Well, just by chance I came across the announcement, a few hours before the application deadline was due. It was published by our Professor of Paediatrics, Prof. Dr. med. Ruediger, who is also the Director of the DSKN.
Although I was supposed to study for an exam that evening and I knew that time was a bit tight for a
well thought out application, I didn't want to leave it untried. I wrote a motivational letter about what fascinated me most about neonatology and how my path had turned out so far. Furthermore I added a brief outline about how I would like to share my experience, a letter of recommendation and my CV. I was lucky the application was less about perfection and more about creativity, motivation and previous commitment.
Life advice everyone wants to hear: procrastinating from studying for exams might open great opportunities ;-)
About a month later I got a call from Prof. Dr. med. Ruediger, who wanted to tell me the great news in person. After these amazing news I had about 1-2 weeks to let the DSKN and ESPR know, which institution I would like to go to. In addition I needed to send them a picture and a brief summary of my research interests in the fields of neonatology.
Still I was far away from believing I might actually go to Oxford, since you would normally need so much more leading time before starting an observership in England, there is usually a lot of bureaucracy to go through. One week later, I got the confirmation for Oxford and it blew my mind. How cool was that? Not only the fact of winning a granted internship, but spending it in England, especially in Oxford, was overwhelming. This would have not been possible without the support of both Prof. Dr. med. Ruediger and Prof. Dr. med. Charles Roehr, who is the head of the ESPR and Associate Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford.
The time had come to read up on black tea.
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