Clinical Exchange in Japan

This is a report of my 4 weeks of exchange program with Nagoya University! On my first day at the pediatric surgery department I was immediately welcomed by the whole team. I felt very included and everyone seemed to make an effort to make me feel comfortable. Most of my time was spent in the operational room and I was early on extremely impressed by the advanced surgery conducted at this department. Almost all children operated on were suffering from very rare diseases like diaphragmatic hernias, teratomas or cystic pulmonal malformations that I personally hadn’t seen before other than in textbooks. I was also very impressed by how broad the surgeons’ knowledge were and that the same surgeon could perform operations in the abdomen, biliary/intestinal reconstructions and thoracic surgery on the lungs. If you would like to see a variety of different surgeries and minimal invasive surgery with laparoscopic technique, which these surgeons specialize in, I would highly recommend this department!

My remaining 2 weeks of the exchange program were spent at the heart surgery department. I was here just as in the pediatric surgery department warmly welcomed and I was quickly in the operational room washed in on complex heart surgeries. The doctors were very keen on teaching me about the techniques and took their time between critical parts to explain what they were planning on doing. I must say I was extremely impressed with how fast and effective their surgeries were. They could within 30 to 40 minutes of starting the operation have visualized the heart, connected the big vessels to the heart lung machine and stopped the heart. If you enjoy complex and longer operations of the heart with the possibility of washing in this is the department for you!

One of the biggest worries I had before the exchange was the possible language barrier and how well I could get around with English. With the general population in Japan this is definitely somewhat challenging, most people tend to, at the most, understand very simple English words. But the doctors in contrast are quite fluent for the most part even though, I must admit, there is a big variance. However, even though you occasionally might have to repeat a question once or twice you always tend to get the answer you´re searching for. I did not at the end of my exchange believe that this in any way impacted my overall learning.

Finally, I would like to sincerely thank all the doctors in the departments I visited for a great clinical placement, the Office of International Affairs for all the help with the application process and lastly Nagoya University for making this exchange possible. I would recommend everyone to try to visit and experiencing Japan and the exchange program at Nagoya University Hospital is one of the very best ways of doing so!