, and she didn't seem to understand the situation, so it wasn't that exciting, after a while she actually had to leave the room.
In the evening Misty invited us to play beach volleyball with her and her friends. I accepted the invitation. The place was fabolous, it was completely free, there was a counter where you could buy drinks, with two beach volleyball courts, referees, volleyballs, and the sand was imported from Florida. But this wasn't the most fascinating thing to me: it was the was they were playing: they congratulated each other even in somebody lost the ball, or the saving was totally hopeless and teams always say good game in the end of the games, they just wanna have fun instead of shouting at each other.
On Wednesday I went to another place, Places for People. This organization was dealing with outpatients, most of them were homeless, they help them find a home, they give them medications and basic health screenings. My preceptor, Kelly's job was really interesting, we talked to three patients that day, we visited two of them in their homes. Both of the two we visited lived in bad areas, had had drug problems before, and they had to have their mental illnesses treated as well. One of the patients was really depressed, and didn't seem to wanna share a lot with Kelly, the other was pregnant, and it was her case which made me understand why Kelly's job was so important. Obviously these people are not too well-educated and they are ill as well, so it has to be hard to find the best way to talk to them which is not condescending but still understandable. But motivational interviewing really worked, so far I had only heard people talking about it, but now I saw it and I must admit that it was effective. The most important thing about it that the patient has to say what his problem is, he has to be asked if it disturbed him, and in some was, he has to be led to the solution, because the best solution for him has to be the one he comes up with. If he is wrong about something, you mustn't correct him or reject him, because then he would surely resist. This way Kelly successfully convinced the patient to take her medications twice a day, to deal with the conflict she had with her neighbor and give up smoking for the duration of her pregnancy (and until then the patient had been thinking that smoking wasn't harmful for the fetus). During this, she also asked her about her simptoms but also her life in general, so the situation wasn't so uncomfortable for the patient. For me it seemed that patients were trusting Kelly, which is a hard job to achieve in the case of drug addicts having mental illnesses.
SIUE, ECT, Places for People - 24th & 25th July
We visited SIUE on Thursday. First we took part in a meeting which was about international programs including IPSF, it was mostly about preparations, plane tickets, visas, etc... I'm just mentioning this to emphasize the difference, in Hungary it's your job to do the preparations, the university doesn't even know that you're going until you come back. Then we listened to presentations in Journal Club. In the end of the day we went to a Mexican restaurant and tried to visit 360 but unfortunately it had been closed for that time, so we went to Ballpark Village, from where we could see the Stadium and I tried some Chicago beer, too.
Friday started in the hospital early in the morning, because we got the opportunity to observe ECT. I made some research, but unfortunately I'd seen some youtube videos apart from the journals that had been given to us, and the stuff I found was really frightening. In Hungary it's not a preferred therapeutic method, but there were lots of patients here.
Then we went over to Places for People, where I was observing a resident psychiatrist's work. His first patient had severe schizophrenia, he thought he was a famous DJ, and when the physician left the room for a sec he asked me if I was having fun, then he told me he knew a celebrity from Hungary, unfortunately I didn't have time to ask who he was talking about :D Then came a severely paranoiac woman who had shopping mania, too; they a girl with schizophrenia who didn't wanna take her medications, then another paranoiac woman who didn't speak English, but a nursing student was transalting her.
We went on a brewery tour in the afternoon, then we visited the City Museum, which was like a huge playground, everything was made of recycled material, it was full of slides, caves, I enjoyed it as an adult, too.We found the museum part, too, there were pieces of old buildings, it was strange to me that STL was 250 years old, but they had ancient ruins fron Egypt :)
Gateway Arch, Grant's Farm, another hospital rotation - 26th-28th July
On Saturday we visited the Arch, the Gateway to the West, the tallest monument of the USA. We travelled to the top in tiny, egg-like elevartors, where we could see could see the city from bird's eye view. During our waiting time, we also visited the Courthouse, wich was full of American flags, and contained a small museum, too.
We went to Grant's Farm on Sunday. I loved the buffalos there, which were wandering free in a park, it was a bit frightening as well. We fed some goats, saw some Clydesdales and there were lots of other animals, too.
We were continuing the hospital rotation on a different site on Monday, it was the ICU in Barnes, and our preceptor was Paul. We were rounding with the physicians, resident, nurses and students. I didn't understand a lot of the professional stuff, I think that would require at least five years of studies at a university to have a chance to get something from what they discuss among each other, and for me, this was the only drawback the exchange program had, that noone semmed to understand how much people know after two years of studies and what I could learn in a week. Some preceptors took this in account, for example the second week was really interesting, but Paul couldn't change anything much, because there were about ten people in the rounding group, and I don't think they could do anything with the fact that I hadn't even had physiology then yet. So because of this, I cannot write so much about this week's professional part, but fortunately I was able to see cooperation in the American health service, all the high-tech deviced, and we also saw two intubations.
