I’m sitting on the train to Stockholm (well – yesterday. When I’m writing this. Which will be published tomorrow. Sometimes I think I might rip a hole into the space-time-continuum or something.)
Sadly because my tickets were booked from work, I’m travelling second class. Normally I take first, because I tend to book very early, and since internet is inclusive, it tends to be cheaper for me. I shall try to sneakily change the booking for the train home, if possible, but only if the fee isn’t too high.
Anyway! While researching yesterday how much internet-on-the-train would cost me, I couldn’t miss the giant proud advertisement in which the train company announced that, whoohoo! Their internet connections were now three times as fast!
And while I’m always impressed with how they just get internet on a really quite fast moving train, I have to say that if this is three times faster, it must have been static before. Honestly. I miss home already.
Why am I going to Stockholm, you ask? I managed to get a spot on a so-called SK-course. These courses are paid for by the government, and are offered in all medical specialties. They’re normally made for residents in order to get a deeper knowledge of certain parts of your specialty. They’re never sponsored by any kind of pharmaceutical company, which is what makes them different from most, if not all, other courses.
Normally there are always about 200 or 300 applications for 30 or so spots. Because of that, the shorter the remainder of your residency is, the better your chances to get a spot.
I’ll be finished after summer. That’s why I can now visit a course about psychiatric diagnostics. It’s just a bit silly, since that is a course that would be very valuable when you’ve just started out – now, naturally, I already know a lot about diagnostics. Of course not enough to not be able to learn things, which I love to do, but it is a flaw in the system that you can’t get a spot when you would really, really need one.
I’m glad I got this one though. I’ll be in Stockholm until next Friday, with about seven hours of lectures every day. Yay! It’s always awesome to meet other doctors and to be able to ball ideas and to see how things are done in other parts of the country.
Popularity: 42% [?]
