Island Med Student

Seen in an alley nearby my apartment. This is how I feel right now. I wonder what the story is behind this stroller…

“Baltimore – The Greatest City in America” photo series

I’m not particularly happy right now. I just found out for sure that I’m moving to Brooklyn, and starting a surgery rotation on August 18th. It looks like there’s an incredibly good chance that I’ll be doing all of my core rotations (one year’s worth) in NYC, and hopefully Brooklyn. I’m peeved right now at the Ross clinical department. They were incredibly less than helpful in answering my questions and helping me out. I really wish they would have told me a long time ago that I would have to move to NYC. It would have completely changed my plans. Now I have to leave my just-moved-in apartment in Baltimore and find something in Brooklyn. There’s a part of me that’s excited about moving to another city, but most of me wants to stay right here. I can’t believe how quickly this is all happening…

My mind is currently filled with an amalgamation of excitement, fear and a feeling of accomplishment. A few days ago I found out that I passed the USMLE Step 1 (yay!). That once seemingly huge and insurmountable obstacle is now nothing more than a blip on the radar screen behind me. For a few days, I basked in the satisfaction of having a profound sense of achievement.

Today, I took the final exam for my psych rotation. I can proudly say that I finished my first rotation in the States, and judging by the marks on my evaluation, I did an outstanding job. So, that is behind me now as well.

Just when I felt like I could let out a huge sigh of relief and sit back and relax, I had a bomb dropped on me. I’m currently living in Baltimore, Maryland, and had hoped to do all or most of my clinical rotations here. My school has affiliations with many different hospitals all over the country, and around five of them are in the Baltimore area. When I received the paperwork with my rotation schedule for the next nine months, all of the relief and relaxation made a furious exodus from my body, and was immediately replaced with fear and anxiety.

I found out that I was scheduled to begin a surgery rotation in Brooklyn, NYC in three weeks, and that I’d be spending almost a year finishing my rotations in Brooklyn and two other cities in NYC. There was a point in my life where this information would have made me immensely happy, but I’m not currently at that point. You see, my partner and I just recently moved into an apartment in Baltimore. All of my earthly belongings are here. And that’s not the bad part. My partner is starting a graduate art program at a local university just a few blocks away. His program begins in September, and lasts for two years. So, what this means is that he won’t be able to come with me to NYC. Not only that, but practically speaking, I won’t be able to bring either of my dogs to the city. In just a few weeks I’ll have to leave my partner, my dogs, my apartment, all of my friends and family, and most of my belongings behind.

I’m still in the midst of working with my advisor to get some of my rotations scheduled in this area, but I’m not sure if it’s going to work out. If it doesn’t, I will be spending anywhere from nine to seventeen months away from everything familiar to me.

There is a part of me that is very excited about this upcoming adventure, but another part of me is scared to death to leave my life behind. One of the reasons that I chose the school I’m attending is because I knew that it would involve a lot of travel. I got to live in a foreign country for almost two years, and I knew that my clinical rotations could be scheduled at many hospitals throughout the country. But I think I forgot to take into account the effect of having to be separated from my loved ones (partner and doggies!). I’m questioning whether the adventure of travel is worth the sacrifice of leaving my loved ones behind.

But, I know that I’m up to this, and that I have overcome many larger obstacles in the past. So, I will just keep telling myself that, as I pack a small portion of my belongings into my two pink suitcases and hop on the bus to Brooklyn to discover what lies ahead.

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That’s right, I’m finally on my summer vacation! Today I took the final exam for my psych rotation. The good news is that I’m now ready to begin my next rotation. The bad news is that I’m having problems with the Ross clinical department. They scheduled me for the next 9 months in NYC. I wrote a Differential blog, which outlines the issues, but the gist is that I’m excited and upset right now. I don’t know what my future holds.

Either way, though, I have at least a week with no rotations, so I’m enjoying my time off. My current aspirations include going out and eating tons of Baltimore crabs, going to the beach, traveling to Luray to visit the fam, and visiting Six Flags to ride as many roller coasters as possible. If I can just find a swimming pool and some candy apples, my summer will be complete!

Believe. Yet another slogan that is pasted all over the city of Baltimore. You can see it on trash cans, park benches, bus stops, and just about anywhere else you can imagine. I’ve even seen bumper stickers that say “Blieve, Hon” playing on the infamous Baltimorean accent and regional affectionate slang.

I think the word, “Believe,” has now actually taken on more than what it originally meant, but here is an explanation that I found in the New York Times:

Believe. One word, printed in black and white, as if things were that clear. It began as a high-concept public relations campaign, begun by the mayor, Martin O’Malley, to tackle Baltimore’s most infamous problem, drug crime. For years, the city had been at or near the top of the list of per-capita misery statistics: most murders, most addicts, most high school dropouts, most cases of H.I.V. and syphilis.

Believe was a way to address those ills, not through programs, but through commercials, banners and bumper stickers. Few cities had ever tried anything so abstract.

This photo isn’t the best one, but I never seem to have my camera on me when I see a good example. I promise to find some better ones in the future!

