Basel

June 5, 2010

For most of our stay in Basel, I was in the hospital. I had been sick all weekend, so when I arrived in Basel Sunday night Dr. Wasser sent me to the emergency room. At this point I knew something was wrong, and when the results from my blood work came back I understood why I had been feeling so tired. In addition to acute gastroenteritis, I was moderately anemic. My pancreatic enzymes were also elevated, meaning my gastroenteritis might actually be a symptom of underlying pancreatitis. It was interesting to observe the differences between Swiss medicine and American medicine. In my experience, many of the doctors I have seen in America tend to prescribe antibiotics first and run tests later, only if the antibiotic does not solve the problem. Doctors here, on the other hand, seem much less willing to prescribe antibiotics. In my case, they wanted to rule out pancreatitis first, which meant more blood tests for pancreatic enzymes, abdominal ultrasound, and tests for various bacteria and protozoa to determine the causative agent. However, an antibiotic would have interfered with enough of these tests to keep the doctors from being able to definitively rule pancreatitis in or out. Not only that, but, obviously, if I had no infection then antibiotics would be unnecessary. It was late at night, though, and I explained that I would only be in Basel until Tuesday afternoon, so I was given an antibiotic under the condition that I come back in the morning to have my pancreatic enzymes rechecked.
Monday morning, while the rest of the group toured Novartis, the program director Olaf and I went back to the hospital. After another round of blood samples were taken, we saw that my pancreatic enzymes were lower but still too high, and the antibiotic in my system prevented the doctors from running any further tests. Still hoping someone would get to the bottom of this, they sent me away with instructions to see a doctor as soon as I finished my antibiotic and also a letter describing my medical problems and outlining their diagnostic testing plan—in German—for that doctor. I found it ironic that for the first time in my life I had doctors who are actually trying to figure out what was wrong with me instead of blinding giving me drugs, and I didn’t have time to let them work.
Although I missed the tour of Novartis because of all this, I was still able to attend the city tour the next day. I really enjoyed this tour—it was a nice day and Basel is a beautiful city! I loved all the fountains, and I was amazed to learn that all the water from them is safe to drink!