Hey guys!
So a couple of weeks back, I visited the Donders Institute on their open door day. The Donders Institute is an institute that focuses on the cognitive neurosciences and investigates a
lot around the cognitive neurosciences and new neurological developments. On the open door day they invited Victor Mids a medical specialist and illusionist, which I found a rather peculiar combination, to host the day.There was so much to see and do and we didn't really get to do everything we wanted to due to lack of time and it just was a bit too crowded sometimes. But overall, it was an amazingly interesting day. The science nerd inside of me was very pleased at the end.
Before that day I had never even heard of the Donders Institute. Two friends asked if I wanted to come and as soon as I heard the word neuroscience I was hooked. Just a fun fact about me: my favourite bit of the human body is the brain due to its complexity and the endless amount of options and functions it has. We have so much left to discover about it and we can do so many things with neuro-rehabilitation which we've only just scratched the surface. So yeah, I really like the brain.
During the open door day there were a lot of demos, but also some live MRI-scan experiments and some really interesting lectures. The demos varied from getting an up-close look of the brain (which was one of my personal favourites), to the connections between food and the brain, to the NOA-robot (a robot that helps kids with autism develop social skills), and just a close-up look at the MRI-scan machine. They even had a special children's corner, and free poffertjes which was a big plus!
The lectures, were in my opinion, the best bits of the day. The first lecture we attended was about reading minds and if it's possible to read minds off an MRI-scan. This experiment failed a bit due to lack of time and the early stages of reading minds via an MRI we are still in. So in this experiment the illusionist, Victor Mids, turned out to be better at reading minds. But in the future, I honestly we believe could read minds via an MRI in the future, just you wait!
Then there was the lecture on neuro-myths which was very educational and hilarious. This lecture was easier to follow for non-anatomically educated people as it didn't contain too many anatomical terms which were thrown around in the other lectures.
There was also a lecture on gaming with your brain but we decided not to go there. Last but not least there were the lectures on optical illusions, which showed some really cool virtual and augmented reality
developments in the treatments of Parkinson's disease, and another MRI experiment to watch the effects of fear on the brain which did work out and was sooooo interesting.
The demo's were really interesting as well, although it was so busy at certain demo's that we didn't have a chance to ask questions or even enter the room which was a bit of a bummer. Although that didn't keep me from having an amazing day. Like I actually held a brain, nothing can beat that right?! So if you're from Holland or happen to be in or around Nijmegen next year at the next Donders Institute open door day, I truly recommend you go there! It's free and really worth going! I'll leave a link to the website of the Donders Institute here! Oh wait, the Donders Institute also has a blog called Donders Wonders blog, you should check it out! Here's also a link to Victor Mids' TV-show MindF*ck, it's pretty cool!
Lots of love! (also brain related)
ThatDutchGirl96
Hey Guys!
For two weeks now I've started my third internship, and it's in the place I've been waiting to have an internship in for two years now! My current internship is, you might have guessed it already, in the HOSPITAL! Yes, I am enthusiastic about hospitals, well at least about having my internship there. Ever since I was a little girl the hospital has been one of the most intriguing and fascinating places I've ever been to. Yes, this does sound a bit weird, I know. Anyway, I won't bore you with the story why I'm so fascinated by the hospital, if you want to know more about that click here for a jump back in time to the blogpost I explain it all.
Let's get this party started. In my opinion internships are a fantastic way to learn more about your profession and learn new skills, especially in a practical profession like nursing. However, there are some cons as well, like not giving yourself any time to get used to your internship, or being tired all the time, and of course the crazy (amount of) assignments school thinks you can manage beside your 32 hour internship. But besides the con I think there are a lot more pros to having an internship so, go internships!
As I mentioned before my internship is in a hospital, an internship I've been waiting for ever since I started my nursing course. Now I secretly wished for an internship on the child-department, however the lung-department, the department I'm on now, is pretty interesting as well. And who knows, maybe in the future I will end up on the child-department after all. But back to the lung-department. It's a rather interesting department to work on with a dismissal / death rate of about 70 / 30% which I personally think is pretty high. This also kind of crushes my original idea of the hospital and what I liked about it so much, the idea of people entering being ill and leaving when they're better. The death part, is something I never really gave much thought to, especially as a child. But that so many people would die, I never would have thought.
Now it's kind of logical once you start looking into it. A lot of people that are in the hospital are very, very ill and most of them are pretty old as well. On the lung-department, I see a lot of cases of pneumonia, which some call: "the stairway to heaven for old people", and I guess this is kind of true. But on the lung-department I work on we also have our own cancer centre, so a lot of the patients we have on our ward are cancer patients as well. But still, the pretty high death rate hit me pretty hard, and I'm going to work very hard on my skills to deal with deaths as well this internship.
However, we also have a lot of patients that do meet my original hospital standard of coming in ill and leaving when they're better. And this makes me really happy and proud of my job. When people leave and are ready to go back home again, then I know why I wanted to become a nurse in the first place. Healing people, making people better and maybe even leave a lasting impression on the people with your positive spirit and good nursing skills. Yes the profession of a nurse is very diverse but it's, in my opinion, one of the most interesting, honourable and appreciated jobs in the world. From both a nurse and a patients perspective.
So yeah, this internship will give me a lot of opportunities to develop a lot of new skills in different areas of the nursing profession. Tomorrow is another day of my internship and even though I don't really like the waking up early (like 5.45 am) I do really like my internship, the department I'm on and the people I get to work with. The lung-department has a great team and I have a great deal of respect for my fellow nurses. So to every nurse in the world: Keep up the good work, you are doing great!
Lots of love,
ThatDutchGirl96
lot around the cognitive neurosciences and new neurological developments. On the open door day they invited Victor Mids a medical specialist and illusionist, which I found a rather peculiar combination, to host the day.There was so much to see and do and we didn't really get to do everything we wanted to due to lack of time and it just was a bit too crowded sometimes. But overall, it was an amazingly interesting day. The science nerd inside of me was very pleased at the end.
During the open door day there were a lot of demos, but also some live MRI-scan experiments and some really interesting lectures. The demos varied from getting an up-close look of the brain (which was one of my personal favourites), to the connections between food and the brain, to the NOA-robot (a robot that helps kids with autism develop social skills), and just a close-up look at the MRI-scan machine. They even had a special children's corner, and free poffertjes which was a big plus!
