Our program requires us to spend 6 weeks in family medicine.
To experience the life of a general practitioner.
The GP I was assigned to was 15 km outside of Freiburg.
I bundled up every morning and biked up the river towards the hills of the Black Forest.
What to say..
The job is a lot of talking.
Talking and prescribing.
People asking for doctors notes.
People getting their diabetes checked.
People wanting to know that their cough isn't lung cancer.
It was a little bit of everything and we would only stick to the surface.
If things did get interesting the patients would get referred to a specialist.
...
Buchenbach: Population 3,100
The people of this tiny village taught me a lot.
For example..
- How many senior citizens should not be driving cars.
- What small town drama really is.
- That people expect you to be there for them at ALL times.
- How to communicate with people who's dialects you don't understand.
- What the insides of those post card Black Forest houses look like.. not what you would expect.
- Cheese and sausages are the healthy diet.
- Vaccination quality is based on rumor.
..And of course how one births a cow.
Black Forest village life.
House calls and homemade cooking.
It was an eye opener. That I will admit.
