A New Day

15 hours of sleep later, and suddenly the world wasn't nearly quite so bad. I woke up at 7 am to the Jerusalem sun shining through the wide-open window. My room mate didn't sleep at home that night, so I had a room to myself. Quick shower and then breakfast from our new useable kitchen, before heading out to work.

Hadassah Hospital is based no two sites in Jerusalem, one in the North East of the city and one right down in the South West, beyond the outskirts of the city. Therefore, it is built precariously on the side of a mountain, surrounded by the forests of Jerusalem, overlooking the Christian Arab town of Ein Kerem, in the valley below. The whole of Jerusalem is built in local limestone, a light beige stone; this is now law in Israel, to ensure the character of the city is preserved. From this mountainside location, the whole city can be seen at a distance.

I may eat my words one day, but until then, she'll remain an eccentric American who deserves a place on some conspiracy website.

In the ER, I attached myself to Dr Rita Cohen, a Tel Aviv-based physician, who trained in Florence, Italy. Within minutes, I was off doing bits and bobs - taking histories in Hebrew, taking bloods and learning about an array of conditions that are relatively common here.

Two things really became apparent to me on this first day - firstly, the different approach of the public to medical students. I'm actually introduced to patients as 'Doctor Adam'; out of discomfort, I usually correct this by explaining that I'm actually a student. Invariably the reply is 'what's the difference', or 'well, if you're final year, then you're a doctor.' This became particularly pertinent later in the day, when I was examining a very religious Jewish woman. Under normal circumstances, it is forbidden for any physical contact to occur between the two genders, outside of marriage. In order to save a life, or improve health, then this can be ignored, but not normally so in the case of education... when I explained who I was, and why I would get someone else to examine her, she insisted that I could carry out the examination.

My second observation was the relatively large proportion of congenital and genetic diseases that are present in the Arab population of Jerusalem. Just about half of all our patients are Muslim Arabs; they come in for the usual ER things - glass in finger, severed limb from attack, abdo pain, etc.; but in the process, many other things become apparent from the history and/or examination. One of my first patients was a Muslim girl with Arnold-Chiari syndrome, a condition where the brain is pushed through the base of the skull into the spinal canal, resulting in neurological signs and defects. A strongly-supported hypothesis for the presence of such deformities is the relatively small gene-pool of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. Cousin-cousin relationships are common, in fact in some areas encouraged, as a way to ensure 'good stock', ironically.

I think I used my first day extremely efficiently; I left with two A4 columns of Hebrew medical words, an understanding of the system, and with a good rapport with most of the staff. My confidence with the language has really been boosted, and I'm going to put a random 'word of the day' at the end of each entry from now on.

A bit more about the hospital. 'Hospital' is not really a fair description of Hadassah; they call it a 'medical centre', but I think that 'city' better fits the bill. On site, in addition to all the standard departments of a major hospital, are a massive research facility, administrative buildings, a shopping mall, four bus stops, and the famous synagogue, where the Chagall windows are located. I haven't seen them yet, so will tell you more when I do...

While waiting to leave for my bus, a near miss of a disaster occurred in the grounds - a girder for yet another new building fell from its crane, crashing to the ground. Thank G-d, this occurred over the building site, not over the bus stop as could have happened, and there were no injuries. But, the terrific boom of its impact jolted the entire body, and sent the dozens of people at the station into a momentary silence, while they tried to ascertain if it this was the latest Palestinian terror attack, or not. The freeze time surprised me - several seconds elapsed before the collective sigh of relief.

I wasn't heading home though - I was off to the Israel Museum for a concert of Jewish and Israeli music, and coordinated ''bread festival'' - an excuse to eat while listening to music - a hard life. En route, I changed bus at the central station, and got chatting (as seems to happen far too often) to various different people; I bumped into one of the women who had shared our mini-bus to Jerusalem from the airport (who oddly enough, was in the country from the USA to visit her mother, admitted to hospital for chemotherapy - yes, you can guess which hospital).

I also met 'Rachel', one of the scariest women I've met to date; as a hybrid of Religiousness and extremist Americanism from her place of origin, she was dressed modestly, while preaching to me on how great it was that Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, had that day declared that he would sacrifice half of all Iran in order to wipe out Israel. In the Torah, the coming of the Messiah will take place only when the world is on the brink of destroying Israel... some people interpret this war as approaching very soon, and so feel no fear at the prospect, in their knowledge that either the Israel Defence Forces will overcome Iran, or the Messiah will come. I started to realise that I wasn't speaking to an authority on the matter, when she gave me the name and location of an Army surplus wheeler-dealer, who would supply me with a gas mask 'when the time comes'.

I may eat my words one day, but until then, she'll remain an eccentric American who deserves a place on some conspiracy website.

I met with Simon Motz at the Museum, a friend from way back when, and also my roommate during my Gap Year here. He's spending his summer studying Hebrew, and brought along a course mate too.

The Shrine of the Book is home to the oldest known texts of the Tanach (the Bible), ever found - on display are documents from ''Prophets'', that date back around 1000 years. We also had some time to have a look at the museum, which in actual fact is more of an art gallery, with a huge number of donated Picassos, Dalis, and more.

More importantly, many stalls selling different Israeli breads and other foods were set up; in honour of the breadiness of the evening, I bought couscous and vegetables for dinner. Ahem.

The concert was actually pretty disappointing, so after a short time I left for a walk to the bus - on the way, I came across two demonstrations on the Road outside the Knesset (Israeli Goverment), set up in the aftermath of the recent War with Lebanon. The first was calling for 'an independent enquiry', arguing that Governmental enquiries here are notorious for shifting blame to third parties - the military, external information, media giving away information. The second was a less political 'Bring home the boys' demonstration, calling for the liberatation of all Israeli soldiers who have been kidnapped by Hamas and Hizbullah in recent times.

Both are demos that happen 24/7, and even at 11pm, both were busy with locals asking questions, handing out petitions and giving media interviews.

I got home late, after what felt much more like a real Jerusalem day.