Teargas and 2% Beer...

Thurdsday night was very nice. I went to a barbecue at a colleague's apartment and had a very nice time. As I haven't mentioned food in the past few posts, allow me to here...for apps we had goat cheese stuffed, bacon wrapped dates (baked in the oven, on toothpicks until crispy at about 270 celcius whatever that is, bread, some lecker spanish cheese...main course: wurst, chicken kabobs, pork, beef, other meats, salad, potatoes, corn, bubble water, and dessert was chocolate cupcakes with starwerries and cream. It was cool because the people at the bbq all worked in derm research, but were from all over: Russia, Poland, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, Chile...Friday opened a bank accoutn a Die Post Bank. Saturday, spent some time in the city walking around the lake. Checked out the nice houses on one side of the lake, with some killer views. Met with a gentleman about sailing with him and his friend on his beautiful, old, wooden sloop. He was very nice and his two friends and I shared some bubble water and strawberries and cream. He told me the if I was still interested I could sail with them, but he said that he felt they were too old for me and that I wouldn't have fun, so he put me in contact with the under 30 sailing group. Today I met L & co. at about 13:00 at this little restaurant before the game and hung out for a while. When it came time to go into the game it turns out my seat was in the wrong section, so Yves and Umut snuck me into the Suedkurve...the "dumb american that doesn't speak german" card has a tendency to help in sticky situations quite well here. During the game people were lighting flares, firworks, colored smoke bombs, and as usual the songs were sung. Everytime the pyrotechnics from the audience would start a man would come over the loud speaker encouraging everyone to not light fireworks etc. "thank you for your understanding" etc. the flames continued :) To clarify one thing this is like the UM v. Ohio State game of Swiss Soccer. An interesting side note: Beer that can be purchased in the stadium on a regular game day has about half the alcohol content of normal beer in Schweiz to prevent fans from getting to drunkyly aggressive, beer on this day was half of that half...ringing in at about 2%. I realize now that these individuals are very passionate about their soccer, several common cheers involved the fans doing obscene things to Basels' mothers/ the mothers of the refs...Basel beat Zueri 3-1 and Police outfitted in SWAT gear took to the field to keep things under control. An entire pie slice of the stadium was left empty to prevent altercations between FCB fans and FCZ fans from arising. After the game though the pie slice didn't do much good. the fans busted down the chain-link fence and tried to attack each other while the cops tried to prevent them from attacking each other. We left the stadium and proceeded toward the train station where the Basel team was leaving. A fire-hose was on crowd-control and hooligans were trying to cause problems with the SWAT polozei and getting sprayed. As we got closer my eyes started to burn..."ahhh why are my eyes burning?" I asked the guys, "Oh trennen gas..." "Hm?" "Tear Gas..." so many firsts in this lovely country. Luk told me that the cops can keep everything under control except soccer. People were getting shot with "Gummi" or rubbery-plastic, by the cops to get them to settle down. We were at a safe distance, do not worry, we were just there for the show. When the Basel cars (cars with license plates from the 'wrong kanton') drove out of town various things were thrown at them, beer cans, pieces of road, body parts, whole bodies (one window was actually busted out of a Sprinter). For a 'neutral country' I was very surprised by this outpouring of passionate destruction. Not long after we headed toward home, I saw the street sweeper cleaning up the fray; that's thing I must say for Zuerich...they could have a explosive disaster and the next day you'd have no idea it ever happened. Their clean-up task force is very good. Now I'm home.

Bis Bald!

ox

The past 5 days or so...

