Exchange program of tropical infectious diseases
in Airlangga University
18/1/2014~9/2/2014
Osaka University, Faculty of Medicine,
3rd year student,
Masashi Tanida

I had the exchange program in Dr.Soetomo Hospital of Airlangga University with Akihiro Ono for
3 weeks. Airlangga University is in Surabaya, the second biggest city in Indonesia. We were the firstexchange students from Osaka University and there were no Japanese people at the hospital.
Everyone I met during this program was so kind to me and thanks to their help, I had a great time
during the stay in Surabaya.

Before the program
The reason why I applied to this program was because I was eager to gain the experience abroad. Iwas interested in learning about infectious diseases through seeing the actual treatment in Indonesia
and I wanted to learn its culture as well. Through this program, I was able to get a greater experience
than I had expected.

Experience in the hospital
Every morning, we went to the hospital at 8:00 and attended the meeting called “morning report”
with medical students until 9:00. Usually in every morning report, two medical students do thepresentation about patients who were carried away to the emergency department the previous night.
After their presentation, the supervisor makes comments on it and then other students start thediscussion. Students were speaking actively in the discussion and I realized how diligent they were.
Through everyday presentations, I learned many medical cases about Dengue fever, CKD and so on.
The most impressive case for me was Dengue fever. I learned how to detect it, the differences
betweenDengue hemorrhagic fever and Dengue fever and the treatment of them.

After the morning report, we usually went around the internal medicine wards and tropicalinfectious disease ward. Female and male patients were separated in each ward, which is mainly
because of the religious matter. It was very interesting for me. In the internal medicine wards, I saw
patients with diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, lymphadenitis andSLE. Many doctors in the wards explained about diseases to me, and especially Dr.Decsa, a firstyear doctor, was very kind and I learned many things from him. He taught us about how to detect
lymphoma and lymphadenitis and so on. I was very surprised to see a patient with lymphoma. Thepatient’s neck was as big as her head because of the lymphoma. Dr.Decsa told us that patients inIndonesia don’t come to the hospital until their conditions gets severe mainly because of economicproblems.
In the tropical infectious disease ward, we saw the patients with Dengue fever, and Malaria andso on. There were a lot of patients with Dengue and thanks to the morning report, I could understandtheir treatments and conditions well. Moreover, we could observe the whole process of healing
Malaria luckily. The patient lost his consciousness and was in very severe condition at first. Thanks
to the doctor’s good treatment, he regained his consciousness after about a week. It was very
impressive for me.
We went to the emergency department, hemodialysis room, and city hospitals, too.

Medicine café

City hospital

Emergency department

Hemodialysis room

Experience in the dormitory
We stayed at the dormitory where many Indonesian students and foreign students from different
countries live. It took about 20 minutes by car from the dormitory to the hospital. Mr.Agus, who is auniversity staff, took us to the university every day. We spent a very good time there. Everythingthere was comfortable except the shower, because it pumped out only cold water.

The room at the dormitory

Experience in the city with people in Indonesia
The medical students kindly took us out to many places such as cafes, bars, karaoke and souvenir
shops. We went out for dinner often, and so I could enjoy delicious traditional Indonesian foods. We
were invited by the doctors to their houses. I was impressed by their hospitality, and would like tosay thank you to them.

At the street restaurant with Dr.Decsa and his wife

In front of Dr.Decsa’s house

On the weekend, we traveled to Yogyakarta. We were planning to go there by airplane, but
couldn’t get tickets because it was Chinese New Year’s Day. With the help of students, we could get
the train tickets finally. In Yogyakarta, we went to Borobudur, Candi Prambanan and Ratu Boko.
These heritages were very spectacular. Indonesia is a very good place to travel.

In the train to Yogjakarta

Borobudur

Candi Prambanan

Ratu Boko

Conclusion
Last but not the least, I would like to express my gratitude again for all the people who helped meduring this program. I could spend a wonderful time thanks to their great hospitality. I’m sure that
this experience in Indonesia will be helpful for me to become a good doctor. Thank you.