Student Jørgen Amdim got to experience life as an orderly on his one-week placement at the Norwegian Radium Hospital.
Transporting patients in Norway’s biggest cancer hospital is strenuous both physically and psychologically. “But it’s really good,” said Jørgen Amdim, who is studying the program Healthcare, childhood and youth development at Ullern Upper Secondary School. His one-week placement was at the Transport Section at the Norwegian Radium Hospital. The work experience certainly gave him a taste for more.
Jørgen has previously worked in a nursing home, but he found the work a little tedious. He enjoyed being an orderly though and asked the school if there were any available placements.
An orderly is an attendant in a hospital who is responsible for, among other things, transporting patients, medical equipment and other essential materials. Jørgen spent one week as an orderly at the Radium Hospital and he loved it. He enjoyed it so much that he wants to work there again during the summer of 2019.
Knut Arve Kristiansen, the Head of the Transport Section, has worked at the Radium Hospital for 30 years and praised Jørgen:
“He was a perfect addition to our team, and we are very happy with him.”
80 km per week
Jørgen enjoys manual labour, which is great if you want to become an orderly. Wheeling around heavy medical equipment or patients in beds and wheel chairs is hard work. Knut Arve explained:
”As orderlies, we’re constantly on the go, and we could end up walking around 80 kilometres on hard floors during a week of work.
“It can be strenuous for the body, so we have to regularly do strength exercises to keep fit,” Knut Arve continued.
Knut Arve only had positive things to say about Jørgen and he hopes that Jørgen will want to return to the Transport Section for a summer job as an orderly.
“Jørgen is a social person and very well liked. This is important for patients when they are transported between examinations and the rooms they are staying in,” said Knut Arve.
Jørgen praises the work environment and especially the warm welcome he received from the other staff.
Jørgen has constantly been accompanied by a colleague from the section during his stay, because he is not allowed to do much on his own when on a placement. If he returns for a summer job, things will be different. Then he will have to work more independently and take responsibility if an emergency should occur while he is transporting a patient.
The orderlies are also responsible for transporting food and medication. To newcomers, the Radium Hospital can appear to be a huge labyrinth, especially outside the wards. The hospital is also currently being renovated, because a new hospital is being built. A sense of direction is therefore essential for anyone finding their way through the building.
A future in health
Jørgen does not necessarily want to become an orderly, but sees himself working in healthcare:
“I would really like to work in an emergency room – receiving ill and injured people at the hospital when they arrive in an ambulance. But I think working as an orderly is very exciting too, so I don’t want to exclude it as an option.”
Knut Arve says that a trade certificate is required to work as an orderly and that they currently offer placements for several apprentices in the section. Students need to study Healthcare, childhood and youth development during upper secondary school and then finish a two-year apprenticeship to obtain their trade certificate as an orderly.
”Workdays here are very varied and you meet many different people. It is really fun to talk to people and no two days are the same. I have really enjoyed it.” said Jørgen.
Attracting and developing the life science talents of the future is an essential goal for Oslo Cancer Cluster. One way to do that is to take students outside the traditional classroom setting and invite them to work placements and educational lectures. These collaborations between industry and academia give the students a unique insight into the specialist skills needed to become tomorrow’s researchers and entrepreneurs.
Find out more about Oslo Cancer Cluster’s school collaboration with Ullern Upper Secondary School.
Fruit flies are not only annoying little insects that appear when bananas are overripe. They are also popular research tools for cancer researchers.
The four pupils Kalina Topalova Casadiego, Ida Hustad Andresen, Andreas Bernhus and Dina Düring got to experience how cancer researchers look at fruit flies during their work placement in January.
“Let’s turn on the gas, and then I’ll put some fruit flies on the pad under your microscope.” Speaking is cancer researcher Lene Malrød who, together with her colleague Nina Marie Pedersen, is responsible for four pupils from Ullern Secondary School on work placements.
“Gosh! They’re moving,” proclaims one of the pupils.
But not for long. Soon, all the fruit flies are anaesthetised and, eventually, dead; then the pupils are tasked with surgically removing the ovaries of the female flies. It is easier said than done, even with the help of microscopes to enhance the tiny flies. Especially when the operating tools are two tweezers.
The fruit flies are kept in test tubes.
An exciting placement
It is the third day of the pupils’ work placement at the Institute for Cancer Research, located next to the school. For four days at the end of January, they have learnt about cancer research and which methods researchers use in their daily work.