After last post, I bussed to soccer field and met Zino, Kaspar, Luk, Dommi, etc. for my very first Fussball Speil! FC Zurich played FC Luzern and it was unlike any other experience of my life. The entire 90 plus minutes consisted of the "Sudkurve" or south curve of the arena singing cheer-songs set to Bon Jovi, Eminem, "everytime we touch", and other pop/ rock classics. Like the UM student section, it was a standing/ rowdy affair. People tore up magazines to use as confetti, and for a lot of the game it was downpouring and lighting-ing but never mind, the euros love their soccer and the game continued (we stayed dry though because there was a doughnut shaped cover over the stands). One thing I particularly liked was that after the game the players walked over to the sudkurve and took a bow, did a little oui chant thingy, applauded for the audience to thank them for their support, and the goalie did the same separately. I'd like to see that in the american sports arena of ego obsessed pro-athletes. After the game I accompanied L, K, and Z to one of Kaspar's collegue's homes for a lovely dinner/ barbeque and chat with friends. After, I went back to the room to change for the Booka Shade concert. I met L at Central station and then met up with friends and headed to the concert. The concert was fun, very cool lights, live set, very electro, lots of sweaty people. The electro dancing is a lot different than I'm used to though, not a whole lot of interaction or even eye contact, mostly everyone is just feeling the musical situation in their own bubble, still cool though. Took a taxi back to L's and crashed in the guest room. Helena went over some of Switzerland's hot-spots with me in the morning, I wished her a happy mothers day and headed back to Vogelsang on the tram in all of my smokey-eyed, eye-linered, black booted, trench coat wearing glory...I can only imagine what I looked like to the families on the tram headed to Mother's Day brunch or what not. Sunday involved a lot of sleeping. Monday it was back to the grind stone: editing papers, seeing new patients, playing "Save Your Skin" on DOIT (Dermatology Online with Interactive Technology) or something like that, doing online tutuorials. I had to leave early to get to the Kreis Buero which was an adventure in itself. I love not knowing where I am in Zueri because I get to ask people :) I ended up finding it though and paying my twenty francs for my res permit and heading on my merry way. After that I headed downtown to Bahnhoff Strasse and made my first and last trip to that lovely, overpriced corner of the universe. After that I picked up some wurst and met some friends in this lovely park in enge and had a "barbeque" read bonfire that you happened to roast wurst over. After that I took the tram to Dr. D's lovely flat/apartment/house/home whatever it is called. He has a lovely home that looks over all of Zueri and Lake Z. I hung out there and chatted with him and his wife for over an hour, met his kids and procured the lovely bicycle that he had arranged for me to have during my stay. SLEEP. WORK: New patient with Heiley-Heiley disease with whom I got to interact and describe the lesion to the resident (Martin), and then later he taught me about the disorder that was causing the lesions. It's a genetic disorder involving malfunction of a calcium pump causing lesions in high motion areas (axiallary and under boob areas) which are vulnerable to secondary infection which makes them stink. Then headed to Domi's ("the room") to watch FCZ play some funny named place in Liechtenstein. SLEEP. WORK: Toady was super cool. I got to see lots of interesting new patients, perform my first physical examination...there's room for improvement...watch Phillip do a sweet almond shaped biopsy on this young guy with a rash that presented in a farmers tan like pattern on his uper half, but also on his feet, some on his legs, lower back and lower stomach. The attending asked me what it was and I said I didn't know, we'd have to do a biopsy because the farmers tan sitch made me think sun, but the feet/ other non exposed areas (we knew from the history) didn't line up. He smiled and told me I'd make a good derm :) He and Dr. D are definitely my fave professors so far: nice, Swiss, good with the patients, and acknowledge that you're there to learn and talk to you about the lesions, let you look at them etc. After work went downtown to try and find Die Post Bank, failed by five minutes. Proceeded to the FCZ fan shop to buy a ticket for Saturday's epic FCZ v. FC Basel (read UM vs. Ohio State) Fussball Speil. Coop City for some Lebensmittel (razors, laundry soap, a knife, a spoon, cheese, bread, chocolate) SLEEP.