In the evening we were supposed to go to the Lemp Mansion, but something got in our way, so we went to a really unique blues restaurant with live music to have dinner and then had some cocktails up in 360.
Hey guys, I'm really sorry for not updating the blog for such a long time, but pharmacy school has started here in Hungary, too, so I had a lot of stuff to do at the beginning of the new semester. I promise I'm gonna finish the translations ASAP, and I just really hope that you guys are still interested & following my posts.
Professional stuff, selfies and a baseball game! - 17th & 18th July
On Thursday afternoon we gave an interview to the school magazine, they asked us about first impressions, our goals and of course, differences. Ken helped us prepare questions that we asked Chris the next day. In the evening, we wandered a little in Forest Park, it was so huge that we only managed to see the very edge of it by the time it got dark. Then we went to Bar Louie with Mary and her friends. It was funny for us, Europeans, because we don't get free water in restaurants, but Americans drink it while they drink alcohol - it must be a hard (and expensive) job to get drunk this way.
Friday was our last day to work in the pharmacy, so Chris let us use the robots for a little while. And we met a really strange guy who thought every nation in the world uses English words for countries, and he also believed that everyone was using dollars (He was the one and only person we met during our stay, but it was strange). We spend the morning with taking selfies and other pics, but in the evening, we were going to a baseball game. The game was 3-hour-long, the athmosphere was just unbelievable for me, the cheering, and everyone, seriously everyone in Cards T-shirts, the fireworks at the homeruns and when they won the game. The game itself wasn't that interesting for me, Americans on the amfiheatre so much the more. Then we went to Ballpark Village. It was weird that there were so many "old" people and we were asked for IDs everywhere, you really couldn't get in any room under 21. I can't really conclude many things, because on the one hand I'm not much of a partyface, on the other hand I've only been to two places, but so far my experiences are that people don't trample on each other at all (like they do in Hungary). And yeah, the legend is true, African Americans really can dance, just like in movies :D
Zoo and Hannah's BBQ party + shopping time - 19 & 20th July
We went to the zoo on Saturday morning, its size was similar to the one's we have in Budapest, but I liked its design much better.
Hannah was sooo sweet because she invited us to her BBQ party at their place which was organized by her family and cousins (there were about 20 of them). We had a great time there, we liked the food and drinks, everything original American, and of course, the original American drinking games, beer pong, washers and flip cup weren't missing either, so the party got funnier and funnier as time passed. I met approximately the fifth American person here, who has been to Budapest, it's so strange, because they actually have good impressions about our health care systems and that we learn languages at school. So most Americans really do know about our existence, so the Hungarian stereotype turned out to be false (as I was always telling my homies). I met an exeption, but he must have been too drunk :)
On Sunday Mary took us to Galleria Mall, where I bought lots of stuff. I liked that shops assistants were very polite and accomodating despite my surely significant Hungarian accent. The size of the mall wasn't much bigger than the ones we have in Budapest.
The first day of our hospital rotation - 21st July
My first day in BJC was quite a though experience, as it was in the psych unit, and I have always been a little bit afraid of patients having a mental illness. The hospitel itself seemed incredibly modern and huge to me.
I took part in the meeting at the beginning of the day, then Misty, my new preceptor explained her role in treating patients, we met two local students spending the rotations at the unit, then we went to see a patient. She was an old woman, it was strange, because at first she seemed normal to me, maybe because her pronounciation was different than the usual, so I might have not understood everything she said. The only unusual thing about her that I noticed was that she started laughing in random moments and sometimes she wasn't answering the questions she had been asked. The next patient was very young and uncommunicative, she didn't really get what we were asking her, the only thing she showed interest in was weed. The third patient suffered from deep depression, we had to explain the interactions of a new medicine to her, she was behaving normally. Unlike the last patient, who didn't let us in her room and was telling us about non-existant things like her being pregnant, and she wasn't looking in the eye of any of us while she was talking.
In the evening, Ken and his wife took us in an Italian restaurant, where I could hardly eat my portion despite the fact that I was expacting it to be big. Finally I got to know how I was chosen and we talked a lot about how many foreigners go to school to or live in STL. It was just so different for me that an American professor is so aware of everything, has travelled all over Europe and many other places, knows all the drawbacks the most prosperous country of the world has, and wants to change the ones that are under the scope of his authority (for example organizing international programs at the university), and what the most incredible for me was, that he was discussing this with me, an unknown Eastern-European student in a restaurant, and this hasn't been the first time for him to spend his day with us taling about these topics...
