Island Med Student

Wow. If you had told me 5 years ago that I’d be sitting here today, sipping my coffee, glimpsing out the window at lush, tropical island scenery, glancing around the room at medical textbooks and supplies, and writing a blog entry for Medscape, my jaw would have dropped in disbelief. In retrospect, though, it’s probably best that I didn’t know what lay ahead of me. Discovering your future is like opening a gift; it’s more fun if you have no clue what it’s going to be.

So, here I am. My name is Kendra and I am a first-year medical student attending Ross University School of Medicine on the island country of Dominica, which is situated between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. I’m 27 years young, which means I didn’t come straight to medical school after my undergrad classes. Instead, I took time off to work at a state psychiatric hospital and at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Looking around at some of my fellow classmates who are only 22, I am thankful that I made the decision to take that time off. With all the things that I’ve learned in the past 5 years, I could write a lengthy book. And maybe I will write that book, someday.

All of you readers out there now have the opportunity to follow me through medical school from day one. My classes just began last week, so you’ll most likely see my medical school journey through the eyes of an unseasoned, quixotic, first-year medical student all the way to a seasoned, learned, physician. At least that is my hope. I’ve read about how many med students enter medical school all starry-eyed, ambitious, and hoping to save the world. But then the stress, pressures, and unfortunate realities of medicine and healthcare sometimes extinguish their hopes and dreams. I sincerely hope that does not happen to me. There will certainly be times where I will feel bitter about medicine and will feel like no matter how hard I work at being a good physician, I can’t make a patient take care of themselves, and I can’t make the healthcare system perfect.

I also know that medical school is not easy. Making my way through the daunting labs, herculean exams, and endless amount of information will likely be the most challenging thing I’ve ever attempted. There will be frustrations, setbacks, and failures, and the light at the end of the tunnel will sometimes fade into a faint flicker; but I will do my best to remember that the light is always still there.

So, here goes everything. This is bon voyage to my old life and bienvenue to the wonderful world of medical school. Please make sure your seatbelts are properly fastened, and I hope you enjoy the ride.

Click Here to View the Original Post on Medscape

Are you a Caribbean medical student? Do you want to pretend like you are? Do you enjoy looking at pictures of people who are Caribbean medical students? Do you like pictures of palm trees? If you said yes to any of these questions, you should join my new Flickr Island Med Student group! It’s a place to share pictures and make each other feel important by leaving comments. If you don’t already have a Flickr account, you’ll need to create one before you can join the group. Happy Flickring!

Click Here to Check out the Group

This is the moment you have all been waiting for: my first Podcast. I need to give thanks to Vince for letting us borrow his video camera (and by borrow I mean we took it with us to the island and I’m hoping that he doesn’t get mad at me when he reads this). Also, I’d like to thank Micah. He took all the footage, and used iMovie to produce a work of art! Please keep in mind that this is our very first podcast, so please be kind in your review. If you have a video iPod, or if you just really like our movies, please do subscribe to the Island Med Student podcasts. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

I can’t claim that I’ve always “known” that I wanted to be a doctor. The truth is I’ve wanted to be a lot of different things throughout my life: a farmer, a singer in a chick band, a landscaper, a physicist, and even a trapeze performer. It wasn’t until near the end of my senior year in college that it occurred to me that I’d like to pursue a career in medicine. My reasons for endeavoring to become a doctor were plentiful, but the significant ones were: my eagerness to help people, an enthusiasm for investigation and problem solving, and my propensity for challenges. After I obtained my B.S. in psychology, I went back to college to complete my pre-med classes and began working at a state psychiatric hospital.

The next few years of my life solidified my decision to pursue medicine. I had a degree in psychology, and supposedly had learned a lot about human psychology via my undergraduate classes in college. However, I learned a hundred times more about psychology, medicine, and myself during my three years of employment at the psychiatric hospital.

