Short Study Tour: Kolding, Ribe, and Odense

Just got back from three days in Jutland (an island of Denmark that is not Zealand, where Copenhagen is located) with the Medical Practice and Policy program. We visited the pediatrician department at a hospital in Kolding, a general practitioner's office in Ribe, an in-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic in Odense, and of course, plenty of fun activities in between. 

Our first stop was Koldinghus, a castle that has been restored from the 13th century. 

We got a guided tour of the castle and learned a lot about it's history. It was restored after being accidentally burned down by Spanish soldiers, and now houses several exhibitions such as the largest collection of Danish silverware. Sounds fascinating, I know, but we all perked up considerably when the tour guide mentioned a dungeon.

THE DUNGEON!!! Actually, the Danish Royal Family used it
 more as a refrigerator...which makes sense because it was
 FREEZING down there.

Next, we visited the Pediatrics Department at Kolding Sygehus. Martin, the consultant (something similar to the senior physician in the US), and two other junior doctors gave us a tour of the hospital and answered any questions we had. One thing I noticed was that it was definitely a lot quieter in the Danish hospital, a lot less people hustling down the hallways. Also, no one seemed to find it odd that a herd of 20 American students were just waltzing in and out of the wards. 

The junior doctor showing us the giant touch screens that
are used to track the whereabouts of each patient at any given moment.

The other doctor showed us the ultrasound equipment.

Dinner that night (on DIS, woot!) was at Mokka Cafe:

Chicken pasta with sun-dried tomatoes

 I didn't bother to post the picture of dessert (which was a delicious fruit cake with whipped cream) because the poor quality of the photo taken in the dark just couldn't do it justice.

That night, we stayed at the Danhostel Kolding. The hostels in Denmark bear no resemblance to the shady locales of American lore. The rooms were nice and clean, the breakfast buffet served was, to quote a classmate, simply DIVINE. The only downside? NO INTERNET. Dun dun dun. We were given the night off to entertain ourselves. With no internet access, we were forced to turn to...alternative methods of entertainment.

The next morning, we went to Trapholt Museum of Modern Art:

Modern art makes no sense to me.

We had lunch (buffet style again, DIS spoils us) at the Cafe Trapholt in the museum. The sesame seed encrusted salmon was AMAZING. I swear I gained three pounds this trip from pure consumption of carbs alone.

 After the museum, we went GO-KARTING. Yayuh. Steph (one of our program leaders) told us the other option was bowling. Praise the Lord. Never before have I been so simultaneously thrilled and horrified. Every squealing turn felt like a step closer to death. It was fantastic.

Just some scenery on the way to Ribe. Gorgeous, like NBD.

 At Ribe, we stopped in at a General Practictioner's office. Unlike the American healthcare system, GPs in Denmark are the gatekeepers to specialist care. Whenever you need to see a doctor, you to the GP first, who then decides whether or not you get referred to specialty care. GPs here need to treat a variety of patients, from pediatrics to geriatrics, from minor surgeries like wart removal to psychiatric issues. Some GPs also deliver babies!!

We also got a talk from the paramedic who works on site...

The next morning, we took a guided walking tour of Ribe, the oldest town in Denmark.

 The little old man who took us on the tour was so cute! He grew up in the town and it was apparent in his tour that he loved every bit of its history. We had to cut our tour short in order to make it to our next location, and he seemed honestly disappointed that he couldn't show us the smallest house in Ribe. He sounded so devastated that we all felt mad guilty for not seeing this house.

Cute little old man...and Obama??

One of two churches left standing in Ribe from the original fourteen.

On our way back to Copenhagen, we stopped off in Odense, one of the other major cities in Denmark. In Denmark, fertilization treatments are covered under national insurance. There are only 20 fertility clinics total in Denmark (both public and private), and as long as patients meet certain eligibility requirements, they can receive a certain amount of treatments before they must begin paying out of pocket. This is fascinating to me because a significant portion of these treatments go to helping homosexual women conceive. That would cause such an uproar in the United States, with some protesting what they see as misuse of their tax dollars. I'm starting to like Denmark more and more. Also, on a complete tangent, did you know Danish health insurance also covers the services of "sex helpers"? These are professionals who are paid to assist physically disabled people, enabling them to engage in sexual acts. More power to you, Denmark, go you.

The hood where purified sperm samples are kept, color-coded so as to
 prevent any mix-ups. This hood is specifically for infectious
patients (HIV/ hepatitis) in order to protect the biotechnicians responsible
for working with the samples. 

A biotechnician teaching us about the life cycle of an egg.

The giant liquid nitrogen tanks in which viable
 sperm and egg samples can be kept on ice for 1000 years.
Danish law, however, restricts their storage to five years.

This trip definitely gave me a brighter perspective on not only Danish healthcare, but also the Danish people in general. Did you know general practitioners in Denmark actually don't get paid very much at all, yet attend just as much school as specialists? When asked if she had any regrets about her job, Anne (GP at Ribe) said that she only wished she had more time to spend with her patients. That's the kind of doctor every patient deserves. Also, sperm and egg donors don't receive a lot of monetary compensation because the thought is that they shouldn't be in it for the money. The limited reward ensures that donors act out of genuine altruism. Even the services that the national insurance covers shows that the government is patient-oriented when it comes to healthcare. One interesting side note, when I asked Matthias (our TA) about the stem cell debate in Denmark, he said that the ethics board has banned it because it is a threat to a potential human life. This is very surprising to me, considering Denmark's reputation as a very non-religious country. I guess in a way, this argument too can be seen as patient-oriented. Anyways, it is definitely a topic that merits further research.

I may not yet know everything there is to know about Danish healthcare, and so far we've only been learning about what makes it great, but I find their model to be one so delightfully different from the impersonal, profit-motivated US system that I've come to know. Can't wait to be further enlightened by our long study tour to Vienna and Budapest!