Practical training in Bergamo, Italy

During the second year I was tasked with the difficult question of where do I want to go for exchange? I kept looking through all the possible schools I could go to but none of them felt like the right place. It was only during the summer of 2022 when I got the idea to look for a practical training spot abroad. After a few weeks of brainstorming, I asked one of the suppliers of the company I work for if they would be interested in having me for a 3 month practical training period. The scenario was almost perfect as I could complete my practical training, exchange period and get work experience for the future all at the same time. They said yes and in September I headed for Bergamo Italy to work in Milestone.

Milestone s.r.l consists of 2 divisions, solutions for chemists and solutions for medical applications. I worked in the medical side of the business in the Sorisole area of Bergamo. The company was founded in 1988 and they expanded into Milestone medical 6 years later in 1994. Milestone medical produces innovative solutions in the histopathology field which is the diagnosis and study of diseases of the tissue. Their product line up ranges from solutions for the collection and fixation of the samples collected from the patient in the operating room all the way to the processed tissue sample from where pathologist can make the analysis.

My job included many different things but first I had to learn the company and its product line-up like the back of my hand. The first few weeks were a deep dive into the products and their features and I also got to attend different training sessions which the company held for the sales and service reps from different countries. During my stay in Bergamo I spent time in many different departments of the company like the area manager office, customer service, R&D and marketing. My tasks included answering customer emails from Finland, helping different departments with their projects, and translating the user interfaces of the products into Finnish for a more pleasant user experience in the Finnish hospitals.

My time in Milestone was all that I could’ve hoped for. I got to see another country and to experience working life abroad in a heavily sales oriented office environment. I even got to attend some events like Medica 2022 in Düsseldorf, the biggest medical trade fair in the world. The people at Milestone treated me like family and the 3 months went by very fast. The journey won’t end here though as I am going to be working closely with them as soon as I graduate.

Author: Patshijew Andrei