Tuesday, May 29- Day 16:

Today we went to the Danube University for Continuing Education at Krems. It was here that the second annual Arkansas-Krems Symposium was held. The day consisted of lectures by various professionals in the health care system both Austrian and American.

The Austrian health care system is very different than the health care system in America. One of the most interesting lectures given today in my opinion was by an American nurse that moved to Austria later in her life and began work in Germany and later Vienna. It was interesting to hear her compare and contrast the different duties of a nurse as well as the position hierarchy in a hospital. In Germany there are basically two positions in a hospital- a nurse and a doctor. There is no such position as a LPN or a Physicians Assistant. The nurse is not regarded in such a high manner either. It is their job to make sure that the room is clean, patients are fed, and other housekeeping duties. The doctor is in charge of EVERYTHING else unless otherwise specified. To me it sounded like a whole lot of busy work for nurses and a whole lot of real medical work for doctors.

In order to become a nurse in Germany, one must simply attend what would be equivalent to a trade school in America. She said that the nurses have very little training and are generally seen as incompetent by the doctors, the patients, and the public.

One thing I found slightly unnerving was the fact that the school was bordering a maximum security prison used only for the most dangerous murderers in Austria. One could literally reach out and touch the prison wall at the edge of campus. Personally that is not where I would choose to set up camp.

We got to mingle a little bit with some of the Krems students at lunch and during our free time. It was interesting to hear what they thought about Americans and American culture. According to Dan, Americans are a bunch of "fat, gun-slinging, Texans." Not sure I can get on board with that.

After our lunch and free time we were welcomed to the House vs. Prof get together. This event was very fun for us because we basically watched an episode of the show House and analyzed together the different diagnoses, symptoms, and treatments that were proposed in the episode and how that would work in real live scenarios. The discussion was led by an Austrian doctor and was very intriguing although I did not understand about half of the medical terms and treatments.