Arriving in a Foreign Land

Before I begin talking about the amazing first couple of days I have had here in Portugal, I want to explain a little about the purpose of this blog and what I hope to accomplish. My hopes are to be able to document as well as possible my day to day activities activity in 2-3 blog post a week. Letting others see how this shadowing experience (specifically through the Atlantis program) is and give my personal opinions about the tourist side of things as well.

With that said, I feel it important to tell you guys, my audience, who ever you may be a little bit about me and how exactly I got here writing this blog. I am 21 years older, the oldest of 5 children with wonderful parents, and have lived in Chicago, Winston Salem and Atlanta. Ever since I was little I can remember my father (who is now an orthopedic surgeon) bringing home a small pigs leg from the market in order to practice suturing up a small cut. This memory is the earliest recollection I have of ever wanting to become a doctor and ever since then that has been the only thing on my mind. I currently study neuroscience at BYU Provo with hopes of getting into medical school here in the next two years. It’s is also probably important to mention I am getting married next month because I have been spending a lot of time getting things organized for that.

So I figure I chronological timeline would be the best way to explain my experiences so here’s what’s happened so far! I left the Atlanta airport at about 20:00 (after a long goodbye with Kiersten, my fiancé) and landed in Paris France around 10:00 the next day. It was there I realized that the broken chip in my debit card was going to be a real hassle after trying to by some food at multiple location and none of them being able to use anything but a chip. Luckily, the vending machines in Paris seem to be slightly ahead technologically because they took Apple Pay. After grabbing something quickly I was off again, heading for Lisbon Portugal.

I landed around 15:00 and called for an I we because the taxi line must have been at least 100 people deep (and in my experience Uber is usually much cheaper). After walking to a different terminal far from the taxi line (due to the ongoing battle between taxi drivers and uberist) I took a short 30 minute drive to Cascais for only 18 euro. My driver was extremely well educated and explained their many different areas we passed through along the way. I did ask him to stop at a store in order to my some essentials, however, again they only took chip part of my card and I was unable to buy anything.

Once I arrived at the house, Jose, the owner of the house, meet me at the door to let me in a give me a key. I quickly got ready because the other fellows had already been there since the day before (there was no way for me to get there because I had a wedding to attend on Friday in AZ) and were out in the city exploring. I meet up with them at the train station of Cascais, only a 15 minute walk from the house. From there I meet up with Parker and josh, the two other I meet before at BYU, Trip who is from Arkansas and then Joao, who is out site manager. Always an awkward first encounter with strangers but little did I know we would quickly become good friends. After walking around a little and getting lost in the narrow streets of the city we stopped at a famous ice cream shop called “Santini”. It is of my highest recommendation that any and all who pass through Cascais or Lisbon (the only two city in which this place exist) must get ice cream here. It is some of the best I have ever had.

After the tour/exploration adventure of downtown we came home, ate some pizza and had the official Atlantis presentation about our program. This was probably one of the hardest points to stay awake… let me explain. Thursday I flew from Atlanta to AZ for a wedding ok Friday. Friday night at midnight I flew back to Atlanta arriving at 7am after which I spent the day with my fiancé (and lunch/house showing with my parents) in Atlanta trying to get in a nice date before I left for a month. Then that night I left at 20:00 to Paris arriving the next morning. So by Sunday night I had slept on a plane the past two nights and just could not bring myself to enjoy a PowerPoint presentation about not drinking or partying (mainly just things I already don’t do). Joao knew this and was very nice to me when I was doze off and on. Immediately after I crashed in bed not even remembering how I got there.

The next day, Monday, I got up early to run (trying to be fit and looking good for the wedding) and found some cool parks! After that we were off to the hospital. The official name of which is Hospital de Cascais, José de Almeida. Oh, I forgot that every morning we get breakfast at this very nice bakery across the street! An awesome perk I didn’t know we would get. We get a sandwich with ham and butter along with juice (usually mango or peach) and then a pastry. More the. I ever eat for breakfast and not something I am too fond of when trying to lose weight for my wedding. However, the pasteurized there are bomb and I would highly recommend two: pastel de nata and travesseiro. But back to the more important part, the hospital.

We arrived around 9:30 to meat with Fabio, an administrative someone who got us all lab coats and badges to be able to get around the hospital’s locked doors. We then took a very detailed and long tour of the hospital floor by floor starting at the 6th and ending on the 0th (because it’s one of those things where the bottom floor is 0). It is a medium sized hospital that seems very nice (according the what others say compared to other hospitals in this region). At this point I was impressed with the organization of the hospital and believed that, even being a public hospital, it must be pretty efficient. Later I found out that just wasn’t true.

We then meet the head of each department we were going to be shadowing. I meet Maria Joao, the head of anesthesiology, who made me immediately go scrub out to take a more detailed tour of the surgical wing of the hospital on the third floor. After showing me a couple of the 8 surgical rooms and introducing me to several other anesthesiologist the day was done! I guess I did forget to mention we até lunch after the hospital tour and before we meet the doctors. We just at at the cafeteria there which actually wasn’t too bad for 3.20 euro.

After catching the bus back home, I took a nap and prepared for the week organizing my things and figuring out my schedule. I also found a gym near by that I got a month membership to in order to get that wedding body! We then went to the store to buy some food and other necessities.

Tuesday, we woke up around 7 left at 7:30 for the bakery and caught the 8:08 bus for the hospital do we could meet with or doctors at 8:30. Maria João was already scrubbed out because they had already passed the patients that morning and she was now going to grab a coffee (something she said every anesthesiologist is addicted to). At the cafe I meet some of the other anesthesiologist who were all very nice and fun. From there I scrubbed out and meet up with Philippa who I shadowed that day. I got to see how they applied a local anesthetic through the lower part of the spinal cord. The got to watch the rest of the surgery which happens to be a hernia. My day consisted of watching two of those. Unfortunately this is where I realized things could be more efficient because the sick would be waiting in the hallway for up to an hour for the doctor to come by and mark what side he was going to operate on so that then the could go to the surgical room and the anesthesiologist could do her part. Is was all a very long process that required many different people that couldn’t always be there at the right time in order to be efficient.

That night we all went out to dinner with Joao at the cool restaurant made out of an old train car. They served American food so we all had a very good burger. Supposedly it is a very popular place in Cascais. We then walked up and down the beach checking out all the cool houses and building along the way.

And for today! Same routine in the morning but I meet up with doctor Tereza. A very short younger women who was very nice. Today I got to see three surgeries (all done under a local anesthetic through the back). However, Tereza did have a very hard time finding the spot on the back of this poor old man. She must has stuck him with a needle about 40 times in the span of 30 minutes trying to find the right space to inject the liquid. I was actually very surprised at how you can just keep poking around in someone back without damaging anything. It seemed very painful but I realized there had already been a light numbing applied and that the old man couldn’t feel anything.

Something about a public hospital is the number of old people you see. Everyone is old. Everyone. But the surgeries were cool and I could see a little bit more of how everyone in the room worked together (or not) in order to perform the surgery.

This afternoon I went to go workout and then we went to a place called Jardim do Frango or chicken garden. It was actually fantastic and the prices were very cheap. I had the bife ao portuguesa that was very very good. I also head the half chicken was amazing as well. But that’s what I have done so far. I have written way more than I expected. I will try to summarize more in the future. But if you have any question don't be afraid to comment!