The second day of the hospital rotation, Places for People - 22nd & 23rd July
The setup of the hospital was the same as it was on the previous day, consultation in the morning, then meeting patients, listening to some presentations. For some reason we entered the unit in which the patients with the most serious conditions were kept, I was afraid a bit, a female patient wanted to convince us that doctors were secretly cloning people, but we saw a very dangerous guy, too, who was supervised by a cop. In the afternoon we took part in the active therapy of the patients in the best condition, which means they are let into a room where they can play table tennis, snooker, train, play nintendo, read books, surf on the internet or play board games. One of the American students played table-tennis with the young girl having problems with weed, it was quite funny, because the girl didn't say more than two word is ten minutes, but she was very good in table tennis. Then we played snooker with her and another patient, we were quite hopeless. We saw court as well that day, the case belonged to an old woman having schizophrenia, she was staying in the hospital involuntarily. Unfortunately she didn't accept that she wasn't supposed to talk while the doctor was doing so, and she didn't seem to understand the situation, so it wasn't that exciting, after a while she actually had to leave the room.
In the evening Misty invited us to play beach volleyball with her and her friends. I accepted the invitation. The place was fabolous, it was completely free, there was a counter where you could buy drinks, with two beach volleyball courts, referees, volleyballs, and the sand was imported from Florida. But this wasn't the most fascinating thing to me: it was the was they were playing: they congratulated each other even in somebody lost the ball, or the saving was totally hopeless and teams always say good game in the end of the games, they just wanna have fun instead of shouting at each other.
On Wednesday I went to another place, Places for People. This organization was dealing with outpatients, most of them were homeless, they help them find a home, they give them medications and basic health screenings. My preceptor, Kelly's job was really interesting, we talked to three patients that day, we visited two of them in their homes. Both of the two we visited lived in bad areas, had had drug problems before, and they had to have their mental illnesses treated as well. One of the patients was really depressed, and didn't seem to wanna share a lot with Kelly, the other was pregnant, and it was her case which made me understand why Kelly's job was so important. Obviously these people are not too well-educated and they are ill as well, so it has to be hard to find the best way to talk to them which is not condescending but still understandable. But motivational interviewing really worked, so far I had only heard people talking about it, but now I saw it and I must admit that it was effective. The most important thing about it that the patient has to say what his problem is, he has to be asked if it disturbed him, and in some was, he has to be led to the solution, because the best solution for him has to be the one he comes up with. If he is wrong about something, you mustn't correct him or reject him, because then he would surely resist. This way Kelly successfully convinced the patient to take her medications twice a day, to deal with the conflict she had with her neighbor and give up smoking for the duration of her pregnancy (and until then the patient had been thinking that smoking wasn't harmful for the fetus). During this, she also asked her about her simptoms but also her life in general, so the situation wasn't so uncomfortable for the patient. For me it seemed that patients were trusting Kelly, which is a hard job to achieve in the case of drug addicts having mental illnesses.
SIUE, ECT, Places for People - 24th & 25th July
We visited SIUE on Thursday. First we took part in a meeting which was about international programs including IPSF, it was mostly about preparations, plane tickets, visas, etc... I'm just mentioning this to emphasize the difference, in Hungary it's your job to do the preparations, the university doesn't even know that you're going until you come back. Then we listened to presentations in Journal Club. In the end of the day we went to a Mexican restaurant and tried to visit 360 but unfortunately it had been closed for that time, so we went to Ballpark Village, from where we could see the Stadium and I tried some Chicago beer, too.
Friday started in the hospital early in the morning, because we got the opportunity to observe ECT. I made some research, but unfortunately I'd seen some youtube videos apart from the journals that had been given to us, and the stuff I found was really frightening. In Hungary it's not a preferred therapeutic method, but there were lots of patients here.
Then we went over to Places for People, where I was observing a resident psychiatrist's work. His first patient had severe schizophrenia, he thought he was a famous DJ, and when the physician left the room for a sec he asked me if I was having fun, then he told me he knew a celebrity from Hungary, unfortunately I didn't have time to ask who he was talking about :D Then came a severely paranoiac woman who had shopping mania, too; they a girl with schizophrenia who didn't wanna take her medications, then another paranoiac woman who didn't speak English, but a nursing student was transalting her.
