This course is extremely intense. Today is my second day. We started at 8 am and went until 6 pm with 2 breaks in between which were about an 1.5 hours. My funny and witty Danish faculty members make the time pass a lot quicker which is nice. To make it even better, we had a power outage today so that was another 45 minutes wasted.
Okay, now about Medical school in Denmark. Try not to fall out of your seat when I tell you that medical school here is FREE. Not only that, all university students actually get PAID MONEY to go to school ($800 per month). Almost all of the pre-med students in the room went silent and then one girl raised her hand asking if anyone (from the US per se....) could come to school here and reap the benefits of free education. Unfortunately for all of my classmates and some of you reading this, you can not just come here to get a free medical degree (as nice as that would be). After hearing that, most everyone went back to zoning out of the discussion.
The first contact for all people in Denmark who want to receive any type of care is a general practitioner. This is actually seen as a specialized degree even though they have a foundation in all areas. Med students here go right into a 6 year program straight from high school. The first 3 years are sort of like a condensed "pre-med" bachelor program (chem, bio, and physics courses) and the other 3 years are more like med school (learning how the body functions and what happens when it doesn't). After graduating from this 6 year program you still can't do anything because you are required to get some type of specialization (even if its general medicine to become a GP). Before re-entering the program to specialize, there is a 1/2 year of residency. Sometimes this can last for up to a year. After this short residency, the 5 year specialization program begins. You are required to go to school for these 5 years while simultaneously holding a job in the medical field (in a less technical field like a tech or assistant of some sort).
The average age people get out of medical school here in Denmark is 37.
It's crazy!
That's all for now and I'll soon be posting about some of the key aspects of the Danish health care system (if anyone is even remotely interested to read that).