“The work placement is not like we imagined,” says Kalina and Ida.
“There’s a lot more manual work than I would have thought, and then you realise how important research is through what we do,” says Ida.
She is the only one who is specialising in biology in combination with with other science subjects, and she finds this very useful when working in the lab together with researchers. The other three have had to catch up on the reading, but they all agree that it is very exciting.
“Yesterday, we learnt a lot about CRISPR, which is a new method for cutting and splicing genes. Media gives you the impression that this is a highly precise tool, but the researchers here say that a lot can go wrong, and that it’s not at all as precise as you might think,” says Ida.
The students look at the fruit flies under a microscope.
From Western Blot to flies
A total of twelve pupils were picked out for this work placement. They have been chosen based on motivation and grades, and they all have a wish to study something related to medicine or science after they finish upper secondary school.
The twelve students are divided into three groups with completely different activities and get to learn a number of different research methods. The group consisting of Ida, Kalina, Andreas, and Dina, for instance, is the only group which will have a go in the fly lab.
“Am I really supposed to remove the ovaries? I don’t see how,” one of the pupils say, equally discouraged and excited.
Andreas, on the other hand, is in complete control. First, he has separated the males and the females with a paint brush. He has then used the tweezers to remove the heads from the females, punctured the bottom to remove the intestines, and finally found the ovaries in the abdomen.
Lene gathers all the different body parts for the pupils to look at through a different microscope. These fruit flies are in fact genetically manipulated to glow in the dark – they are fluorescent.
If you are wondering why researchers use fruit flies as part of their research, you can read more about it in this article from Forskning.no (the article is written in Norwegian).
“It is so much fun to be here, and we are really lucky to get this opportunity,” says Dina on her way from the fly lab to another lab to carry out another experiment.
The pupils on the work placement have uploaded many nice photos and videos on Ullern Secondary School’s Instagram account – visit their account to see more from the placement.
Hannah (18) wants to become a doctor. After two days job shadowing doctors and nurses at the Norwegian Radium Hospital, she is even more certain that this is what she wants to do.
If your dream is to become a doctor, it may be a good idea to gain some insight into what the job actually involves before embarking on a long education. But job shadowing a doctor is usually only a possibility if you’re already a medical student.
Truls Ryder is a senior consultant and surgeon at the Norwegian Radium Hospital. He decided to do something about this, and over three days, one theme day that you can read more about here and two days of job shadowing, 18 pupils had the opportunity to experience surgery, morning staff meetings and patient consultations with the best cancer specialists and nurses in Norway.
Hannah Fiksdal is one of these pupils. And I, Elisabeth the journalist, shadowed her on the first of her two days at the Norwegian Radium Hospital. It was a day that neither of us will forget. A day that left Hannah with an even stronger desire to become a doctor.
‘I am incredibly grateful for the chance to shadow two different doctors, and to Truls Ryder for taking the initiative to allow pupils from Ullern to come to the Norwegian Radium Hospital. It gives us some idea of what may interests us before we apply for higher education in the spring. Having had a taste of two different aspects of medicine, I think that surgery and anaesthesiology were probably the things that I found most exciting.’
Hannah Fiksdal.
Hannah Fiksdal starts the day early at the hospital. Photo. Elisabeth Kirkeng Andersen
Tuesday 7 November
07:15 – the Norwegian Radium Hospital, basement level 2 – the corridor outside room AU 230 Sixteen excited pupils, 14 from the natural science and mathematics programme who will be shadowing doctors and two from the healthcare programme who will be shadowing nurses, are standing in a corridor two floors below the main entrance to the Norwegian Radium Hospital dressed in white hospital clothes.
Truls Ryder, senior consultant and prime mover behind the job shadowing scheme, is also here. He quickly reads out where each pupil will be spending the day, and sets of at a brisk pace with everyone in tow.
This is an indication of what is to come.
We go five floors up and then a couple of floors down via the back stairs. On the way, pupils peel off from the group to join other senior consultants and professors who they will be job shadowing today.
Hannah and Tristan are handed over to the anaesthetists at the anaesthesiology department. The department has nine senior consultants, one professor working 50% of a full-time position, and three specialist registrars.
07:34 The morning staff meeting has already started when Hannah and Tristan arrive. Eight doctors and nurses go through the list of patients who will need anaesthesia or pain relief today. Some will undergo surgery in the hospital’s central unit, and some require their services in other parts of the hospital, such as the radiotherapy department.
