A truly amazing experience overall. I think this internship offers a great insight in emergency medicine and a lot of learning opportunities.
I am a 4th year foreign student from Lithuania and that was my first Famulatur in Germany. Before the start of my internship I had German B1 level and despite my lack of language knowledge (especially German medical terminology), I was always encouraged to participate in patient care, practice as many skills as possible and of course to speak and improve my German language. I felt that I was always treated the same as the other German students and was never left behind. However, at first it was very difficult to keep up, as everything there is in German and there is not much time to translate it.
The internship itself is divided into three parts: internal medicine, neurology and trauma surgery. Depending on your length of stay, you spend around 1-2 weeks in each of them. You can work morning, evening or even night shifts. During your internship you can learn and practice a variety of skills on your own, such as: taking patient anamnesis, physical examination, taking blood samples, placing peripheral lines, performing arterial puncture, doing ultrasound examination, suturing wounds, analysing lab test results, EKG, imaging, etc. Basically, the more you know, the more you can do on your own. And if you don't know, there is always someone who can teach you.
All of the doctors and nurses are extremely nice and take extra time to explain all of the procedures, treatments, answer questions. Occasionally they give informal mini lectures on relevant topics as well.
All in all, I really enjoyed my time there and I would truly recommend this internship to anyone.
