Near the end...

Another semester is coming to an end shortly. Our final is next Friday at 8:00am. I'm so thankful that Farley and I had such a jam packed week last week---we are basically done other than the final. We have a 3-4 hour rotation tomorrow in pediatrics and we might go out tomorrow night so I can finally beat him at dance, dance revolution. However, bright and early Saturday morning, the non-stop studying for the final will begin. I don't think it will be too horrible and I don't think we have any classes next week, but who knows they often change their minds regarding our schedule.

We had to do our Spanish skit last night. I didn't expect to be fluent in two months and I've learned some Spanish so I suppose the class was a success. But as to be expected with only taking two months of Spanish, I'm not very comfortable with the language. In high school, I took Latin and ancient Greek ( alpha, beta, etc). I must have remembered more of the Latin than I thought I did because Farley kept telling me that I was trying to pronounce Spanish as if I was speaking Latin. I also kept saying "bene" which is Latin for good rather than "bien" which is Spanish for good. I wish languages came easier to me, but no one can have it all!

Busy couple of weeks!

Wow, I started this blog post weeks ago, but I haven't had enough time to finish until today--the 28th of July! It has been a crazy few weeks. Farley and I were assigned to a Gastroenterologist (GI specialist) for a two week rotation. I don't want to go into GI, but it may be my favorite rotation so far. Doctor was so kind, caring, and such a wonderful teacher. I really enjoyed all of our time with him. He is a workaholic, as were all doctors from a generation ago. He started about 8 or 9 am and saw patients most nights until 9:30 or 10:30. Obviously, we didn't spend that much time with him, but we did spend a good 8-9 hours a day. I just loved him. He moved a little slower through his day than some other doctors, but he always had time to stop and say hello to the nurses, to see how the family members of his patients were doing, to check up on the cafeteria lady who was ill a few weeks ago, and he even found time to answer questions when the housekeeping staff stopped him to ask about a prescription their doctor wrote but they didn't understand. He wasn't just an amazing doctor, he was an amazing man. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that he had lots of time to introduce Farley and me to Cuban food!

After our two weeks with Doctor and getting ready for upcoming exams, we decided to take a few hours out and go to dinner at Trattoria Sole, which is an awesome Italian restaurant just a few blocks from our apartment in South Miami (picture from our night out above). I think part of the reason I love the place so much is the creative food. We went there for my birthday in May--it was so good. In May, Farley had the pumpkin ravioli and I had pasta stuffed with pears, Gorgonzola cheese, and walnuts with a butter and sage sauce. The second time we went, Farley had some amazing chicken that had been pan roasted in wonderful seasoning, mashed potatoes and fresh veggie medley and I had ricotta filled gnocchi with pesto sauce. We decided to try one of the deserts that night and WOW... it was amazing! We ordered the Mango Cake and I assumed that it would be some sort of white cake with mango juice or mango puree---I was wrong. It was a cheesecake (I think a rocotta based cheesecake) with mango juice. Extremely filling, but amazing nonetheless. When we lived in Miami in 2007, I had always wanted to go to Trattoria Sole, but never got around to going. It is a little pricier than some of the other restaurants in the area, but since Farley and I don't eat out often it is okay. Besides, everything they serve is made from scratch daily and everything tastes like a little piece of heaven! I also probably have a soft spot for the restaurant because the neighboring wood oven pizzeria, Blu, which is owned by the same people is where Farley and I had our first date. We have been wanting to go back, but it is a little more family friendly and thus a little louder. Trattoria Sole doesn't attract families as much and it is easier to have a conversation. But I think we might have to go to Blu for our second anniversary at the of August--since we are not going back to Argentina this year!


Last week, we had the week off from clinicals. However, it wasn't a light week at all! We had to give our SOAP presentation to an attending physician (a SOAP notes is a shorter note on a patent's condition and what you recommend). Next, we had to do our physical exam examination. It was a 45 minute, 200 point exam(by 200 points, I mean we had 200 things to do in 45 minutes) and a 90% is a C-. We were lucky enough to be assigned to the first day of examinations (testing goes for over two weeks). On one hand I was happy to get it over with, but on the other hand, people who go first fail more often. They don't tell you how you do on the exam, just if you passed or not--both Farley and I passed without any problems. I can't tell you how happy I am to have THAT over! Last Friday, we had class all day, which was a bit of a bummer because Farley and I both needed that day to prepare for our upcoming projects.

