THE Week

Tell you what, these daily regular bus rides to school could be the great opportunity for me to write blog post, sum up my previous day, think of a couple jokes (yes, that's one of them) – oh my God, my Nemesis just got onto the same bus and we saw each other...AAAWKWAAARD.

Anyway, what's so special about this week? We don't run on a proper timetable yet, instead we devote the whole week to practical medicine – basically what GPs do. Not exactly, though, because GPs (much unlike "praktičtí lékaři" or "obvoďáci") need to be quilified to care cradle-to-coffin, whereas their Czech counterparts I mentioned only specialize in adult care.

This block education will consist of a couple lectures (topics like "general practice medicine", "hospice care", "prevention", "geriatrics" etc.), several seminaries ("drugs", "videoconsultations", "blind patients"...) and most importantly a one-hour stage in an office of a random GPs we are allocated and a visit to a patient.

I'm not quite sure what should we be doing on either of the last two mentioned, honestly. Taking notes how does the GP treat patients, care for them, understand how does a daily doctor-to-patient relationship and communication work. The patient visit I consider more interesting, we should probably ask them what's up, what are they being treated for, if they adhere to prescribed medication and dosage, if they like their doctor etc.

So far I've attended the general practice medicine lecture and the blind-orientated seminary. The seminary...it took place in Tyfloservis, the place some of you might be familiar with as it's the drop-off point for the "Bílá pastelka" collection. There were two things I liked about how they introduced us into the problematics. First, when we were just lining up on the stairs so that we can be shown way to some other room we should split into, they blindfolded us and let us cope with just a minimum of help and a music playing in the room we should reach. Sitting down once we all entered was a bit of a problem as well, as when I entered most of the chairs were taken and I had to ask if anyone has a spare around. Some answered "there is one!", luckily some were clever enough to say "here" so I could follow their voice. After a while we could take the blindfolds off... The other thing was when we formed pairs, one was blindfolded again and the other one lead him through the unkown building we were in.

I like both of these experiences surprisingly much. I'm a visual type and as such would be the one to choose "deafness over blindness". But the feeling of being blindfolded, not seeing... It brought me closer to others, to those aroud me, to my surroundings. I was dependant on them, some of them were dependant on me. It was surprisingly elleviating.

Adam