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 ☺