Hello again everyone! While it may not even be Thanksgiving yet, it already feels like Christmas out here in Denmark. Sunlight is scarce and Christmas markets are popping up everywhere! As we enter the holiday season and I ramble on about Christmas in Scandinavia, I wanted to dedicate this blog post to the research I have been a part of during my time in Copenhagen.

Research Assistant Application Process

Once you have been accepted into the DIS program, there is an additional application targeted at those students who wish to conduct research at either DIS, Copenhagen University, or at another laboratory in the Copenhagen area. You don’t get paid for these research assistant positions and instead you take them for course credit. Some projects, such as mine are 3 credits (roughly 10 hours of work a week), and some of the more advanced wet lab projects are 6 credits (roughly 20 hours of work a week). The applications were due in February, and you aren’t informed of an acceptance until the summer. This means you just register for the normal course load at DIS and then if you are accepted into one of the projects, you will just drop one or two classes.

My Project

The project I was accepted into is titled Mammography Screening: Efficacy, Benefits, and Harms. I have a research partner on my project named Bridget and our work is guided by an Associate Professor at Copenhagen University who also instructs a DIS course in her spare time. Our research goal is stated as the following: To assess participation and breast cancer risk in women attending mammography screening in the capital region of Denmark between 2010-2020 in relation to their registered relationship status. We wish to examine the impact of relationships as social support and determine if they impact a women’s behavior in terms of screening participation and overall risk of cancer.

Here is the campus of the University of Copenhagen that I go to meet my research mentor at on a weekly basis!

We tackled this research goal in a few ways. Our first step in the process was centered around an extensive literature review which drew its basis in the subjects of psychology and epidemiology. This allowed us to gain a good background knowledge on the subject of cancer screening and the different behaviors people display when it comes to participation. Once this was completed, our research moved into blunt statistical analysis. We combed through data from the Danish government and eventually landed on the total of 301,666 individual women that were used in our study. The metric of relative risk became our most important tool as it allows us to compare participation across different groups of women with their respective relationship statuses. For these relative risk calculations, the cohort of married women was used as our reference when using relative risk calculations.

My Takeaways

This whole experience has been a blast on my end! First, it helped me really improve my communication skills when it comes to research I have performed. Over the course of the semester, we have been working on producing a detailed research paper that then our mentor will use to publish her next full paper (the chance of maybe receiving a co-author distinction or acknowledgment on her paper is extremely exciting). We are also currently working on a poster to present to other Copenhagen University and DIS facility members. There have been multiple workshops put on by DIS that were aimed at instructing us how to better present and pitch our own research. These resources have been extremely helpful and have made me excited to conduct more research in the future. Secondly, it has enhanced my knowledge of Danish culture and has simply been a fun time. Being able to dive into the medical system here in Denmark as well as the behaviors of Danish women has given me a new perspective on how cancer screening programs are running in different parts of the world. At the end of the day, I simply could not recommend applying for this program if you do attend DIS! Speaking from my own experience, I have had the opportunity to meet and network with a great research mentor and enjoy myself over the course of this project!

Below I am attaching a sample poster that I created for one of the DIS workshops. This is not meant to be a completed poster but should help provide more information on my project for those not familiar with the topic of mammography in Denmark. Till next time, thanks for reading!

This poster was created as part of a 3 minute pitch I had to prepare and present to other research assistant’s at DIS!

“And I think to myself, what a wonderful world”
– Louis Armstrong

Hej allesammen! Velkommen til mine blog igen.
(Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog again.)

For this blog post, I will recap the crazy busy October that I have experienced here at DIS. Midterms as well as our popular personal travel week have come and gone and suddenly, I am sitting here wondering where this month went! I wish time would just stop for a brief second, but of course, that is not how the world works. All I can do is to continue to soak up all these life-defining experiences as they come and enjoy the time left remaining. With that being said, let’s jump right into it!

