Island Med Student

Right now I’m sitting in a hotel room in Guadeloupe, a French island in the Caribbean. Except for writing this blog entry for the Differential, I haven’t had a single thought related to med school since I left for this island a few days ago. I’ve spent the past few days sitting on the beach, playing in the water, enjoying French wine and food, and trying to use the little French that I know to explain to the housekeeper that I need more towels. What I haven’t been doing is watching lectures on the malarial cycle, memorizing endless drug names, practicing my auscultation skills or freaking out about an upcoming exam.

Not only has my lifestyle changed dramatically from a week ago, but so has others’ perceptions of me. Because I live in such a very small, tight-knit community in Dominica, everyone there knows that I am a med student. In fact, except for some locals, everyone I interact with on a daily basis is either a med student or is somehow related to the med school. My sole identity is being a med student.

Now that I am in another country, surrounded by total strangers, I am just another tourist. No one here knows that I am a med student, and hence they don’t treat me any differently. Honestly, I am kind of enjoying the anonymity. In fact, I don’t think there are even any other Americans here. Everyone is either from Guadeloupe or they are from France and vacationing here. I’m really enjoying being a crazy American tourist who uses lots of strange hand motions to communicate (e.g. me trying to explain the word banana with my hands).

I can’t even explain how happy I am that I decided to go on a vacation during my semester break. When I’m in school, I get so consumed by everything that I sometimes forget to enjoy the little things, and it seems like med school is all there is in the world.

I’m hoping that I can take a little piece of the happiness that I found here home with me. And whenever I’m super stressed out about whether something affects an alpha or a beta receptor, I can think back to this beach and hear the sounds of the waves crashing and the feeling of the sun beating down on me. I guess the lesson I’ve learned is to always take the time to smell the coconuts, even when I’m immersed in random medical knowledge and can’t see past the book in front of me.

In one week I’ll be entering my fourth semester of med school, which is the latter half of my second year. Time has gone by so quickly here that I can hardly comprehend it. But as I sit here right now, about to head out to the beach again, I couldn’t feel more ready to take it on.

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I’ve received this question so many times, that I thought I should go ahead and post my two cents. As with everything I write, please keep in mind that these are merely my opinions from what I’ve experienced first-hand, and what I’ve heard first-hand from other people. I’ve only attended Ross University, so I can’t claim to know much about St. George’s. Please take this information with a grain of salt. Also, if I have said anything inaccurate, please feel free to comment or email me and let me know.

Many people have asked me which school is better, Ross or St. George’s. Honestly, I think it depends on what your needs are. Here is a quick and dirty comparison:
Read more »

Tomorrow I will post an entry about my vacation, but in the interim, I have made a photo album of the pics. Note the lack of any standard island vacation pics. We were on a very tight budget for the trip, and we spent most of our time at the hotel, hence that’s where we took all of the pics.

Click here to see the pics

I just made it back from a one week vacation to Guadeloupe, a French Island here in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, the hotel we stayed at did not have WiFi, and we had very limited access to Internet so I couldn’t post any blog entries. The vacation was awesome, and I’ll post all the details and photos later, but I wanted to let everyone know that I’ve returned safe and sound, and it’s nice to be speaking English again.

I received an email from a blog reader of mine who was a little upset by a post I wrote a few weeks back. I was basically freaking out about my lack of a life. The reader took my words to mean that med school is too difficult a path. That’s not what I intended. So, I’m sharing my response with everyone. Here t’is:

Dear Reader,

I’m sorry if my entry came off a bit harsh. Mostly I was just bitching. To be honest with you, 90% of the time, I am very happy about my decision to go to med school and become a doctor. But the truth is that 10% of the time I think I made a horribly wrong decision. But this is normal. And this is to be expected from such a difficult path. I don’t think it means that I made the wrong decision, it just means that I doubt myself sometimes. Everyone doubts themselves sometimes. I think it’s human. And I’ve considered not writing on my blog when I’m having my “moments,” but I think that would give a false impression of my med school experience. It’s not a completely fun ride. There are tough moments. There are moments when you want to run the other way. But those moments pass. And then you do something small for a patient and it means the world to them. And then you remember again why you chose this path.