Love and Hugs from Zueri

-L

Clean Water and Punctual Trams

From my observations there are two things that Zürichers are especially proud of: their clean water and their on time trams. The tram system is truly wonderful. They are clean, safe, affordable, and in my opinion probably the best means of efficient public transport. The weather for the past few days has been so nice. Sunny, warm, with rain in between. This week in the clinic was very interesting. I got to watch a few lectures: one on new mastocytosis treatments/ research, one on histamine and its effects on atherosclerosis, one on mastocytosis treatment and osetoporosis….lots of new interesting research stuff. One I’m particularly excited about is a melanoma project that Dr. D and Keith are working on which essentially puts forth the idea that everything we thought about the way cancer works is wrong and here’s why…data, data, data. They’re presenting this at the 7th annual Melanoma Research Conference in Vienna this coming week. Hopefully I will get to work on this project providing one of the little chunks of data looking at this one gene’s expression in melanoma mets and primary lesions. Yesterday Philip and Martin were debriding this sweet old woman’s leg ulcer and I got to assist. I held her hand, tried to distract her and handed Phillip stuff. Earlier in the week I got to check out a patient’s operated but recurred melanoma lesion and another squamous cell carcinoma. When I’m not doing rounds, or assisting with procedures, or sitting in on lectures/ exams, I get to do swisdom.org which is this sweet interactive dermatology learning site where you learn about different skin diseases, play games to learn the stuff, then you’re tested, then you diagnose and treat patients based on their interviews and photos. As resident English guru (save from Keith who is too high up to edit everyone’s sutff) I have some papers to edit here over the next week while all the researchers are in Vienna. Getting to edit these is really cool because I get to read all of these brand new derm research papers before they come out, and stay right on the cutting edge. So far I’ve worked on papers about teledermatology (using the internet/ email to screen lesions), Witten and Zak syndrome treatment, risks vs benefits of UV-radiation, treating squamous cell carcinoma with superficial radiation as opposed to surgery, and that’s all I can think of now but they just keep rolling in.
Outside of the clinic has been fun too. I went with Luk Wednesday night to a friend’s place to watch Barcelona play Chlesea (soccer) which was fun. Last night, after running all over Zürich trying to open a bank account and failing (Vielen Dank Herr Obama) but at least scoring free UBS umbrella outo fthe deal, I met some coworkers at the tram station and went to this cute little Italian place. After that we went to Nacht Flug a place with cool tables outside and couches inside and hung out for a while. Zürich has such a cool restaurant/ bar situation. There are all of these tiny little alleys and nooks and crannies with neat little places where the majority of the seating is outside and everything is laidback and slow and relaxed. After that I left and met Luk and his peeps at the coolest place, called Bederhof. It is a restaurant with a fake unicorn on the wall, a cow rug on the floor, and the nicest leather couches. Lots of leather in Zürich. Everyone this time of year has their very stylish leather jackets on, which are much more stylish than the one’s I’ve seen in the U.S.

Ok this is too long, I’m going to town and then to watch Zürich’s soccer team play live, and then to a concert ☺

PS-I fell down the lovely, romantic, euro-style, garden stairs walking to work yesterday ☺