Saturday, was a rather gloomy day here in Miami, which was a good thing because I spent the whole day getting ready for my presentation on cutaneous anthrax that I have to give Monday morning a 9:00 (and I had to have the PowerPoint presentation ready to turn in by 9:00am SUNDAY). I wasn't sure if I could get the presentation ready to turn in, but late Saturday night I finished. We were not suppose to have class on Sunday, but our schedule changed and we did end up having to go into school for three hours. After that we had to go find our new clinical location, which is a pediatrician's office about a half hour from school. Farley and I were both pretty stir crazy after having spent every day either in class, clinic or studying for the physical exam (since we went to dinner at Sole), so Farley suggested we catch a movie Sunday afternoon since the sky was grey and we couldn't go sit by the pool and read. Thus, we were off to the movies. We were going to see Harry Potter, but it was sold out so we ended up going to see Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. I wasn't too thrilled about going to see it, but it wasn't that bad. We saw it on IMAX, so maybe that is what made the difference. I really don't like violent movies, but the majority of the action was between robots and I really don't feel empathy for injured/killed robots like I do for injured/killed humans in movies. Overall, it was much more fun than I expected. I spent the rest of the night reviewing my PowerPoint and trying to look up anything that I thought I might be asked about during my presentation. I barely slept Sunday night, which surprised me because I didn't think I'd be that nervous.

Monday morning came and the ten of us assigned to give our presentations sat in a huge classroom waiting for the professors. I wasn't nervous about giving my presentation--I was nervous about the questions. I'm a third year medical student and specialists in the field are asking questions---clearly, I know a lot less than they do so it was extremely difficult to prepare for questions. Who know WHAT they would ask. Since Farley and I had clinic at 1:00, I was assigned to go first. That was good because I got it over with and the presentation went very well (other than my movie not playing, but I had a back up plan in place). It was bad because they were not as worried about time, so I had about 5-6 questions were as my peers had only 1-2 questions because of time constraints. My topic was anthrax and I decided that since I only had 15-20 minutes to present to talk just about cutaneous anthrax (which makes up 95% of anthrax cases, but it is NOT the bioterrorism type of infection, which is the exact same bacteria only inhaled. Inhalation of B. anthracis is much more deadly than a cutaneous (skin) infection). Since we were told it was okay to narrow our topic given the time constrains, I prepared for questions regarding cutaneous anthrax. I should have just prepared for inhalation/bioterrorism questions because that is what I was asked about. I felt so stupid because I didn't know all the answers to the question I was being asked. None of the questions were unfair and they were related to my topic as the bioterrorism agent is the same bacteria that causes the skin infections; however, I expected more questions regarding cutaneous infections and vaccinations since that is what I talked about. I'm sure I scored well because I think it went well overall, I'm just disappointed that I didn't think to research more about bioterrorism (I just read a few things, I didn't study it well enough to really answer in full detail).

After that, I headed home to change before going to the pediatrician's office. I've got to tell you, the afternoon with the pediatrician was a kick. Those kids were so cute and (other than one) they were all so well behaved. I just had a great time. We got to listen to a little asthmatic's lungs--he was a very serious two year old. Another little four year old had an innocent murmur (kids can get these heart murmurs and they are NOT pathological). I've never heard one on a real person, just the simulators, so it was fun to get to listen. I think our little patient liked being the center of attention. I also like seeing the little one month old baby girl. Little babies have primitive reflexes, which I've seen before but I have not seen since studying them in medical school (I'll write a post on baby's reflexes soon since I know so many people who just had little ones). It was SO cool to see the little reflexes and this little girl was such a good sport. I'm shocked she didn't start crying with the doctor doing his physical exam, but she was just watching everything. It made me miss working with children--I'm looking forward to going back Tuesday afternoon. Since our day wasn't over yet, we had to go to Medical Spanish class after working at the pediatrician's office!!

Wow, after writing all this down, it's had to believe how much we've done in the last two weeks!

Oh and one more thing, a few weeks ago, I bought a melon that I thought was a honeydew. I was wrong. Once I cut into it, I realized that it was a hybrid--the texture of a honeydew and the taste of cantaloupe. I have always loved the taste of cantaloupe, but never liked the texture so this was an awesome melon to find--except that I bought a regular cantaloupe at the same time so I had twice as much cantaloupe in my fruit salad!! Here is a picture of the hybrid melon

I have stethoscope envy....