Because I worked at a state facility, the patient population was much different than that of a private hospital. The patients had severe mental illnesses; many of them were homeless; most of them were hospitalized involuntarily; and they were all from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, I worked on the acute/admissions unit, which means I was assigned to the most acutely ill patients. In fact, my unit was so challenging that it was usually only considered to be a temporary assignment. Most techs, nurses and doctors requested to be transferred off of my unit after a 6 month period. I stayed on the unit for over 3 years.

As a psychiatric technician, I took the vital signs of the patients, led various group therapy sessions, and most importantly, ensured the safety of all the patients. These were not easy tasks as the patients frequently screamed obscenities at me, physically attacked me and other patients, and attempted to harm themselves. My work conditions were exacting and stressful, to put it mildly; but I found to my amazement that I thrived in this atmosphere. There were certainly times when I felt overwhelmed and drained by the demanding nature of my work, but the majority of the time I rose to the challenge of caring for and helping all of my patients. Some days I came home from work physically and emotionally drained from my shift, but I felt a sense of satisfaction and pride that I had managed to survive another day at the hospital, and potentially helped some people along the way. Every day I would actually look forward to going to work. I had never felt this way about any job before in my life.

Even though many of my patients were chronically ill, and had bleak prognoses, there were always glimmers of hope. Some patients’ conditions actually improved, and they were either discharged or transferred to a more stable unit. I clearly remember one patient who had been particularly ill when he was admitted to the hospital. He was a middle aged man with a very disheveled appearance, who I’ll call John. He was suffering from a severe psychosis after experiencing a traumatic event. John was almost completely catatonic and had not spoken a word for 4 weeks. At first, all of the doctors and staff would frequently attempt to interact with and engage John. However, after months of hospitalization and many different dosages and combinations of medications, John’s symptoms showed absolutely no improvement. I learned that acceding to the prevailing practices is not really my forte. Every day, I continued to go into John’s room and talk to him. I’d ask him questions about his past and would tell him stories about my life. I even told him (what I would consider to be funny) jokes to see if I could cause him to smile. One day, I walked into John’s room with some fresh towels and I asked him where he’d like for me to set them down. “Over there on the chair,” he replied. I had to hold back my shock. I placed the towels on the chair and continued to ask him questions, to which he responded. I sat in his room for over an hour, discussing his family and some of the circumstances that culminated in his hospitalization. After I left John’s room, I told the doctors about our conversation and they were all amazed.

Eventually, John’s condition improved significantly and he was discharged from the hospital. Before he left the hospital he came to thank me for not giving up on him. He told me that he may never have come out of his catatonic state had it not been for me. He felt as though the whole world had given up on him, yet I never stopped treating him like a human being. John’s words left a penetrating impression in my mind. He truly believed that my unwaivering persistence had helped him through a most difficult period of his life. That was one of the moments that I knew I wanted to work in medicine. I had impacted someone’s life on a profound level, and I had done so by merely doing what came naturally to me.

Fast forward almost 7 years into the future, and here I am, beginning a new chapter in my life. I am currently attending Ross University School of Medicine, located on Dominica, a small country in the Caribbean. There are many reasons why I chose to attend a Caribbean medical school, but I will share those in a later blog entry.

I created this website as an attempt to chronicle my experiences as I make my way through medical school. I hope you enjoy my blog, which will be an attempt to document all of my encouragements, discouragements, adventures, misadventures, personal anecdotes, confessions, apprehensions, successes, setbacks, contemplations, and meditations. I also have a Photos Section, which will serve as a visual addendum to my medical school epic.

Thank you for visiting IslandMedStudent.com. This site is intended to be a true reflection of myself: constantly evolving, hopefully progressing, and awkwardly mutating. I document my experiences because it helps me to understand and appreciate myself, and I am gratified when my words educate, provocate, or inspire others. I’m always open to new ideas and paths of exploration, so please don’t hesitate to share any of your thoughts or suggestions with me.

I hope you enjoy my site.

~The Island Med Student
(Kendra)