One Week in an Amazing Country

It is now Sunday and I do believe I am getting a hang of this shadowing thing. This whole week I followed anesthesiologist. Here at the Cascais Hospital there are about 9 anesthesiologist on the team and I got to know five of them pretty fell. I do have to say I am sad to see them go and know I will not be seeing them again. They were a very fun and friendly team always truthful.

Tuesday was the last day of shadowing. I followed Dr. Fabio who was the anesthesiologist for the orthopedic doctors. I got to watch the ortho docs replace a tendon in a young man's knee using part of high quad to reconstruct the tendon. It was a very brutal and entertaining surgery listing 2.5 hours. Dr. Fabio was very good with his technic and communicating with the patient exactly what he wanted him to do. Comparing him to a previous anesthesiologist I followed I realized the importance to communicate clearly not only with the others in the OR but most importantly the patient. So prepping for that surgery and watching it took almost 4 hours so that was the only surgery I saw because there was not another surgery till much later that night. So i just walked around with Fabio learning about some of the other techniques he uses.

That night Joao (our site manager) took us to a traditional Portuguese restaurant. A very popular food here are the tapas (or appetizers). So we ordered a bunch of different appetizers. My favorites where the octopus salad (I know I can't believe I liked it either but it was very fresh and just good), and then these meatball things. I will have to look up the name. But overall it was all very good and there was nothing I did not enjoy eating. Something different is how the Portuguese use eggs. Eggs are not a breakfast item like we think of. They use them in a bunch of these appetizers which was very interesting. They were used over fries and this flower thing and it was very very good.

Fridays are out excugan days and this week we explored Joao’s hometown of Lisbon! Lisbon is a very big city with the older original part (with forts dating mack to the early centuries) and the newer more modern parts due to expansion of the city. We pretty much just got lost a lot and walked all over the place only stopping for food. Lunch was at this amazing renovated palace with a golden lion. It was an impressive restaurant and the pork was amazing. Then we had to take a bus to this huge park near a military base where Joao took us to this abandoned “something”. I say something because no one really knows what it was but it is totally over run and has been for decades. However, the quality of the materials used and the design of the building is just so amazing that it really leaves this mystery and huge desire to know what it was and how something like that could have become abandoned. It also had the best view of Lisbon A full 360 view because the building was built specifically for that view. Honestly of everything we did on Friday this abandoned building was the best part. After this we went to get some cake from this amazing cake store with 3 foot long cakes. Each piece is 5 inches long so we split three and honestly it was amazing… We do nothing but eat with Joao! After that we walked around again and then our tour with Joao was over but we decided to stay in Lisbon.

We went to the old fort of Lisbon that overlooks the harbor. It was huge and also had a very cool view along with a cool little exhibition of artifacts dating back to 600 B.C. I would highly recommend it. We then walked around some of the shops and ate dinner at this huge warehouse tuned modern. It was actually very crowded and had probably 50 different places to buy food. However, It was all uber expensive so we were trying to find the cheapest place and then found this deal, buy one meal get one free. So we all ended up spending like 3 Euros for a meal. It was so clutch. It was those little meatballs I was talking about earlier on a sandwich with chips. Pretty darn good. We then caught the train home! We got home pretty late. Must have been 23:00 because I just remember crashing in bed.

Saturday we were up early again because we wanted to head back to Lisbon and actually go to some of the museums and do some things there. With Joao we did not really go anywhere or do must. Literally just sightseeing. We went to the aquarium and science museum. I honestly loved them both and would highly recommend. The aquarium is much larger than I was expecting. You walk around the huge tank while in each corner of the building is a different exhibit. You wind your way down and around the huge tank in the middle. It was actually very interesting to see some of the fish native to that area. However, my favorite part is this exhibition they have of a freshwater forest. It is literally a forest underwater and is the coolest thing ever. I would highly recommend you go if you have the time. I learned a lot about the creator and the art of doing such work.

The science museum was awesome. It is aimed towards younger kids but being a kid myself it was just plain fun. There are a ton of little experiments you can do (and when I say a ton I literally mean like 100) and they are just fun activities that take you probably three hours to do them all. Little kids have there whole own section of Angry Birds as well which seemed pretty cool but I am too fat to participate so I only watched. Another cool part was the balanced bike on a rope. They actually let anyone ride this bike balanced on a rope and it is actually freaking crazy. I feel like it is very very possible to fall but they even let little kids do it. Must be at least 20 feet off the ground. Overall an awesome experience with the guys (Trip, Parker and Josh). We got to act like a bunch of kids.

We grabbed lunch at this authentic Brazilian restaurant where of course I got the strogonoff. It really was very good and reminded me of so many meals I had in Brazil. We then went home earlier that day because we were all pretty tired. I then dealt with wedding organization the rest of the night…. Not fun at all.

And here we are. A full week here in Portugal now and I have to say I am absolutely loving it. The main takeaway this week with shadowing would have to be something I noticed as a result of shadowing different doctors everyday was how each one had their own style, technique and way to communicate. It made me realize how there isn't just one way to do everything. The medical field is much like math, there are certainly variables that never change and formulas that must be used but the procedure to use them can be as different as the people using them. A great insight I will take with me into such a vast and every changing field.