It is difficult to understand the discussions and information exchanged between the doctors and nurses. The jargon is technical, professional and precise. I wonder how much Hannah and Tristan understand? But it is clear that we have a full day ahead, and that many of the patients are seriously ill with cancer. Some are young, and some patients’ cancer has returned after treatment. Despite the difficult subject, the tone of the meeting is upbeat and friendly. It will remain so for the rest of the day.
08:00 Tristan and Hannah meet their mentors for the day. Tristan will join Senior Consultant Hege for a complicated operation that may take more than ten hours. The patient has a form of cancer that means that the surgeons have to go into the skeleton, among other things.
Hannah will be joining Senior Consultant Anne. Anne has several operations on her schedule today, and Hannah and I will be allowed to tag along and see how she works. Anne’s first patient is having an epidural and then a general anaesthetic. This is also a complicated operation.
Anne and Hege both tell us to be prepared that what we experience may make a strong impression on us and that it is natural to feel unwell. They both share stories about themselves and about medical students who have fainted both during and after visits to the operating theatre.
‘Let us know if you fell unwell,’ is their mantra, ‘and we will help you.’ I think back to the countless shifts I worked at nursing homes during my student days, and hope that they have prepared me for this. But what about young people of 18 and 19 who want to go on to work here?
08:07 Anne gives us green scrubs and a purple cap. We change in her office while she explains that her job can be compared to a pilot flying a plane. There is a lot to do when the operation starts until the patient is under anaesthesia, and then there is a calmer period of observation of the patient, often done by her colleagues, and then she goes back to full focus when the patient wakes up.
We get changed quickly.
8:10 Surgery starts early at the Norwegian Radium Hospital, and the patient arrives at the operating theatre at the same time as we do. Anne explains who Hannah and I are and why we are here. In addition to the patient, there are already five people working here.
Anne jokes and talks to the patient, who she has already met several times before. She explains that she will first be administering a local anaesthetic to the back before putting in an epidural, a form of pain relief given as an injection in the back. After that, a cannula will be inserted into a vein in the patient’s lower arm. When the patient is completely asleep, Anne will place a catheter in the neck that will be used to administer anaesthetics, pain relief, salts and anything else the body may need during an operation.
Anne involves Hannah in the work and explains what she is doing while she works, and she also explains to the patient.
‘It was also really nice to see how caring the doctors and nurses were and how they reassured the patients before surgery. They were very good at creating a pleasant atmosphere to make the patients feel safe despite the seriousness of the situation.’
Hannah Fiksdal.
08:41 Operating theatre 4 is a big, light room, and one of the long walls has big windows with a view of Mærradalsbekken stream and the surrounding forest. The river and the walking path meander side by side. But today, we can hardly see any of this through the darkness and fog.
Anne keeps an eye on the pulse and heart monitor that the patient is connected to, while the theatre nurse is preparing the instruments that the surgeons might need during the operation.
The patient is about to be put under full anaesthesia. Anne and her colleagues place a cannula in an artery in the patient’s lower arm/hand and a catheter in a vein in the neck. Anne is calm and talks to both the patient and Hannah. She explains to the patient that she will soon be asleep. She explains to Hannah what she is doing, and how you can tell the difference between a vein, which carries blood back to the heart: ‘It is darker in colour and pumps slower’ and an artery, which carries blood from the heart: ‘It is light in colour, full of oxygen, and has more force. If I had made a hole in an artery, the blood would have squirted out.’
Despite the number of people working in the operating theatre, the atmosphere is calm and pleasant.
Hannah pays close attention to Anne and asks questions while she is working. Anne is obviously impressed with the pupil: ‘Hannah, you are a tough cookie.’
09:10 The patient has been anaesthetised and is ready for surgery. At this stage, Anne and her colleagues’ responsibility is to ensure that the patient is okay during surgery.
09:40 The patient is in good hands in the operating theatre, so Anne goes to the recovery unit where the patients are taken to recover from the effects of surgery. Patients are closely monitored here. Many complications can arise following surgery, such as bleeding, breathing difficulties, a fall in blood pressure, pain and nausea.
Anne will set up a pain pump for the patient. This is a pump with morphine that Anne programs so that the patient can regulate how much pain relief she needs and wants in the days following the operation. We are allowed to use the staff’s break room while she is programming it. ‘Drink squash with sugar,’ she advises. We do as we are told, and talk a bit about what we have seen and experienced so far. Hannah is pleasantly surprised that she has been allowed into the operating theatre already, and at how open and welcoming everyone is.