I hope that helps clarify things a bit.

I wish you the best,
Kendra

Since I keep getting this question, I thought I’d share what I know. The following is simply an ESTIMATE of what you might pay for cost of living here at Ross. Obviously, it will vary based on how many times you go out to eat, blast your AC, etc.

Here is what you can expect to pay per month in US Dollars:

Rent: $300 – $1,200 (This completely depends on where you live and the amenities. See this post.

Water: Usually included in the rent

Electricity: $30 – $225 ($30 if you never use the AC, $225 if you blast it.)

Cable/Internet: Usually included in rent (Otherwise I think it’s around $50.)

Food: $200 – $1000 (Depending on whether you cook your own food or eat at Subway, etc.)

Phone: $20 – $80 (For cell phone minutes. Very few people have landline phones. Also, depends on how much you use them. Skype is way cheaper for calling home!)

Laundry: $25

School Supplies (excluding books): $60

Entertainment: $50 – $300 (Obviously, this depends on what you like to do!)

Okay, I hope that helps!

I just made it through my final exams for this semester. I’m really glad it’s over, because I don’t think I could have taken much more studying before my brain exploded. For the last few weeks of the semester, I really had to hunker down and focus completely on studying and making it to the end. I received many calls and emails from my friends and family, and even total strangers giving me nice words of encouragement. Unfortunately, I was so busy with med school that I didn’t respond to any of them. Actually, now that the semester is through, and I have electricity back (after Hurricane Dean passed through), I’m finally returning all my phone calls and replying to my emails.

One night I received a wonderful email from one of my good friends. She told me how much she missed me and caught me up on all the happenings in her life. I really wanted to email her back and let her know how nice it was of her to send me an email and check up on me, but I was simply too busy studying that I decided not to reply.

There seems to be a common perception that medicine is a field which people enter because they are somewhat selfless, and because they want to help people. There’s an assumption that because you have to sacrifice so much of your life to make it through medical school and residency, that most people wouldn’t have entered the field if they didn’t have some selfless qualities. Of course, there are many exceptions to this. Plenty of people do it for the money or prestige, but it seems like there has to be at least some altruism involved.

I’d like to believe that I’m entering the medical profession for many selfless reasons. And I do believe that to be mostly true. However, lately it seems like I have been selfishly neglecting my friends and family. They do everything in their abilities to support me. They have their lives too. But they take time out of their busy schedules to send me cards and notes of encouragement. In order for me to make it through med school, I’ve had to selfishly focus on myself. It’s hard to make it through the grueling exams without focusing on what you need to get done.

I guess I just find it harshly ironic that in my “selfless” pursuit of medicine, I’ve become an even more selfish person along the way. I’ve had to focus on myself in order to make it down the path that I’ve begun. I wonder if any of you out there have found yourselves in a similar situation.

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I finally got up the photo album for the Boiling Lake hike I took a month ago.

Click Here to See the Pics

We finally have electricity AND water now, though the cable is still out. But at least the internet connection is working. Since I am completely bored and have nothing better to do, I made a movie from our Hurricane Dean Party. My philosophy on hurricane survival? Prepare for the worst, and party with the best. That’s exactly what we did.

Wow, it’s been a crazy 48 hours. I’ll eventually post more details about the hurricane and my recent adventures, but I’ll give the abbreviated version here because we just got electricity back and I don’t know how long it will last. The hurricane came. We survived it. It was crazy, but not completely devastating. I am safe (mom, you can sleep soundly now!) We have electricity, but no water yet (aka, I really stink right now). I have many pictures and videos of the hurricane and the party that ensued. My friends and I had a hurricane party and buckled down on the fourth floor of my friend’s apartment, overlooking the Caribbean Sea. It was absolutely amazing. I highly recommend it. I’ll soon be responding to all the emails in my inbox, but in the interim, thanks so much to everyone who wrote me. It means a lot to me. I’m glad that we have gas stoves here, because I couldn’t have survived the storm without the endless boxes of mac ‘n cheese. Love to you all.