Die Weisse Jacke

Up at 6:00am to an internet set alarm clock, then the adventure began. Finding an ATM, breakfast, and the Derm Klinik all happened with time to spare :) It was raining this morning, but it smelled amazing...there are flowers everywhere, kinds I've not seen before and they're all in full bloom. I met my boss's (Dr. R. Dummer) PA Khampa at 8 and she gave me four white lab coats, an unofficial name badge, and a gift from Dr. D. a cute fish mug, a tea cup and a water glass. We then went upstairs to Dr. D's office equipped with cot, desk, table, and windows! He is a lovely man and he wears very chic very Swiss spectacles that I would seek out if I needed some. Watching him with the patients is nice too he sits on the bed when speaking to them and is very empathic. I saw/ learned so much today. Herpes, bloody blisters, an autoimmune blistering disease, more metastisised melanoma than I would ever like to see, excema, a PET scan of the melanoma mets to the bladder, liver, lungs, spleen, bones...it was heartbreaking ( I would guess she was in her forties), a caucasian man turned the color of a black man because his melanin was over producing because of his metastisized melanoma. We did rounds in the morning and then worked with new patients. Only once did I feel like I was going to pass out and walk swiftly out of the room to find a place to sit...then proceed with dry heaves...Maybe tomorrow I'll drink more water, (and here I thought I was immune to jetlag). We then had breakfast! Good bread, qwark, jams, scandanavian crackers, and good cheese. Before lunch all of the residents, students, and doctors sit in this room and see four or so patients in front of everyone. They use a little video camera that feeds into tvs and a big screen to show everyone the presentation of the issue. The histology slides are also presented over the screens, and the case is discussed. It is a really interesting approach, and I wonder if that happens in US teaching hospitals. Dr. D. then gave me a week of free lunch, and I went with some other students to eat lunch. Let me tell you right now Swiss cafeteria food knocks the socks off of US cafeteria food! I had shells with sauce, a mini salad, ans the most delicious stuffed zuchinis! After lunch we did some more work with new patients (all of these are inpatients) and then I went and checked Marjam's research paper on teledermatology Skincheck website...which is really cool, it involved people photographing their suspicious lesions and sending them to a group of derms that tell them whether or not they need to go see a doc. I left at about 5:30...now I'm in my room, and completely exhausted! Alles gut and bis bald!

PS- I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Janet Hegman Shier and Karein Goertz, today I was surprised by how much I really do understand, and I was even complimented on my speech by some colleagues. It's amazing what RC German 191 can do for a girl!

I've arrived!

I arrived in Zuerich today about an hour ahead of schedule. The pilot was wonderfully Swiss, telling us exactly when we'd be taking off and landing and sure enough he was right on the money..."We will be taking off in one minute..." sure enough sixty seconds later....Everyone in the airport had dogs and Luk met me there and we took the tram to my living quarters. Zuerich is quite hilly and it was an adventure lugging over 130lbs of luggage up hills to the living situation :) I turned a lovely deep "rot." I took a shower, nap, then unpacked and Kaspar and Zino picked me up and took me to their home for dinner. Zuerich is such a lovely city I was truly shocked when I arrived and even more so on the ride from my room to Enge where the VBs live. Everything is green and the buildings are wonderfully quaint and lovely. There is foliage everywhere and huge old trees standing right by homes in downtown and commerical buildings. There are also many parks and the river/lake area called Bellevue is gorgeous and the mountain view from there is stunning. The trams run right along on the roads next to the cars. The dinner at the VB's was so LECKER (delicious) and such a pleasant experience. We ate outside in their rooftop garden fully equipped with pond and a higher plant life concentration than I've ever seen in such an area. Dinner was a long event involving lots of conversation and relaxing. We ate appetizers first of carrots, grape tomatoes, a white root plant, olives, a tasty seasoned nut/bar-ish mix, and breadsticks. Then we ate the freshest salad I've ever had in my life, it was delicious with lettuce that could have very well come from Helena's garden, in a light seasoned vinagrette. For the main course we ate seasoned potatoes, a celery puree, white asparagus with a vinegrette/ egg sause that was seasoned with fresh herbs, pork (the most tender and delicious I've ever had), grilled wurst, and an italian pickled salad thing made out of a wild plant that is related to the dandelion. After dinner Helena brewed a pot of tea and we had dessert! Dessert was a strawberry puree with fresh strawberries...the puree was made of yogurt, stawberries, sugar, and citrus juice...it was sooo lecker! And the best part was that after dinner you felt good the food was so light, so tasty, and really a three hour ordeal from end to end. The VB's are so very hospitable, and gave me a very extensive map of Zuerich, told me where to go to get my phone sitch figured out and where to open my bank account, and every phone number I could ever need to contact! I heard "If you ever have any problems or need anything don't hesitate..." at least three times this evening alone. They are such a beautiful family. I'm looking forward to/ I little nervous for my first day tomorrow, but now it is time to sleep.

Liebe aus Zueri :)