Last week, my Translational Medicine class hopped on a plane to London, where we spent a week exploring the city and the fields of medical research and practice. There are just waaaaaaaaay too many things that happened for me to give you a full, detailed story of our adventures, so instead I will show you the highlights, the best of both the academic and recreational activities (in my opinion), so that this doesn’t take me days to write and so that you don’t give up halfway through my story.
Best of the academic visits:
This is a tough category to judge because each of the visits was so unique. However, as it is my personal mission to make you all as uncomfortable as possible so I will say that the best was the lecture about urinary tract infections. It was an excellent talk with a wide scope of topics: we learned about the biological processes behind chronic urinary tract infections, discussed the dangers of antibiotic resistance, and reviewed the drug development processes we studied in class.
Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of us at this visit, so instead, I will show one of my second favorite visit, where we got to watch a live MRI and had a competition of who could identify the most fruits under an MRI.
Best of the recreational activities:
I figured I would start with the picture on this one so you can see why I chose this one. This picture was taken in the London Eye, the giant Ferris wheel in the center of London. The ride offered us amazing views of the heart of London; the top has probably one of the best views in London.
Best of the tours:
We had several walking tours throughout the week, but my favorite was the bike tour we had on our first day. It was so fun to be on a bike again, and we could see so much in a short amount of time as we were moving faster. London is full of wonderful (and awfully big) parks and the best way to see them is on a bike. Plus, our tour went all the way to Parliament Square, home of Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, so we could all play tacky tourist and take crazy pictures.
As a bonus, our bike tour guide didn’t keep calling translational medicine ‘transferable medicine,’ like our Oxford tour guide.
Best of the food:
This was a competitive category. DIS strives to make sure students are culturally engaged, and a large part of a culture is its food. So we ate AMAZING cuisine, from the classic fish and chips to Indian cuisine. However, the winner has to be the traditional English tea that we had on our last day in London. Every part of the meal was fantastic, and it’s so strange how such little food can fill you so well.
All in all, Long Study Tour was fantastic. I learned so much- both about the UK and about translational medicine- and I can’t wait to go back to London!
God save the Queen,
Jenny