‘There was some information about anaesthesia at the theme day yesterday, so I understand what is going on,’ says Hannah, and talks more about her wish to become a doctor.
Anne returns and takes the time to talk to Hannah about medical school and her many years working as an anaesthetist at Haukeland University Hospital. She took up her position at the Norwegian Radium Hospital a month ago, and there is still much that is unfamiliar.
10:01 We return to the operating theatre. There are suddenly a lot of people here, and several surgeons with different areas of specialisation discuss the surgery they are about to perform. It is a complex operation that requires cooperation.
After conferring for a while, the surgeons make a plan. Several of the Ullern pupils on job shadowing come by together with a gastrointestinal surgeon. One of the surgeons takes the time to explain the plan to Hannah and the others.
10:20 A theatre nurse goes through a checklist with the physician, surgeon and anaesthetist Anne. Everything is in order, and the operation can begin. Anne uses all her senses to check that the patient is still doing well.
Two surgeons cooperate on the operation. Hannah stands watching behind them. They talk about this and that while they are working, including the musical Book of Mormon. The actual operation is expected to take five hours. After working and discussing amongst themselves for a while, they ask for another surgeon to be called. They need what is called a ‘second opinion’, or another surgeon’s assessment.
There are suddenly a lot of people in the operating theatre, and several surgeons with different areas of specialisation discussing the case. Truls comes in with a couple of pupils who are shadowing him. Truls confers with his colleagues, and one of the surgeons explains that they are uncertain about the best way to proceed. When the surgeons opened the patient up, they found that the assumptions they had made from the outside were not correct. They have to rethink and make a new plan for the operation.
Anne lets us know that this is very unusual. There are rarely this many surgeons involved in an operation, and they do not often spend this much time discussing what to do. She suggests that we take a break and get something to eat. She has to work, though, both with more of today’s patients and planning for tomorrow, but she thinks that we should eat something.
‘Another thing that surprised me was the doctors’ willingness to show and tell me what they were doing and why. During the first day in particular I learnt a lot that I hope will be useful in my future studies. It was also very clear during the operations that good cooperation is incredibly important in order to achieve the best possible outcome for the patients. Everything from how the senior consultants’ discussed to find the best way to proceed during the first operation to how the two surgeons cooperated without needing to communicate much during the second one.’
Hannah Fiksdal.
11:07 Break room Since we have green scrubs on, we have crispbread with cheese in one of the break rooms. Otherwise, we would have had to change, leave to eat and then change back afterwards. We also have more squash. With sugar. More pupils come in for a welcome break. Four intense hours have flown by. Two pupils have fainted and woken up again.
Ander Bayer from Oslo University Hospital’s communications department also joins us. He made this video about the job shadowing.
11:36 Operating theatre 2 Anne comes to get us. Hannah is going to go with her to another operation. Anne is to put another patient under anaesthesia. Again, Anne explains to the patient and theatre nurses who we are. This patient is also having an epidural in the back, and again, Anne alternates between speaking softly and reassuringly and explaining what she is doing to the patient and Hannah. Fourteen minutes after we entered the operating theatre, the patient is under. Two nurse anaesthetists help Anne by monitoring the patient. The theatre nurses wash the abdomen where the surgeons will open up the patient to remove tumours.
12:15 Operating theatre 4 Anne is needed in operating theatre 4 again, where three surgeons are operating on the first patient. They have now decided what to do.
12:23 Break We get to take another break and have some squash with sugar, while Anne is preparing a pain pump for the second patient.
12:32 The second patient’s operation is under way. Two surgeons are standing face to face, working together. Anne gets a stool so that Hannah can stand by the patient’s head and watch the surgeons work inside the patient’s abdomen. They have made an incision that is held open by a large tool. There is a smell when the surgeon uses an electrosurgical knife to cut tissue and burn small blood vessels. The cancer they are removing is located around the vein and artery, the blood vessels running to and from the heart and legs. The surgeons show Hannah where they have to be careful. The cancer is removed, and they quickly suture the different layers of tissue before stapling the skin. The theatre nurses perform a routine equipment count. The operation is completed in 40 minutes.
‘The day in the operating theatre was at least as exciting as I imagined! I had not expected that they would allow us to get so close to the patients and really get a proper insight into what happens during an operation and also how the patients are anaesthetised.’
Hannah Fiksdal.
