Guilherme Ramos Meyers, a sixth-year student of General Medicine, spent a summer internship at a hospital in Varese, Italy. He sends an essay and photographs.
lake installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
Guilherme Ramos Meyer on the right side.
Photographs on this page: G. R. M. and his archive.
The cover photograph's title: A picture of me
at a carnaval mask shop in Venice.
One more year, one more SCOPE experience! And it keeps getting better!
After last year (I went to Istanbul) I decided to go for an option in Europe and also a smaller city. The bustle of Istanbul was great but I wanted to now try something more classic that would give me some different experiences. I got the country Italy and decided to go for Varese. Varese is a city in the middle of the Lombardy mountains with its own lake. Lake Maggiore is 45 minutes away and Milan only one hour. It's funny how I felt at home immediately. A lot of it reminded me of my hometown in Portugal.
I was the first exchange student to arrive, and my contact person Matteo took me to his place in Como where we explored the city and the lake. We immediately went to see Lake Iseo, which besides being beautiful, there was a huge installation on the lake. It was the perfect first day. The day after we went to have lunch with other the CPs and another student that had arrived. By the end of the day, the majority of students had arrived already and we could all meet each other by the next day. Besides me, there were two boys from Oman and one from Hungary, and there were girls from Brazil, Poland, Portugal and Sweden. The boys had an apartment for themselves and the girls one for them, which were relatively close to each other, as well as the supermarkets. You can already imagine where dinner was and where the party would be after! The month was amazing.
I was doing Gynaecology and Obstetrics at the Ospedale del Circolo, which was few minutes walking from the apartment.
Everyday I would start at 7.45 in the OR, where I saw many interesting cases in both Gynaecology and Paediatrics. All the staff, doctors and nurses were extremely nice and would speak in English but I also tried to speak Italian which made them very happy. I would spend the morning in the OR observing major surgeries and sometimes assisting in the minor ones. The majority were laparoscopies which was very good to observe.
The afternoons would either be in the hospital wards following up the surgeries I saw in the days before and in the morning, in the outpatient clinic doing physical examination and ultrasonography etc., or my doctor would tell me to go explore Italy, which as you can imagine has endless things to see and enjoy.
Some afternoons I simply got the bus with the other students and/or CPs and we went to the lake, where we lay down and enjoyed the sun and the baths all the way until sunset. It was so hot in Lombardy for the month of July! Other days we went to parks or cafes and relaxed, did some studying or reading.
The Lombardy region has the great tradition of apperitivo, and there were days where we just ate Italian tapas and had Apperol Spritz for dinner, for almost nothing. What a great life!
During the weekends, I went to Milan, Venice, and then Padova where I met my good friend Giulio (we met when he came to Prague to do a year of Erasmus)!
I saw so much of Italy and somehow not even 25%...
On the last few days of month, I could still give some absences and so my parents came to Varese. From there we all went to visit Liguria, the province of Genoa, another amazing historical city.
It was a month to remember, and I must thank all the people from IFMSA, the CPs and exchange students, as well as the staff of the hospital, for making it such a great experience.
I can't wait to see them all again in the future, whether at work, at a congress or during the Lombardy holidays. The friendships acquired during these exchange programs are invaluable and so strong as if they were actually congenital and lifelong! Miss you Varese!
