Meet the Students of CGS: A Day in the Life of an Atlantis Fellow
Each summer, College of General Studies students continue their learning by pursuing opportunities that stretch their skills and help them apply their education to real-world experiences. This series gives a glimpse into the summer jobs, fellowships, and internships of CGS students. In this installment, Jake Goldstein (CGS’16, SAR’18) talks about life as an Atlantis Fellow with the Atlantis Project Fellowship program.
In the Atlantis Project Fellowship program, you and other students go abroad to shadow doctors and experience the practice of medicine in different countries. Where are you located for the program this summer?
I am located in Voru, Estonia and we work in the local hospital for the community. However, my group and I also had the opportunity to shadow the largest teaching hospital in the country located in Tartu.
Did you get to pick where you went and if so, why did you choose there?
We gave the program three preferences as to which countries we wanted. Originally, I had not chosen Estonia as my desired location just because it was unfamiliar and I had never been to this part of Europe before. Yet after spending the time here, I’ve realized that traveling is more-so about going to places you are not as comfortable with to gain new experiences.
How did you decide on this internship? What were you most looking forward to when you applied?
I chose this internship because of my love to travel, and the opportunity it would give me to see how a socialized healthcare system works. I was most excited really just to shadow the doctors and see how they went about diagnosing patients.
Pick a day in the last week and describe it for us.
My days in the hospital are all relatively similar: I would wake up at 6 A.M. and have breakfast in the hotel we are staying in. The hotel is located on Lake Tamula, so it is adjacent to a beautiful beach and surrounded by gorgeous landscape. Next, we would catch the public bus to Voru hospital and meet with the doctors to give them a reflection of how the previous day went. We would then shadow our assigned doctor, which was given to us at the beginning of the week. Depending on how busy the day was for your doctor, generally speaking the group would meet back up around 2 P.M. for lunch at the hospital and to wait for the next bus. From then on, we would either have a “cultural excursion” in which our site coordinator took us on an instructive field trip in order to educate us on Estonian culture, or have free time to do with what we wanted (that usually meant play volleyball or hang out on the beach).
What has been the greatest highlight of the internship so far?
My favorite part of this trip has been working in the hospital. The program does a great job of assigning the students different specialties of doctors to shadow in order to give them a more broad idea of how medicine works in a different country while also exposing them to what different types of doctors do.
What was the hardest moment?
The hardest moment (or moments) of this trip has been dealing with the language barrier. It is rare to find an older Estonian doctor to speak fluent English, so we found ourselves on google translate very often in order to better understand what the doctors were trying to say.
What is the most unexpected thing that you’ve learned?
The most unexpected thing that I learned I would say concerns the Estonian culture. A “sauna” here is not just a place to sit and get an extra sweat, but the hot rooms are a social location that is embedded into the culture. I was surprised to hear how iconic they were here because of their different stature in America.
Are there any takeaways you think you’ll bring back to school next year?
The trip has made my aspirations to become a doctor stronger then ever before, so I plan on bringing the enhanced desire back to school, to work even harder than I do now.