This is the beautiful Welh Allyn Tycos Latex FreeHarvey DLX Triple Head Stethoscope that my attending physician uses. Today, he let Farley and I use his stethoscope to listen to a woman who has a murmur (a type of extra sound) and a spilt S2 (During the second heart sound the aortic and pulmonic valves close. A pathological splitting is when the valves close at different times, regardless of the change in thoracic pressure due to normal breathing--physiological splitting occurs during inspiration). Listening with my stethoscope was like trying to adjust an old time radio, but still hearing static, and listening with his was like listening to satellite radio on bose surround sound system.

Four days off...sort of

Yesterday was the first actual day off we've had in almost two weeks! It was so nice to relax for a day; however, we have a lot to do. We have a paper due next week and we have to present the history and physical (in the form of a SOAP note) to several faculty members. At the end of the month, we have do conduct a full screening physical, which is 45 minutes of palating, auscultating, percussing and instructing over the whole body. We know how to do everything, but the difficult aspect will be remembering to do everything and getting it all done in 45 minutes or less!

Miami is in the midst of the rainy season and when it rains, it rains! I'm almost certain that it rains every day, especially on the days that we have off and want to go spend some time down in the condo's gardens or by the pool. Unlike in Dominica, which just seemed have sprinkles of rain daily, rain in Miami is like turning on a shower and letting it go full power. There is often standing water and lightening lighting up the sky. In Dominica, the coast (where I lived) had about 70 inches of rain a year (the interior had about 210 inches per year) and Miami has on average a little under 60 inches of rain per year. I think the main difference is that in Dominica, the rain often came at night and in Miami, it usually rains in the afternoons. Nonetheless, this rainy season isn't working out well with my plans to get my studies done in the mornings or early afternoons then go to the pool for an hour or two to read a book and relax. By the time I'm ready to head down, the sky is grey and the thunder is loud.

Today was a good day...

So much has happened in the last two weeks of clinicals, but today takes the cake. We were at the bank on our lunch break and we had to assist a young, pregnant woman who was on the verge of losing consciousness, was numb, in extreme pain and had contractures. Next when we returned to the clinic, I got to perform my first pap-smear and Farley had a great time trying to understand a gentleman's extremely complicated cardiac condition. I don't want to complain too much, but the disorganization of this semester is getting exhausting and this was the first day in a long time that I'm really happy and excited I did decide to go into medicine. There will always be aspects of any job that one doesn't like, so it was nice to have such an exciting day. Today was a great reminder of why I wanted to be a doctor so badly that I moved to a 3rd world country and piled on enough student load debt to buy a huge house.

After our exam tomorrow, I'll write more about the last two weeks (and take a nap). We are 12 days into our 18 days in a row stretch of class and I'm really, really tired. Luckily, it looks like we have at least a three day weekend next week (it might be four days if class is cancelled Sunday the 5th). Farley and I haven't had 2 days off in a row all semester. It will be so nice, except that we have more papers to write and physical exam skills to practice. Oh well.

10 days and counting

I'm at day ten of at least 15 days of classes and clinicals in a row (I don't know my schedule for the week of the 29th yet, so I don't know exactly how long this stretch will last). Many interesting things have happened and I'll post about them after my test on Friday. I'm not sure exactly when or how I've been studying for this exam, but somehow I've managed to review most of what we have covered. I just hope I have enough time to study in enough depth for the exam, especially considering my extremely busy schedule lately. Heck, no one said medical school would be easy.

Blah, Blah, Blah

I've been feeling rather blah this week. I don't know exactly why, but I'm just overwhelming tired and I don't feel quite right. I had a cold a couple of weeks ago that really sucked the energy out of me, but I'm over that little virus now so I'm not sure why I feel so blah. Perhaps it is allergies or maybe I do still have a little viral illness, or maybe my body is just catching up on sleep since we got so little in Dominica (I was lucky to get 6 hours of sleep in Dominica and I never slept more than 2 or 3 hours in a row in Dominica). I really don't know why I'm so blah, tired and sleeping so much this week--I'm not a doctor, I'm just a medical student!