Midterms

As one would expect, midterms while studying abroad look very different from the typical midterms or finals week we all have experienced at Whitman. The prospect of an exam or presentation here at DIS doesn’t provide require a ton of extra commitment or time as they are built into the class structure very well. My midterms at DIS revolved mostly around group projects and presentations, rather than a more standard timed test. There is a wider range of assessment styles here than compared to my experience with American education. Much like our schedule back at Whitman in the fall, we have a break after our midterm week. However, here at DIS, we get a whole week off instead of just the 4-Day weekend! This is titled our “Personal Travel Week”. It is just another perk of getting to study abroad!

Travel Week

My favorite part about being in Rome was being able to say “When in Rome”

For my personal travel week, I embarked to Italy and Spain (and France… briefly). I had the pleasure of traveling with six of my good friends from DIS. I found that traveling with a group like this was incredibly rewarding. The bond we all were able to form was very special and has helped us all continue to get closer.

When it came to our schedule for this trip, it is safe to say we were incredibly ambitious. I am not going to lie, we may have bitten off more than we could chew, but it was still an amazing experience. Our first stop was one of my top countries in Europe I have always wanted to see, Italy. We began our tour in Rome before heading farther west to Naples and Sorrento. My highlights of this leg of the trip were Pompei, the island of Capri, and the colosseum. It was stunning to experience the history that Italy has to offer. However, the lack of public transportation was a reminder to myself that picking Denmark was a pretty smart choice for studying abroad.

The streets in Barcelona were so beautiful to walk down!

After leaving Naples, we had a brief layover in France, specifically in the city of Marseille. This quick adventure around this city was fueled by one thing, food! We all wanted to be able to say that we ate crepes in France, and we made it happen. In my books, totally worth it. We then continued to Spain for the last leg of our trip. The two cities we were able to spend time in were Madrid and Barcelona. First and foremost, the weather was such an amazing change of pace compared to the rain we have been experiencing in Copenhagen. Secondly, both cities have very good public transportation, which allowed for a tad more stress-free adventure than Italy. Highlights from both these cities were the Prado art museum, the famous Barcelona cable car, Picasso Museum, and the Royale Palace. I loved all Spain had to offer and do wish we could’ve spent a little bit more time there but looking back on the whole trip I am so proud of how much we actually got to see in the short 9-day window that we had. For future DIS students, make sure to get the most out of your travel week! I promise you won’t regret it. This week really reminded me how fortunate I am to be able to see this wonderful world as part of my college experience.

My friends and I overlooking the Barcelona skyline!

Wrap-up and Next Post

That wraps up this blog and thus brings the midpoint of my semester to a close. Next week, I am extremely excited to begin sharing with all of you the research I have been conduction at the University of Copenhagen in addition to my studies at DIS. Over the last month, my research partner and I have dived into the thick of our semester project and it has been a wonderful experience. I already feel like I am grown so much in my ability to not only conduct research but write and communicate my findings as well. I am also embarking on another trip, this time to Germany, with my core program at DIS, so watch out for a blog post about that as well!

As always, thanks for reading! Hopefully, everyone will be back at this blog next week!

Greetings again! As I am diving into midterms out here in Copenhagen, I think this is a great time to sit back and reflect on one of the most unique things about DIS, study tours, and core course week.

Last week, my core program and I embarked on a “glorified field trip” to the two different islands of Denmark (Jutland and Funen). This trip was part of something called core course week here at DIS. During this week, all normal classes are put on hold, and you only participate in activities or workshops with your core program. As a quick reminder, I am enrolled in the Human Health and Disease program here! For me, this week consisted of 5 total days of activities. We traveled to the islands of Jutland and Funen from Monday to Wednesday and then attended a patient case workshop and visited a macro-anatomical lab on Thursday and Friday respectively. For this blog post, I am going to give everyone an insight into what all these activities looked like and all the great experiences that I was able to gain from this busy week!

Photo from the bus journey to Jutland!

Jutland/Funen

To begin our core course week, we woke up bright and early on Monday and headed west. Our first stop came on the island of Funen, the island located between Jutland and Zealand (the island where Copenhagen is located). Here we visited the Health Innovation Center of Southern Denmark located in Odense, Denmark’s third-largest city. This visit gave us a sneak peek at how the Danish healthcare system pushes innovation on a very public level. Unlike most medical tech. companies or innovation centers in the United States, this center in Denmark was not operated for profit. This means that they solely work with hospitals or other companies with designs and ideas stemming from issues within the healthcare system. The team at the innovation center, while only around 70 people big, was an incredibly diverse group of people ranging from engineers, psychologists, and doctors. One of the coolest projects we got to see was a new bed that has been designed for psychiatric patients. This bed was extremely heavy (to avoid patients causing any type of self-harm with the bed) and concealed all its wires to provide an appearance of a normal bed, making patients feel much more comfortable!