13:35 Anne returns to make sure that both the patient and Hannah are okay. Anne and her colleagues from the anaesthesiology department wake the patient up. The important thing now is for the patient to start breathing again. Everything goes as it should.
13:40 We accompany the patient to the recovery unit, where the patient will remain for a few hours. Anne’s work with this patient is now finished. We go back to her office to change out of the green sterile scrubs. Anne tells Hannah that she will probably doze off early after such a long and intense day. Anne’s shift will last until half past three, when other anaesthetists will take over for the evening shift. In the hall, Hannah thanks Anne for everything she has taught her and for taking care of her during the day.
14:00 As we leave the Norwegian Radium Hospital through the main entrance, we wonder how the first patient whose surgery we saw in the operating theatre is doing. And Hannah says that she is looking forward to another day of job shadowing tomorrow.
Epilogue The evaluation results for the theme day and job shadowing were excellent. The pupils and teachers were highly satisfied, and it has already been decided that this will be made an annual event for pupils at Ullern upper secondary school who are considering a career in medicine.
‘Finally, I would like to say that it was very inspiring to see how committed Anne and Anna (Anna Winge-Main, who was Hannah’s mentor on the second day of job shadowing) was to their work and how much they loved their job. It was very clear that they are really dedicated to helping their patients. As Anne said, medical school can be hard and difficult, but once you start working as a doctor, nobody regrets their choice.’
Aksel Stien graduated from Ullern Secondary School in 2011. Today he is a physician working on his specialty subjects at Oslo University Hospital. Aksel has always wanted to become a physician and the foundation was already in place at Ullern. He learned things from his deployment at The Norwegian Radium Hospital during his upper secondary days that he has yet to learn from his medicine studies.
A warm summer afternoon Aksel is at an Adamstuen café. It’s four a clock and his workday at Ullevaal is done. Aksel is currently working at the department of Gastrointestinal Surgery at Ullevaal Hospital, a part of his specialization and continuing education as a doctor.
— Recently I worked at the emergency services at Grünerløkka for three months, a time I experienced as both exiting and hectic. However, I think it is interesting working at Gastrointestinal Surgery as well.
At Ullern he specialized in natural sciences and he has only good things to say about the teachers.
— I didn’t have one inadequate teacher in all my years at Ullern. Quite amazing really and that contributed to my good grades. Of course, I also worked hard to be able to enroll as a medicine student in Bergen right after graduation.
Very Interesting Deployment
Aksel finished his studies in 2017 and can now call himself doctor. However, a doctor is never fully educated. He is currently undergoing part one of his continuing education. And when he looks back, he remembers well his years at Ullern were he participated in two work deployments at the Norwegian Radium Hospital.
— The deployments motivated me. I learned things I haven’t experienced later, like laboratory work and advanced cell biology. The best thing is that my passion for natural science was rewarded and encouraged. It felt fun doing stuff that was outside of the straight forward curriculum, says Aksel
Aksel was both deployed at a group led by Kristian Berg working on photochemical internalization and how it can be used to kill cancer cells, and additionally at dep. of Radiation Biology were the students learned about skin cancers and the danger of tanning booths.
Uncertain on Future
After finishing the first part of his continuing medical education, he will start the second part that decides the type of doctor he will become at the end, what field of expertiese he will delve deeper into. However, exactly what type of doctor he wants to become he hasn’t decided yet.
— Many of the different types of specializations are fun. Right now, gastrointestinal surgery is very exciting, but I don’t know. It will be a difficult choice, says Aksel.
Aksel has wanted to become a doctor for a long time and thinks it is an exciting profession combining knowledge of the natural sciences, medicine and the body with human contact skills.
— The life of a physician is very diverse, and it is very rewarding often seeing the results of your hard work immediately, says Aksel.
Aksel is tempted to go into research or maybe combining patient treatment with research. Treating patients and doing research is a quite common combination and Aksel has already participated in several research projects.
Do What You Find Fun!
Aksel is a believer in personal motivation. It is important that each graduate student go on to study what they are interested in and excites them.
— If you chose something that motivates you it’s much easier working hard because doing that extra work comes so naturally, says Aksel.
He thinks it is very understandable that natural sciences lover choose the medical profession after upper secondary.
— It’s a natural choice because of the job security and the exciting diversity of the profession. You can work with people, do research or work with patients. As a career it has it all and offers you a choice whatever you do, says Aksel.
— Personally, I have wanted to work with medicine since I was a toddler and I’m very happy about the career path I have chosen.
