Ullern Student With a Career in Medicine

Aksel Stien graduated from Ullern Secondary School in 2011. Today he is a physician working on his specialty subjects at Oslo University Hospital. Aksel has always wanted to become a physician and the foundation was already in place at Ullern. He learned things from his deployment at The Norwegian Radium Hospital during his upper secondary days that he has yet to learn from his medicine studies.

A warm summer afternoon Aksel is at an Adamstuen café. It’s four a clock and his workday at Ullevaal is done. Aksel is currently working at the department of Gastrointestinal Surgery at Ullevaal Hospital, a part of his specialization and continuing education as a doctor.

— Recently I worked at the emergency services at Grünerløkka for three months, a time I experienced as both exiting and hectic. However, I think it is interesting working at Gastrointestinal Surgery as well.

At Ullern he specialized in natural sciences and he has only good things to say about the teachers.

— I didn’t have one inadequate teacher in all my years at Ullern. Quite amazing really and that contributed to my good grades. Of course, I also worked hard to be able to enroll as a medicine student in Bergen right after graduation.

Very Interesting Deployment
Aksel finished his studies in 2017 and can now call himself doctor. However, a doctor is never fully educated. He is currently undergoing part one of his continuing education. And when he looks back, he remembers well his years at Ullern were he participated in two work deployments at the Norwegian Radium Hospital.

— The deployments motivated me. I learned things I haven’t experienced later, like laboratory work and advanced cell biology. The best thing is that my passion for natural science was rewarded and encouraged. It felt fun doing stuff that was outside of the straight forward curriculum, says Aksel

Aksel was both deployed at a group led by Kristian Berg working on photochemical internalization and how it can be used to kill cancer cells, and additionally at dep. of Radiation Biology were the students learned about skin cancers and the danger of tanning booths.

Uncertain on Future
After finishing the first part of his continuing medical education, he will start the second part that decides the type of doctor he will become at the end, what field of expertiese he will delve deeper into. However, exactly what type of doctor he wants to become he hasn’t decided yet.

— Many of the different types of specializations are fun. Right now, gastrointestinal surgery is very exciting, but I don’t know. It will be a difficult choice, says Aksel.

Aksel has wanted to become a doctor for a long time and thinks it is an exciting profession combining knowledge of the natural sciences, medicine and the body with human contact skills.

— The life of a physician is very diverse, and it is very rewarding often seeing the results of your hard work immediately, says Aksel.

Aksel is tempted to go into research or maybe combining patient treatment with research. Treating patients and doing research is a quite common combination and Aksel has already participated in several research projects.

Do What You Find Fun!
Aksel is a believer in personal motivation. It is important that each graduate student go on to study what they are interested in and excites them.

— If you chose something that motivates you it’s much easier working hard because doing that extra work comes so naturally, says Aksel.

He thinks it is very understandable that natural sciences lover choose the medical profession after upper secondary.

— It’s a natural choice because of the job security and the exciting diversity of the profession. You can work with people, do research or work with patients. As a career it has it all and offers you a choice whatever you do, says Aksel.

— Personally, I have wanted to work with medicine since I was a toddler and I’m very happy about the career path I have chosen.