Clinical Exchange in Japan

When we arrived in Nagoya, we were promptly received by a group of Japanese students and were invited to join in on their trip to Tokyo on the same weekend. We stayed in touch, especially with one of them, throughout our entire internship and spent a lot of time together and were offered help whenever we needed it.

Not only the students, including the other exchange students, were extremely kind and helpful, but also the international office felt sincerely responsible for us and our well-being. They helped us with any matter, no matter if it was regarding documents for our university or sickness during the internship.

Sometimes it was not very easy to find doctors who were able to speak English well enough to explain medical matters, but there were always at least one or two doctors available, who would translate the content of the conference or rounds to us. In Otorhinolaryngology they even held the entire conference in English, because quite a lot of doctors were fluent in English. The doctors in Neurology were quite keen to teach us as much as possible, which resulted in us actually learning more than we probably would have back in Austria, even with the language barrier. Neurology and Ophthalmology even designed an entire schedule for us, considering which topics would be more interesting or relevant for us.

But if there was anything that interested us outside of the schedule, we could always ask our supervisor, or any doctor and they would try their best to take us along wherever we wanted to go. For example, I would sincerely recommend the simulation centre when doing an internship at Gynecology or Ophthalmology. I have never seen anything like it, it is equipped with a catheter lab simulator, VR-assisted simulation of laparoscopic surgery, as well as a Da Vinci simulator, a robotic assistance in laparoscopic surgeries, which much more common in Japan than it is in Austria, at least. I believe the doctors had a lot of fun there as well, and we surely had a lot of fun at Gynecology in general, with one doctor even taking us along for a weekend trip with his family to a Ninja park, which we really enjoyed.

Simulated cataract surgery

We were also invited out for dinner, or lunch, numerous times while at Nagoya University and always felt like some sort of royalty, by how respectful and kind we were treated by everyone.

Regarding free time activities, Nagoya itself is not quite a tourist hotspot, however, it is very well situated, not far away from Kyoto, Osaka, Takayama, Seto, Tokyo… which makes it quite easy to see a lot of the country even when you don’t have a break or free days and can only do weekend trips (which we did almost every weekend!).

left: Weekend trip to Mt. Fuji / right: Weekend trip to Kyoto

All in all, I could not be happier that I was able to spend the semester at Nagoya University. It was an incredible experience, and I was overwhelmed by the hospitality and kindness with which we were welcomed. I would recommend it to anyone!

Weekend trip to Takayama
Selfmade pottery in Seto

Prof. Kajiyama's (Gyn) birthday
One of many dinners after work