I’m now finished with my third week in London and with that my third week in my internship. The first few days were definitely stressful, as I walked in on the first day without an understanding of what I or the department I was joining was responsible for. It started off slow, with my supervisor wanting to ease me into the work, and also because core skills, the team I was with the first week, deals mostly with routine tasks that are easily completed. The stress was quickly replaced by boredom as I completed my mandatory training on the LMS (learning management system). However, the first week was quickly over, with me successfully acquainted with the department and with the hospital overall.

I spent the first weekend at the British Museum and around my new neighborhood. Fully experiencing the British Museum is not a one-day undertaking, and I was only able to see the Greek, Egyptian, and Middle Eastern sections. The building itself was beautiful, and each room was filled with an astounding amount of artifacts that I could never hope to all see. My favorite exhibits were the Rosetta Stone, because it is so iconic, and a small, Dutch wood carving that is incredibly intricate and delicate. I plan to go back to the museum in July to visit the other exhibits and also see a new one: the Bayeux Tapestry. This is a piece of art that I learned about in Intro to World Art at Pitt, and it is incredibly important in understanding the history of England and France. It is over 1,000 years old and this will be the first time the tapestry has been in England. The tapestry is 70 meters long and recalls the story of William the Conqueror and the Norman invasion of England. I’m excited to see a piece of art I’ve studied in school in real life and be there for the groundbreaking exhibition.

During my second week at King’s, I moved to the work experience team. This includes work experience (their system of job shadowing), apprenticeships (on-the-job training), and Project Search. Project Search is an American charity program started at the University of Cincinnati that provides neurodivergent young people with work experience and job coaching to help them secure paid employment. I started this week by shadowing in the operating theatres of the hospital’s outpatient surgery center. I observed ophthalmology residents and their supervising attendings complete a cataract removal and a glaucoma treatment. The glaucoma treatment was especially interesting as I hadn’t seen this procedure before. To reduce intraocular pressure, a small drainage system is placed underneath the white of a patient’s eye and then snaked into the anterior chamber to allow fluid to be released when the normal processes are blocked. The residents joked that all they do is glorified plumbing. The rest of the week, I assisted and mentored the Project Search students to help them prepare for a job fair they were attending. Getting to share my experience and see how other people navigate daily life and employment was impactful. I felt myself realizing ways in which I could use my own experiences and an open-minded attitude to become a better person and future physician.

That weekend, I went on a day trip to the southern coast to see the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs. Getting out of the city and seeing the English countryside was really fun, and the scenery was beautiful. It matched my expectations of what England looks like, with rolling green hills, a calm river stream, and stark white cliffs. Taking a break to explore nature and see another area of the country was a relaxing reset before another week of work.

This week, I have been mostly working from home due to the heatwave that Europe is currently experiencing. Coming from Texas, I always thought people were overreacting when it got up to the mid 80s and 90s. I now understand that when your building doesn’t have AC, the humidity is high, and you’re in a massive city, these temperatures can easily become unsafe. Another thing that subverted my previous assumptions about England was the difficulty in understanding what people were saying. I had expected that it would take practice to understand the multitude of accents of London, but what I didn’t expect was a common greeting, and the volume of speaking. Instead of saying “How are you?” when greeting someone, Londoners say “You alright?” or “You okay?” to start a conversation. To an American, this question makes you immediately think there must be something about the way you look or are acting to make a stranger feel the need to check on you. An additional wrinkle to speaking with locals is how quiet everyone is. I had known that Americans are seen as loud, but I never understood that this is mostly due to British people speaking softly. I find myself having to ask waiters, coworkers, and people on the street to repeat themselves so that I can hear.

Working in London has been a ton of fun so far, and I can already see myself growing as a person both in my confidence and my flexibility to adjust to new things. I’m excited to continue working and do some more traveling as I approach the halfway point of my time in London!