Mark Terry reports from his final week of a three month educational exchange programme in Holland:
I left for Haarlem, Holland, just a couple of days into the new year as part of my final year radiography course.
The aim: to experience a European healthcare system and join an intensive abdominal ultrasound course.
My clinical placement was at Alkmaar, home of the famous cheese market held from April to late summer every year.
The accommodation was shared with other Erasmus students from across Europe. There were diagnostic and therapeutic radiography students from Malta, Northern Ireland, and Belgium. Other countries involved include the Republic of Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and Greece.
During the first day at the academic site we were given a guided tour of the faculty. The facilities were fantastic compared to those I’m used to. They had plain film CR rooms, a CT scanner, MRI simulator, therapy suite, and even a nuclear medicine room!
In Holland the students study for four years and cover both diagnostic and therapeutic radiography.
The students practice their skills in the safe environment of the faculty’s facilities, using phantoms. They then move into a clinical environment in their third year, where they spend nearly the entire academic year.
Each week we were given a case study of a patient scenario and an organ to scan. We were expected to prepare with knowledge of anatomy, pathology and a scan plan. There were also physics classes, and student, peer-led Dutch lessons. The organs we covered included pancreas, gallbladder, kidneys, liver and aorta.
The study of anatomy and pathology has improved my knowledge, building on previous knowledge gained from my course back home. It soon became evident that the anatomy from a textbook is very different from ultrasound anatomy and it becomes a skill to interpret the ultrasound images and scans with the anatomy and physiology from a textbook.
My Dutch is still basic, but this clinical experience was interesting and invaluable.
I then spent two days shadowing various radiography ‘technicians', including plain film in-patient and outpatients, CT, MRI, and A&E. The highlights included observing lung biopsies through CT imaging on a 1-slice scanner, and observing the similarities and differences between my practice training and their practice skills.
What was evident immediately was that the whole environment was a lot less busy than my own experience. This was partly because the Dutch Healthcare system is privately based with a top-up tier system. Patients have a basic healthcare cover, then you top up with extras like dental care and physiotherapy.
On the second day, I shadowed the ultrasound technicians, with the opportunity to participate with supervised scanning. This was a great chance to experience ultrasound in the clinical setting and to produce images of pathologies.
I noted that patients who have clinical symptoms have very different anatomy to the students I scan in the class setting. This certainly tested my limited knowledge and ultrasound scanning skills.
Reflecting on my trip, I have come to appreciate the opportunity and experience of a clinical environment back in England. Although the learning facilities in Holland are excellent, they are not true representations of a clinical environment, with patient diversity and contact you receive providing the distinctive practice and experience that I feel is a necessity.
Overall, though, the exchange experience was invaluable. I would recommend to those students who have the opportunity to participate in a similar exchange programmed to seize the chance.
• Mark Terry is a third year student at University Campus Suffolk (UCS) and student observer to the SoR's UK Council.
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