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!