My experience in University Hospital Zurich - neurosurgery department

Seeing other ways of how to practice your profession is a very useful thing.
Although many  doctors in  Zurich university hospital did not understand why i am coming for a week observer-ship, i bet even some think it is  stupid although none said so, but comparing between what i have seen always in our  hospital and what I've seen here was quite a useful experience for me.

I got to know why this is one of the best departments of neurosurgery,  the secret is simple but also difficult to achieve. lets see what i have learned through my week here ;

1- Time Concept : Everyone without exception respect the time , patients and medical team altogether, the day is divided in  a way that you don't leave a space for lost time , from 7:30 am to  17:30 every job is known , each mission is precised.

2- Team work : in order to be effective as  they  are here you have to be an element of a team that all  move together as one movement and trust each other, multi-specialty meeting to  discuss everything that matters. Also i had the  chance to see the Trauma team in one of the emergency  cases , and i know it may  seem  common sense but  i  was amazed how fast and organized the whole team was, everyone knew what to do and when to do it , the  process of saving a patient life and primary assessment was one of the  shortest that i ever saw in my life. Although i was a part of the catastrophe unit in an organization.

3- Means :  well i have to mention that money can bring happiness , having all the means under your hand change completely the medical practice efficiency , instead of wasting your time finding a spot for ur  patient to do a CT scan or an MRI, here everything pass smoothly. from the available elevators  to the operation simulation equipment , all is there !

4- Documentation : the  thing that all European doctors are  complaining from , however , i find it  quite useful.  everything should be documented the  whole time .  This allows other team members  to know what you did with the patients and follow up afterword , it also allow to minimize the error factor and improve the failures later on.

5- Explaining to the patient :  this might have a  cultural aspect , but Swiss patients need to understand all the details of their treatment and disease , and doctors  provide this  with extreme patience and professionalism.  some doctors  stays with the patient over an hour to answer all the questions and make sure that  they are  comfortable with the treatment plan.

6- Finally , the team is  a huge mixture of nationalities , races , religions and gender , however  they  keep good  relationship between them and you can feel the positive harmony.