We had a relatively light week of classes last week compared to the craziness of next week. Not only do we have our usual Large Group lecture on Wednesday and our Small Group lecture, we have over 30 hours of assigned clinical work next week. In addition, we have our Medical Spanish and UMBR (University Medical Board Review classes for Step 1 (our first boards) that we will take next fall). Anyway, it is going to be a crazy week. The schedule for next week came out Thursday (one of my gripes for this semester is that our schedule comes out so late). After realizing what a busy week it would be, Farley and I headed to the store. I decided that now is as good a time as ever to try my Mom's pulled pork recipe. This recipe calls for 8Lbs of pork shoulder (bone in) and cooks for hours before being pulled apart and mixed with BBQ sauce. Farley was a good sport and helped me pull the pounds of pork. I tried just a little of the pulled pork before putting it in the freezer for next week and it was amazing, just like when Mom makes it. In addition to the pulled pork recipe, Mom gave me a recipe for beef stew, which I also made on Thursday and it was exceptional as well.

Keeping the excitement alive, I've started studying for my next exam. I know, living in South Florida sounds fast paced and exciting, but being in medical school doesn't leave much time for excitment. After living in a 3rd world country, I am excited to have hot water on demand, a clean house, grocery stores with lots of exciting food and a quiet place to sleep so I can sleep for more than two hours at a time. This semester isn't as academically challenging as the previous semesters, but they are keeping us extremely busy. As this is a transition semester, we only have about 8-10 hours per week of "testable material". Now don't get me wrong, everything I do is testable, but since students are doing different rotations each week, not everyone will cover the same information in our rotations until the end of the semester. For example, Farley and I already did the Basic Trauma and Life Support rotation last week but other students in our class may not do that rotation until the last week of the semester so the information we learned in our rotation on Basic Trauma and Life Support will not be on the exam. The only information on the exams is the information the entire class receives, which are from the large group lectures (usually 6-8 hours per week) and the small group lectures (2 hours per week). Thus, we have about 8-10 hours of lecture that will show up on our exams whereas on the island we had 30-35 hours of lecture per week that would be fair game for the exams. This transition semester is as much about learning basic clinical skills as it is continuing the books, which is different than the first two years of medical school. Now, don't get me wrong, this semester isn't all butterflies and roses we are extremely busy, it is just different and in many ways more fun.

South Florida hasn't had the best weather lately which has been okay since we really don't have tons of time. We haven't had a chance to go to Miami Beach and enjoy the water for a few hours or grab some Rocky's Italian Ice on South Beach. There are many things that I didn't get to see the last time I lived in Miami and I'm hoping we might have a few free afternoons to do a bit of exploring after our next exam. I would like to see Coco Walk, go to Lincoln Road for some window shopping, there are museums to explore in Vizcaya and of course, I'd love to drive down to the Keys for the day or go to the Everglades (which are only a 1.5 hour and 2 hour drive respectively). I want to explore and see the area if possible, but I also realize that I probably won't be able to do most of the things on my to-do list because we are so busy this semester and then we will be preparing for the boards. But heck, I can always come back and visit in 50 years after I pay back my student loans!

There is a cute shopping district with tons of Ma & Pa restaurants and shops just a couple blocks from my condo. I'll take a few pictures of the area the next time I venture out for a movie, a walk around the giant bookstore or to grab some of my favorite gelato. It is a rich area with BMW and Mercedes Benzes as ubiquitous as Hondas in most towns. Obviously given the wealth, Ferrais, Lamborghinis and Porsches make frequent appearances at the shopping district as well.

You know what they say about payback...

On Monday night at our Medical Spanish class, Farley volunteered me to read the Spanish practice conversation in front of the class with him. I am not the most linguistic person and I am really not comfortable reading in Spanish so I was really annoyed that I had to get up in front of the class and practice my Spanish. Now Farley on the other hand, isn't quite fluent, but if you listen to his pronunciation, you might think he is fluent--as did the Argentines. Anyway, so there were were practicing the Spanish conversation in front of the whole class and I had to be corrected several times because my Spanish pronunciation isn't great. Oh did I mention it was videotaped?? Yeah, I wasn't very happy.

I'm sure you know what they say about payback.....

Our teacher did her Masters thesis on whether students retained the second language better if they were taught using music and songs or without. Research has shown that students learn and retain things better with song, so we sing throughout our Spanish class. On Wednesday night at our Medical Spanish class, we reviewed all the things we've learned and then we started practicing the body parts, such as "El oido" is the inner ear, "la rodilla" is the knee and "la frente" is the forehead. So after reviewing basic body parts, our teacher decided to teach us a song and dance. She grabbed someone from the audience and made him get up to dance and sing the song with her. This song was similar to "head, shoulders, knees and toes" but not quite the same thing. This guy obviously looked extremely uncomfortable. After that, she wanted "dos voluntarios" (two volunteers) to get up and dance for the class. I was looking at Farley trying to get him to volunteer but he wouldn't budge. Somehow she noticed that I was trying to get Farley up and so she volunteered me. She was looking for another volunteer, but I already found the other volunteer: Farley! Farley had to keep up his tough guy image and he acted as if he didn't want to dance in front of the entire Medical Spanish class, while being videotaped, but I knew the truth: he has dancing in his blood. As, I expected he was more than a good sport. He pointed to his ears with a purpose, did the hip shake with a purpose (his Salsa dancing background paid off) and he even dosy-doed with a purpose. In fact, we are still hearing about our amazing performance.

I told him I didn't want to practice my Spanish in front of the class and I was volunteered, but I think I paid him back by volunteering him to dance in front of the class. He would argue that I more than paid him back and that I should watch out because, you know what they say about payback.....

Talk about a let down.....

After all the talk about "birthing" mannequin babies, they did even let us birth mannequin babies. We watched a video of a real doctor performing a real delivery then used the mannequins to get a 3D view of the process. Yeah, I'll admit I was disappointed. I was so looking forward to birthing that mannequin baby. Oh well.

I think the best station today was the needle room. We got to practice suturing on pig legs ... and stapling!! Then we got to practice giving IM (intramuscular) shots, in oranges as that is the typical way to practice. Next we learned how to start IVs, which was fun. I'm not sure if the mannequin was the best practice mannequin, but it seemed to be a high quality mannequin. After that, we got to use the IO (intra-ossious) lines on chicken legs. First we used the manual IOs, which I think, are exactly the same or very similar to the needles used for a bone marrow aspirate/biopsy. I got the bone on first try and, as expected on a healthy chicken, I was able to aspirate bone marrow. Then, they let us practice using the drill IO, which sounds like a power tool and spins right into the bone marrow. Apparently, they cause little or no pain, but I'm not signing up to find out first hand!

The rest of the day was fun. We learned to place foley catheters, scrub down for surgery, transport and place patients on backboards and we took both written and oral exams. Not a bad end to a week of classes. I think Farley and I are going to head to the gym, then maybe go out for dinner, or a movie or I'll finally challenge him in "dance, dance revolution."

Clinicals and Classes

Yesterday, we went to a local nursing home and saw our first patient as 3rd year medical students. As I previously noted, we drove to the nursing home on Monday to ensure we knew where we were going. This drive took about 20 minutes, so we decided to leave an hour early: an hour wasn't long enough. Traffic was extra crazy (first day back after the three day weekend for Memorial Day) and I was getting a bit nervous about being late, as they will make you leave and you may or may not get to reschedule the event (which can greatly affect your grade). Luckily, Farley and I put the school's phone number in our phones and he called as I drove. I dropped him off at the door at 9:00am on the button and then looked for parking. Farley just made it in the the nick of time, but the school had not yet reached the professors about our phone call when Farley walked in. Ten minutes later when I arrived, I was greeted with a happy professor (once I said my name) who told me not to sweat it since we called in advance. The car load of people who arrived after me, however, we not welcomed and were sent home.

Farley and I got to interview one patient together and he was an extremely ill man who had a stroke. He had lost mobility and feeling, and had delayed speech. In a way it was exhausting, but I was glad that we were able to spend a few hours with him. I got the impression that he didn't have many visitors and I don't think he can leave his room very often. When I first walked by his room and heard the loud Motown music, I thought, "Now, that is the room Farley and I belong in." The professors tried to give us two other patients that didn't work out before we went to our patient's room and this may sound silly, but I think we were meant to go to that room and spend some time with him. Besides, how often do you get to talk about how wonderful Barry White's music is with a patient?? I don't think many of our peers appreciate Barry White as much as we do--we were the right medical students for this patient. Parts of our interview and physical were fun and other parts were very sad given his illnesses. It is easy to forget about the humanity of medicine when you spend all day reading books and seeing this relatively young man be so genuinely happy with all of his struggles was a great reminder of the humanity in medicine. Given his illnesses, it will be a more difficult history and physical (H&P) to write up, but at least we had fun with our patient and the H&P will be interesting!

Classes today were okay (our entire class meets on Wednesdays), but I have a bit of a cold so I was trying to blow my nose and write notes at the same time, while continually using hand sanitizer as to not make my peers ill. I was glad that we took the metrorail (train) rather than driving (it much quicker and easier to take public transit). It was so nice to get home tonight.

Over the river and through the woods!

Tomorrow, I'm going to be headed to a nursing home on the other side of Miami to see a patient. We heard that it is difficult to find this nursing home, so Farley and I went today. No kidding it is hard to find! We crossed over into a bad area of town, then crossed some railroad tracts, then went over a draw bridge. That is right--we crossed a draw bridge to get there. This is literally over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house!! I just hope that I do a good job on grandma's history and physical! She will be stuck with me for three hours (yeah, real Doctors don't get three hours per history and physical--remember I'm only in my 3rd year).

I PASSED THE COMPREHENSIVE EXAM ON THE 1ST TRY!!!!

The comprehensive exam is an exam written by our friends at the NBME (they also write the shelf exams and the boards). It covers all of the first two years of medical school and can be considered a "practice" exam for the first set of boards, known as Step 1. My school is unique in that you must past the comprehensive exam to be eligible to take Step 1 (most schools just use the comprehensive exam as a tool to measure where a student is weak, but most schools do not mandate that all students take it). Anyway, my school not only makes us take it, pass it with an equivalent score to passing the boards, they also will expel you if you cannot pass it in three attempts. Now, it should also be noted that most people spend 1-3 months preparing before taking Step 1 so it would make sense that my school should have us ample time to prepare for the "pre-test" since they expect that we would score high enough to pass the boards. Rather than 1-3 months, we get about 14 days. Needless to say, it is extremely important and extremely difficult and I've heard that anywhere from 40-60% of people from my school do not earn an equivalent score to passing Step 1 on the first try. I can't express how relieved and proud I am that I passed on the first try.

From now until August, I'll study for the boards in addition to starting my 3rd year of medical school and then from September until November it will be full study for Step 1. Today is a great day!

Miami it is...

I was hoping to be able to stay in Dominica for the transition semester, but I will be heading to Miami. Rumor has it that 100 people applied to stay in Dominica and they only let 50 stay with first priority to those who promise to stay for one or two of their clerkships, those who has a spouse attending Ross and is in the 1-4th and a magnitude of other things. However, the most important factor is if you willing to stay and do the clerkships here: neither Farley nor I were willing to commit to staying for two clerkships until we had more information about them. I think that is why we are going to Miami. Oh, well. It is kinda a bummer because we had a plan about the next few months, but it's okay. There will be hot showers in Miami, real grocery stores, and we won't have to fight with the cows when trying to walk to school.

We had a huge test covering endocrine, female and male reproduction, gastrointestinal (including esophagus, stomach, small and large intestine, appendix, gallbladder, liver and pancreas), and breasts in all of our subjects (Pathology, pharmacology, microbiology and introduction to clinical medicine). I'm happy to say that both Farley and I had our best exams of our medical school careers. It is a bit funny that this was both of our best exam, since it covered more information than any other exam--excluding a final or standardized exam. Exciting! I even beat my arch Nemesis pharmacology by earning an A!

Last night was the 4th semester banquet. It was nice to have our whole class (plus another 200-300 people who somehow came as "dates") at one dinner. However, it seems a bit premature to me as we have a million more test before we are finished with the semester on April 22nd. It was held at a gentleman's mansion on top of the Dominican hilltops. I wish I could have gotten more pictures of the view, but with the tents set up for the students, it wasn't really possible. Here are a couple pictures:

There has been a lot going on in the last couple weeks and we will be very busy for the next two months. I have to master the kidneys, which is easier said than done! I better get back to my studies.

Okay...

My blog is behaving badly. It appears that my posts are not showing and I'm not sure why. I first noticed it last night, but I thought it was because the Internet was flickering on and off (as was the power). I'll get to the bottom of this, sometime next week AFTER the exam.

The application for the transition semester came out this morning and we are filled out the applications as quickly as possible. Much to my original dismay, Farley and I have decided to apply to stay in Dominica. I hope that we will both be assigned in Dominica! I never thought I would want to stay here, in a third world country, any longer than necessary; but I think that this is the best thing possible for my career. If I get to stay here, I will be working directly under attending physicians and if those attending physicians like me, I might be allowed to practice some hands on skills that students in the States are not allowed to do until they are further into their medical education. One of the most important reasons to stay here is that we have to take a HUGE exam on Monday, May 18th: the National Board of Medical Examiners Comprehensive Exam over the basic science years of medical school. It is an extremely difficult exam and I'd prefer to spend my three weeks studying for the exam (which covers the first two years of medical school) rather than moving. I hope that we both get to stay!