Exploring the ARoS Modern Art Museum!

After this first visit, we drove up to the city of Aarhus (Denmark’s second-largest city) on the Island of Jutland and spent the night there. The next day started off with a cultural experience rather than an academic one. We got to visit the ARoS Museum of Modern Art before we headed out to our first hospital visit. We drove out of Aarhus to the city of Randers where we visited a gastrointestinal surgeon at Randers Sygehus Hospital. Here we focused on the more specifics of the Danish healthcare system and setup. Topics ranged from the process of medical school, the work-life balance of a Danish doctor, and the impact of COVID-19 on standard practice. The craziest thing to me was that surgeons in Denmark only work 37 hours a week! That is unthinkable compared to the working conditions of surgeons in the United States. Our day ended with us driving to the small town of Herning and completing an escape room as a bonding experience!

We escaped! This was taken at the escape room we participated in, it was a lot of fun!

The final stop of our trip came the following morning with a visit to the cardiology department at Herning Sygehus hospital. Here our discussion focused a great deal on a doctor’s role in the Danish medical system. Doctors and surgeons work in larger teams in Denmark. It is common for a patient to see a different doctor almost every day of a hospital stay. This allows for a wider range of opinions and ideas being discussed when it comes to every patient. Medical malpractice lawsuits are also something not present in the danish system, as the responsibility of care falls on so many professionals. After this stop, we made the long trip back to Copenhagen!

Back in Copenhagen

To finish up our week, we participated in a patient case workshop with other health care students and visited the Panum Research Institute at the University of Copenhagen. The workshop was geared towards teaching us to communicate with people of different pieces of knowledge and backgrounds to attack a medical problem from many different angles. We had students, like myself, who are specializing in clinical care and practice as well as students studying drug design and biotechnology. In a way, this experience mirrored the collaborative spirit of the Danish healthcare system. Finally, our week ended visiting the macro-anatomical lab at Panum. This was a very surreal experience as the number of structures and cadavers that they had on display was more than I had ever seen. We worked together in teams and competed in a scavenger hunt to find different structures and specific specimens of importance. Overall, this was a very fun way to end our week!

The view from the Panum Research Center!

In short, having this weeklong experience to focus solely on our main study of focus was quite unique! This is not something you will find at other study abroad programs. This also provided an incredibly bonding experience for all my core classmates. Nothing brings a group together like an extended weeklong “trip” together! This week also provided us with relative knowledge and background information on the structure of socialized medicine and how it operates within the welfare state that Denmark has. Has me thinking about the possibilities of pursuing medicine abroad!

Till next time, this is Aidan signing off for now! Thanks for reading!

Now that I have been living in Copenhagen for these last 3 weeks, it finally feels like it is time to sit down and begin this blog. With that being said, I am never blogged before, so if all of you promise to bear with me while I discover the inner writer in me, then I am sure this will be a success! For those who don’t know me, my name is Aidan, and I am a junior here at Whitman College. I am a BBMB major who is also a member of our varsity men’s tennis team. Today we are going to keep it simple as I will summarize the key points and moments that I have experienced as a Whitman student finding their footing within Danish life and culture. Without further introduction, let’s reflect together on the start of this study abroad experience.

These colored houses are a staple in Copenhagen and a massive tourist attraction.

