Playing doctor

I spent this Sunday at Amager Hospital, swimming in a white coat with a nametag that read, "Læge Jesper Hansen" and a stethoscope that apparently belonged to "Lisabeth" hanging from my shoulders. Feeling both like a doctor and a little girl dressed in grown-up clothes, I followed young physicians around a Danish "acute care" ward.

As far as I know, this department does not have an equivalent in most American hospitals. Danish emergency rooms are responsible for seeing patients who require immediate stabilization or services such as suturing. Because general practitioners are closed after four o'clock and on weekends as well, I think, patients with minor ailments also show up at the ER. Everyone who is stable but may require hospitalization is sent to acute care. There, physicians collect full and recent histories; record the information on microcassettes that the secretaries later transcribe; order blood tests, ultrasounds, and CT scans; and ultimately decide whether or not the patient needs to be admitted for hospitalization.

The time I spent in the ward was a little like a dream: What I saw made concrete sense in each moment, but because all of the interviews and exams were conducted in Danish, the words spun around me in an absurd haze. I actually think that because all of the patients' words were inaccessible to me, I had to be more attuned to what I saw. I noticed scars and colors and equipment in the rooms that I don't think I otherwise would have. And like in a dream, these vivid details began to construct their own reality. What could be more real than the patients who generously shared their lives and bodies with the doctors and me—some strange, small American girl?

After every consultation, the doctors patiently reiterated to me what each patient had said. We often played a game of fill-in-the-blank, in which a doctor would begin to describe a patient's symptomatology or treatment, then reach a word for which he or she did not know the English translation. "So, you can see that the T wave is depressed on this ECG," one doctor began. "And that's evident of ischemic heart disease. If it's bad enough, we'll have to, oh, do the thing with the—" His hands ballooned outwards. "The, uh, stunt? The—?" "An angioplasty!" I'd squeal. Every time I began to I feel as though I were doing more harm than good, getting under everyone's feet as the ward got busy, and demanding time for English explanations, another doctor would ask if I wanted to accompany him or her to an interesting consult. And this is how the three hours I was meant to spend in Amager Hospital stretched into, well, eight.

Upon my arrival back at Tåsingegade, my friend Marlo made me a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. It was the best meal I've had in Copenhagen. Overall, this weekend was my favorite in Denmark so far. The hospital isn't the best place for photos, so I'll leave you instead with a few from the botanical garden near my apartment in Østerbro. I'm a lucky girl.

And while we're on the subject of anatomy, one final photo in the style of Georgia O'Keeffe.