“Baltimore – The Greatest City in America” photo series

Last Saturday, I attended the Baltimore Artscape festival. What is Artscape? Here’s a description from their website:

The largest free public arts festival in the country, Artscape features 150+ artists, fashion designers and craftspeople; visual art exhibits on and off site, including exhibitions, outdoor sculpture, art cars, photography and the Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize; incredible live concerts on four outdoor stages; a full schedule of performing arts including dance, opera, theater, fashion, film, experimental music and performances by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; family events such as hands-on projects, demonstrations, competitions, children’s entertainers and multiple street theater locations; and a delicious, international menu of food and beverages that is available throughout the festival site.

This being entirely up my alley, I had to attend and I ended up having an absolute blast. Of course, I had to take the opportunity to design a fun outfit, so I fashioned a new version of my “hands-bra,” some huge sunglasses, my butterfly wings, and a variety of other fun fashion accessories.

My outfit turned out to be way more of a success than I had imagined. Literally over a hundred people requested to have my photo taken with them (including police officers and Mormons!). In fact, it became so over the top that Micah ended up making his own collection of photos of people taking my photos! You can view them on his Flickr here.

Since he was so busy taking photos of people taking photos of me, I don’t have as many pics of me and my friends, but he did manage to get a few fun shots.

I can’t wait for next year’s Artscape!

Click Here to View the Pics

Going to a medical school in the Caribbean has some drawbacks, but it definitely has its benefits. Rather than launching into a laundry list of positives and negatives, I’m going to focus on something that I recently noticed: My school has an incredibly diverse student population. Since I was immersed in the environment on an isolated island, I never fully appreciated just how diverse it was. U.S. schools also have students from diverse backgrounds, experiences, education levels, and ages. But the profound difference at my school was the variety of ethnicities I saw on campus.

I’m currently nearing the end of my first clinical rotation in the States, and I made quite an interesting observation a few days ago. During a lecture, I finally got to meet medical students from other medical schools. Several local universities send students to the hospital where I’m rotating. I was surprised to find out that they were quite similar to the students from my own university. However, there was one profound difference: they were all white.

Of course I know that these students represented only a small sample of med students from U.S. universities, but the difference was nonetheless quite fascinating. At the table sat students from both Caribbean and U.S. medical schools, and the Caribbean students were quite a bit more diverse.

I’m not the first person to make this observation. I won’t go into the statistics, but I know that U.S. medical schools have a much smaller percentage of minority students than do Caribbean schools. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has been aware of the less-than-optimal percentage of minority medical students for years. In fact, they have a program devoted to trying to increase the numbers of minorities in medicine.

There are many reasons why Caribbean medical schools attract and accept more minority students, but one of the obvious reasons is that they have different acceptance standards. Caribbean schools are more likely to accept a student with a lower MCAT score or GPA. Because of many reasons that I won’t go into here, certain minority groups don’t have access to the same educational resources as do other students, and sometimes this means that their scores might be lower. This issue is obviously very touchy and much more complicated than I can elucidate in a short blog entry, but the difference does in fact exist. The numbers don’t lie.

I’ve written before about the need to create a diverse physician workforce. It’s something that I adamantly believe in. I just can’t accept that certain barriers exist, which prevent the enrichment of the field of medicine with a more heterogeneous group of folks.

Please excuse me for using this tawdry metaphor, but I have a dream that some day I will be sitting again at a table with my fellow colleagues, and I’ll enjoy the presence of a more diverse group of individuals: diverse in body, spirit, and mind.

Click Here To View the Original Post on Medscape

Today’s Baltimore pic is a sign hanging on the jail on Eager Street, just a few blocks from our apartment. Apparently, someone was shot in the head in a liquor store just a few blocks away from us last night. Unfortunately, I guess the sign wasn’t effective in that case.

Anyway, I promise to start posting more frequently as soon as my Internet works properly!

“Baltimore – The Greatest City in America” photo series

If you know me, you’re probably familiar with my obsession with all things pink, big, and having to do with eye protection. Today I made a purchase that fulfills all of my obsessional criteria. Expect many pictures of my new favorite sunglasses to follow! Today’s pic was taken at a Panera Bread.

Oh. My. God. Becky.

Look at her sunglasses!

They’re just so….BIG!!

It’s official, I passed the USMLE Step 1 exam, the first of three medical licensing exams to become a physician in the US. I’ll write more about it later, but for now, I’m incredibly happy.

How’d I do? Well, I’m not going to give out my score to the world, but let’s just say this: I didn’t completely spank the exam, but I got a fairly competitive score. I shouldn’t have any problems getting a residency with my score, especially with my GPA and other CV items.

What what I have done differently? I probably would have taken another week or two to study. I also would have completed all of the NBME practice exams, which I had planned on doing, but ran out of time for. Other than that, I don’t think I would have changed much.

Anyway, I’m happy as can be right now. I just got home from the hospital and I’m going for a run down to the harbor. Afterwards, I’m treating myself to dinner for a celebration!