Life In A Homestay
When tasked with choosing a housing option during my application process, I always envisioned myself living with a local family (homestay). The stories I had heard about homestay experiences from previous study abroad students made my decision easy. This decision has materialized into the wonderful family I have been placed with located in Søborg, a suburb of Copenhagen. My host parents, Morten and Maria, have welcomed me with open arms and been a great resource as I begin to assimilate myself into the Scandinavian culture. My host family also consists of their four kids, Mathias, Mathilde, Malthe, and Maria. Ranging from 17 years to only 9 months old, my host siblings have provided an amazing connection to what family life consists of in Denmark. Being able to live with a family not only provides me with a bed to sleep in and 3 meals a day, but it is always an immediate and intimate connection to danish culture, a connection that I may lack living on my own. I have already been able to experience both a Danish baptism and confirmation in my short time here. Even as the population is extremely non-secular in Denmark, church traditions play a big role in a child’s life and are still practiced by most families regardless of personal beliefs. I have also been introduced to the important Danish concept of “Hygge”, a defining cultural idea that involves the coziness of family life and the importance of one’s home (I see an entire blog post dedicated to this concept in my near future). Living with a host family also usually entails a bit more responsibility in regards to commuting on a daily basis. Most homestay students will have a longer commute compared to some other DIS students, but Copenhagen has an incredibly vast public transportation network that finding my way around has been no issue. While I have only lived out here for 3 weeks, I am already convinced that I absolutely made the right decision and I look forward to sharing more details about Danish family life in the future.

The view from the top of a church on the island of Christianshavn in Copenhagen!

DIS School Structure
While this experience can be seen by some as just a prolonged vacation, I wanted to take a moment to explain how important my school life at DIS will be over the course of my stay. Here students choose one single-core program and usually 3 to 4 other elective classes. Instead of taking 4 elective classes like the average DIS student, I am only taking 3 elective courses and filled my last spot with one of the few research assistant programs one can apply for a DIS. This is a topic I will be writing about in length later. As a STEM kid at heart, I am beyond excited to analyze the process of research in a foreign welfare-based country, especially with the current global pandemic we are all experiencing. Your core class is, as the name indicates, the biggest priority of your studies here in Denmark. Your core course includes a longer run time, short and long study tours to an external location, and a closer relationship with your classmates. I am enrolled in the core program titled “Human Health and Disease: A Clinical Approach”. Here we are diving deeper into the Danish healthcare system and how doctors treat diseases in a clinical setting here in Denmark. Our study tours will include Jutland (the main island of Denmark) and Germany in November. Hopefully, I will be able to provide you all with a unique perspective as to how countries other than the United States have dealt with the current public health crisis and how, as an American student, I fit into that process (considering the fact that I am studying abroad in Denmark during a global pandemic).

It was a blast to explore the greater Copenhagen area by boat through the network of canals within the city!

Social Life
While the city of Copenhagen has been incredible to start this journey, the people and other students I have to meet at DIS are equally special. The small class sizes (my largest in only 30 students) and a plethora of orientation activities aids in forming close relationships and friends. Studying abroad is no easy task as we all must start over in terms of social life and friendships. The best advice I have to give already is to be bold and take risks! I promised myself that I would take myself out of my comfort zone and talk to as many people as I could, and I couldn’t be happier with how it worked out. The friendships I have made already are something I cherish dearly and have made everything about this process easier. Social life in Denmark is also much more relaxed out here as not only the drinking age is much lower than in the States (the drinking age is only 16 in Denmark), but COVID-19 is under control and Denmark is currently in the process of removing all restrictions on individual activity. My favorite activities have included going out to bars/clubs with my friends, walking around the city of Copenhagen, sunbathing on one of the many canals (a true staple for Danes), and even renting a small boat to explore all the canals that populate downtown Copenhagen. All in all, social life as a DIS student is incredibly easy to become immersed in and I am extremely excited to continue to build these relationships in and outside of class.

A Glance Forward
Now that I feel like the proper context about my stay in Denmark has been properly documented (at least I hope my writing skills aren’t too rusty), I can’t wait to dive deeper into specific experiences that come with being a DIS student in Denmark. I am embarking on my first study tour this week to Jutland and will provide a recap of that in a week’s time. Other topics I plan to discuss are my adventures as an athlete playing tennis in a foreign country, a deeper dive into the structure and core values of the Danish family, and how Denmark has successful handled the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of a pre-med American student. Until next week, I will bid farewell to you all and I hope you will return to this blog next week.

Here is a photo of some of the friends I have made as we embark on our short study tour!