SLU AT Student Reports from Internship in Spain

¡Bienvenidos a Madrid! 
By: Adriana Black (SLU MAT Class of 2013)

The capital of Spain and land of Iberian ham, the best footballers (no, not “American football” as they call it in Spain) in the world, arguably the best metro system in the world, the Prado Art Museum, the largest university in Spain, and bullfighting; Madrid is also home to Clínica MEDYR – my summer internship location.

Clínica MEDYR – short for Medecina Deportiva y Rehabilitación (Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation) – is located near the center of the city of Madrid. It is only about a fifteen-minute walk or one metro stop away from the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium – home of the Real Madrid Club de Fútbol. Doctor Carlos González de Vega San Román, MD, PhD, SpMD, the medical director and coordinator of MEDYR, is also serving as my clinical instructor for the summer.

Formally specializing in internal medicine, Dr. González de Vega’s current focus is in physical education and sport medicine. He has practiced in Toronto, Canada as well as at Victoria Sports Medicine Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Now at MEDYR, he particularly specializes in shoulder and spine injuries – both chronic and acute as he also has experience with sport traumatology. Additionally, Dr. González de Vega is able to play a role in the rehabilitative stage of patients’ treatments by doing mobilizations in the shoulder joint which help increase the tone of patients’ musculature as they take steps back to a more normal, healthy lifestyle.

Dr. González de Vega and SLU AT Student Adriana Black at Clinica MEDYR in Madrid, Spain

Despite Dr. González de Vega’s extensive international experience, the most beneficial quality he possesses as a healthcare professional is his innate ability to teach. Being able to share and educate others on his previous work experiences and his routine medical assessments is worth the most to me as a student – particularly in this phase of the program. I have been taking copious notes and asking Dr. González de Vega dozens of questions each day to verify that he and I are on the same page when he does an examination and gives a diagnosis and to ensure I always leave the clinic having grown as a student and clinician. He is always eager to help in any way and encourages me to question everything that he does in hopes of further enriching my future as a healthcare provider.

I am very excited that I will have the opportunity to be working on some projects specific to the shoulder region – both research and clinically related under the guidance of Dr. González de Vega. In addition to clinical evaluations, I will also get the chance to have more hands-on experiences with the “fisios,” as they are called in Spain, who are responsible for walking the patients through each step of the rehabilitative process. I very much look forward to continue to “shadow” Dr. González de Vega on his daily clinical examinations and therapies and seeing what else develops from my internship at Clínica MEDYR. 

Students in the Saint Louis University Athletic Training Education Program have a required internship in the summer between their two professional years in the program.  This blog post details a student's reflection on their internship experience.