We went on a brewery tour in the afternoon, then we visited the City Museum, which was like a huge playground, everything was made of recycled material, it was full of slides, caves, I enjoyed it as an adult, too.We found the museum part, too, there were pieces of old buildings, it was strange to me that STL was 250 years old, but they had ancient ruins fron Egypt :)
Gateway Arch, Grant's Farm, another hospital rotation - 26th-28th July
On Saturday we visited the Arch, the Gateway to the West, the tallest monument of the USA. We travelled to the top in tiny, egg-like elevartors, where we could see could see the city from bird's eye view. During our waiting time, we also visited the Courthouse, wich was full of American flags, and contained a small museum, too.
We went to Grant's Farm on Sunday. I loved the buffalos there, which were wandering free in a park, it was a bit frightening as well. We fed some goats, saw some Clydesdales and there were lots of other animals, too.
We were continuing the hospital rotation on a different site on Monday, it was the ICU in Barnes, and our preceptor was Paul. We were rounding with the physicians, resident, nurses and students. I didn't understand a lot of the professional stuff, I think that would require at least five years of studies at a university to have a chance to get something from what they discuss among each other, and for me, this was the only drawback the exchange program had, that noone semmed to understand how much people know after two years of studies and what I could learn in a week. Some preceptors took this in account, for example the second week was really interesting, but Paul couldn't change anything much, because there were about ten people in the rounding group, and I don't think they could do anything with the fact that I hadn't even had physiology then yet. So because of this, I cannot write so much about this week's professional part, but fortunately I was able to see cooperation in the American health service, all the high-tech deviced, and we also saw two intubations.
In the evening we were supposed to go to the Lemp Mansion, but something got in our way, so we went to a really unique blues restaurant with live music to have dinner and then had some cocktails up in 360.
Volleyball, Botanical Gardnens, Fast Eddie's - 28th - 31st July
The most important thing I expreienced the ICU is that like in the psych unit, collaborative pracitice plays a huge role here. An average day here cosists of a meeting in the morning, than physicians, residents and nurses divide in two groups and round, nurses and residents inform the physican about the patients' condition and lab results, they see the patient if necessary, they have portable computers, so they can see chest x-rays for example. Every patient room has a white board next to its entrance on which they write the goals for the actual day when they round. Students and residents are always asked questions, so it's an excellent opportunity for them to learn.
I went to play beach volleyball on Tuesday evening again, I was starting to get used to the sand court, I was so sorry that this was the last time :(
On Wednesday we said goodbye to Ken, we went to a fast food restaurant first, and then we visited the Botanical Gardnens. There was a concert and we visited the Japanese and Chinese gardens, they were beautiful.
On Thursday we went to Fast Eddie's with three STLCOP students (Katie, Katie and Jeff). It was really authentic bacause of the live music which was a mixture of rock 'n' roll and country.
Irish restaurant, Six Flags - 1st & 2nd August
We met Sarah, the LEO from Edwardsville on Friday. She took us to an Irish restaurant with her friend, Daphne, I really liked the athmosphere there. We visited the market in the Soulard neighborhood beforehand.
We spent our Saturday in Six Flags, there are some videos of the rides on the Hungarian page, but I think you guys are familiar with them.
The Muny, moving to Edwardsville, the last week in Edwardsville - 3rd-10th August
Sunday was our last day in St. Louis, we moved to Edwardsville in the morning. After exploring a bit of Edwardsville - where unfortunately nothing was in walking distance exept for some restaurants - we went to The Muny with Emily and her fiancé. We watched Grease - I've always been a huge fan of American musicals so I was really looking forward to seeing one live. And it met my ecpectation, I've only heard such good singing voices in the best theathres in our country or perhaps not even there... so it was another dream come true for me.
School started on Monday, where we mostly visited some classes (all our activities were organized by Bree and Cathryn) and we were taken to events organized for the freshmen. The auditoriums in SIUE were different than ours at home, much more convenient, everyone was using a laptop instead of taking notes on the printed slides as we do at home, eductaion is much more practical and the semester has no exam-session. Lectures are more like consultations, professors stop after each slide and ask if anyone needs additional explanation for anything on it. And the system of the subjects is completely different, too.
We visited some restaurants during our Edwardsville stay, too: we have been to Wood Fired Pizza and Wang Gang. I liked them both, wood fires pizza really did taste differently than usual pizzas do, and I liked Wang Gang in spite of the fact that I'm not fond of Asian food.
We went to a house party on Friday.
THE END
Hi guys! I hope you enjoyed reading about my adventures in the US! I just wanna let you know that even if I wasn't able to tell everybody about it, I am very grateful for each and every one of you who has helped in organizing our stay and making it better in any way. It has always been my dream to visit the USA, and I had a wonderful time in St. Louis and Edwardsville. I wish the best future in pharmacy for you guys and I really hope we'll meet again some day :)
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