Hello, I am Mook, a 23-year medical student from Thailand. I currently study in the last year (6th year) in Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University. I was so lucky having had an opportunity to do a 4-week clerkship in Nagoya University during May-June 2016.
It was such an incredible experience I have ever had during 4 weeks in Division of Vascular Surgery, Nagoya University. I was friendly welcomed by all staffs. They allowed me to participate in most operations, much more than I had expected.
In the first week, I spent only 2 days in the hospital since there was a JSVS annual meeting taking place in Tokyo during 25-27th May 2016. Very kind of them, they had informed me about the meeting before I arrived in Nagoya for 1-2 weeks, so I could manage to join the meeting. The participation was free, only accommodations and transportations that I had to reserve and pay on my own. For other 3 weeks, I spent them all in Nagoya University Hospital during weekdays, and in other cities during weekends.
During my first two weeks, it was a bit tough to get familiar with living in Japan. However, it was not very difficult to get used to working in the hospital because most doctors and nurses could speak English. They generously helped me translate Japanese into English, guided me when I got lost in the hospital, brought me to have a proper lunch in the canteen and restaurant, and also gave me a hand when I needed help. Japanese people are very very nice and friendly!
About my clerkships in Vascular Surgery Division. There were 6 staffs, 2 clinical fellows, and 2 research fellows in the division during my stay but I only worked with 8 of them (excepts 2 research fellows). My schedule was set like staffs and fellows, not as other medical students. So I had to join all morning and evening conferences they had. Even though the conferences were all in Japanese, I got a lot of knowledge from them. In the morning I started working at 7:30 on the day that have a conference or Journal Club, 7:50 on the day that have staff round, and 8:30 on the day that have no activity in the morning. The Operation starts after morning round, and ends in the afternoon or later in the evening, depending on how complicated it is and how many they are.
I could scrub in on most surgery. This was far from what I had expected that I could be a first assistant in groin opening. I could help them flush catheter and insert guidewire into patients in some cases. I also had many chances to perform a subcuticular suture in some bypass cases. Moreover, I learned a lot about endovascular procedures and devices both in EVAR and peripheral endovascular therapy. It was such an incredible experience which drove me more ambition to be a vascular surgeon.
During my clerkship, I had one Journal Club presentation. Although it was a bit tough for me since I had never had an English presentation before, it was challenging and worthy.
In freetime during the day, I also had an opportunity to practice with their endovascular simulator, VIST G5, which was very helpful to understand how endovascular procedure is performed. Thank you to all sensei and sempai who taught me about vascular surgery. I was so lucky to have chosen Nagoya University to do a Clerkship.
In my last week, few days before I came back to Bangkok, the Vascular Surgery Division staffs gave me a very warm sayonara (Goodbye) party in the great chinese restaurant. I don’t know how to say more thank you! Not only knowledge that they provided for me, but also a great warm welcome. I was so happy being with them. If I had a chance to visit Japan again, I will definitely go visit Vascular Surgery, Nagoya University!
Thank you for all things!
Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine