The Views of Dominica that I have MOST of the time.

I thought you'd all like to see a picture of my books. Not too bad for this semester. Now, some of them are review books, like First Aid, but most of them are my test books. I'm sure you are jealous. However, my book store sized collection of text books shouldn't be what makes you jealous, it is my white erase board and my book stand.

As you maybe able to tell, these two tables are right next to one another. Some of my most important tools are one this table: my dry erase board, book stand, and COFFEE MAKER. Note the coffee maker is within reach at all times. I suspect that you are wondering what I've written on my white erase board. Luckily for you, during my study break, I was camera happy.

That's right. These are the clotting factors. Did you ever wonder how the amazing connective tissue, better known as blood, makes a clot and how it degrades the clot. You could study my color coordinated white erase board then you can listen to my super notes.

If you look closely in the background of the previous two pictures (I know it is difficult to pry your eyes away from my ever so interesting books), but my balcony is behind the wooden slate windows. Yes, having a studio apartment makes things easier (yet, I still manage to scare myself at night on occasion despite Farley is next door, I live on the 3rd floor AND there is 24 hour security--sometimes I sleep with my maglight....). Anyway, there is a beautiful view, but you can't see it when your nose is buried in a book.

I usually have my meals on my balcony looking at the BEAUTIFUL ocean. However, the cows sometimes get in the way. I don't live on Moo Cow Lane but sometimes, there are cows outside my apartment. That's right, I live in a village, without even a stop sign nor street names...Moo Cow Land and Banana Tail...NO STREET NAMES. At any rate, the cows eye ball you when you walk by them, they are loud, and they run shockingly fast. Oh, and never ever say to a cow when walking by, "Good morning Betsy, how are you?" They tend to turn around (in a 180 degree turn) faster than you can blink an eye, move toward the street and look around. I think she wanted to say hello back to me, but the people behind me on the sidewalk, were not so amused (they looked pretty scared...cows are BIG animals). I haven't gotten a good picture of the cows from my apartment since they aren't around THAT much, but they were in the field that is in front of my favorite study area. Here is a pictures of my favorite bovine from my apartment (in front of my favorite study area).

I realize that it is still cold up north, so I decided to throw in another picture of the sea from the Sea side deck at school. I know, most schools don't have sea side decks (it is the upper deck, we have a lower deck too).

RUSM...Is it Ross University School or Medicine or Rumor University???

Well, as previously posed, the exam was a disaster all around (please see my 2/21/08 post). There were numbers floating around that approximately 54% of the class failed biochemistry. Well, the chair of the biochemistry department gave us a little talk today and it was even worse than the rumors: Over 60% FAILED biochemistry. If anything, I thought the numbers that were floating around would be worse than the actual numbers, but they were actually better. He also confirmed that if 25% of the class or less got an answer correct, the question is automatically dropped. Unfortunately, when he reviewed some of these questions, I got some of them correct (this means that having the questions dropped actually HURT my grade). Why couldn't my peers miss the questions I missed (or why couldn't I miss the questions my peers missed)? All I know is that it was a BAD exam all around.



We haven't gone out for a fun evening since school started, so Farley and I decided to go to dinner on Saturday night at Tomatoes, which an American type restaurant run by Canadians (from Vancouver, BC....they must be good people; they are from my neck of the woods). It was nice to have a real red wine (from France). I don't know that I deserved a nice evening, but it sure was great to get out for a couple hours.


If you look, I even have a tan! I think I am losing weight as well. Apparently the stress, chocolate and coffee diet works well! But that might also be why doctors have a shorter life expectancy than the rest of the population.

Finally, I'm posting!

WOW, it's been a busy few weeks and I haven't seen much of Dominican in a while. We had our first couple exams of the semester. During the anatomy practical, there were 40 questions. We were in a line, each person had 40 seconds per station where there was one body (or radiograph) tagged. You had to walk from the stations, review the question and answer the question in the 40 seconds before the bell went off telling you to go to the next station. You could NOT go back and double check any answer after the bell rang. I did very well on it and was pleased with myself (after spending much of the preceding weeks up to my elbows in a cadaver).

On Monday we had the written exam. It is very much like taking a standardized exam. All of our subjects are on one exam, which is 120 questions (you have 2.5 hours to complete it). It was horrible. After taking tests at Ross University last semester, I was shocked by this exam. Unlike last semester, it didn't closely reflect what was taught nor was the information applied clinically. However, we had more MDs teaching last semester and this semester there are more PhDs, which would change how they write questions. Not all doctorates are equal. There are different purposes of an MD, OD, or PhD and it reflects in their training and the way they teach , explain concepts and write exams. Obviously it makes the most sense to have a PhD in biochemistry teach a biochemistry course; however, if an MD taught the course it would be taught very differently as an MD would probably teach what they use daily rather than strict bench science.

I did okay on this written exam, but not as well as I expect myself to do. However, things could have been SO much worse. Rumor has it that approximately 50% of the class failed the entire exam. FAILED THE EXAM-- in every subject. There is also talk that someone got a 14% on the entire exam. That means that this person got about 16 questions correct out of the 120 questions. I think this is a person who really tried and just got really confused, because statistically they should have got at least 20-25% just by chance (given that we had 4 or 5 answer choices). Nonetheless, this was a bad exam. I don't think the grades are even finalized yet since it was so bad. There is an appeals process in which our class representatives argue that unclear questions are either thrown out of the exam or that two answers are correct (double bubble). I believe that if 75% of the class misses a question it is removed or if the top 15% of the performers on a particular exam miss a question it is also removed. THEN to complicate the situation even more, there is a 10 point range that is the mean passing score(MPS) can fall into, which is based upon how the class performs on the exam. The MPS; however, is not a curve. Generally with a curve, a certain percentage of the class must fail, but with the MPS system , no one has to fail the exam. Basically, you need a doctorate to understand the grading system--then again not all doctorates are created equally.

Anyway, I've decided that these PhDs are not going to get the best of me. In addition to my beautiful notes (Farley and I might just have to copyright them*), I'm taping myself reading these amazing notes and listening to them pretty much when I'm not in class (I'm even listening to them right now....Hemophilia A is a deficiency in Factor VIII and it is an X linked disease). They are even on my iPod. I know you are jealous: if you want to listen to my saintly voice reading biochemistry/histology/anatomy/medical ethics/or physiology notes, you can let me know and I'll try to email (sell?) them to you. Oh, but one great thing is that we started hematology this week and we have been doing LOTS of medical ethics in our Doctor, Patient and Society class. At least they are playing to my strengths.

* The professors give us "learning objectives" for each lectures. Every class, Farley and I type as fast as our fingers will go and try to answer all of these objectives during class. After class, we combine our notes to make super notes. Our beautiful notes didn't miss anything on the last exam; but the professors decided to test on things that they didn't stress or mentioned in passing. (In fact, a couple questions were on things we hadn't covered yet. ) I guess I'll just memorize every single word this time.

The Great Indoors

I just realized that I spend more time with dead people, than I do with just about anyone else. It is amazing to me that I'll be digging around some poor soul's axillary regions and two hours will pass. I don't even like anatomy that much, but I guess the old adage is true: time flies when you’re having fun (even when fun is being up to your elbows in a cadaver).

Some of you may be thinking that I actually get to enjoy the Caribbean...not true. Since classes started, I spend most of my time enjoying the great indoors: unless you count the bathrooms. See, here in Dominica, there are no bathrooms that have entries from inside. You have to go outside the building, walk around, and then enter in from the outside. I've seen a couple exceptions to the 'walk outside for the bathroom rule,' but in those cases the walls were shorter than the ceiling so you have a stream of light coming in from the outside. Pretty nice, hun? The only exception to both of these rules is my apartment, which has beautiful concrete walls, which are as tall as the ceiling. The only good thing about these Dominican bathrooms is that they are all clean. I do fell a bit like I’m going to the bathroom in a city park and once I saw a mosquito sitting on the toilet paper trying to outsmart me, but that is another story. At any rate, at least the bathrooms have toilet paper, soap and running water.

Speaking of bathrooms, when we were on the island tour I had to find a bathroom. To my dismay, they closed the bathroom near the tourist site we were seeing so I had to go into the little town and use one of these outdoor/indoor bathrooms that belonged to a bar. It was the strangest thing. Obviously with my fair skin, I stand out. As I was trying to find this bathroom, I was met with high-fives, handshakes and "hey, pretty lady you must need the bathroom" cat calls. Finally, I made it to the promised land: the outdoor/indoor bathroom. This one was a standalone building with teal paint. Sometimes at these tourist places, they make you pay $1.00 EC to use the rest room. I'm shocked that I managed to keep my $1.00 EC away from the high-fivers and handshakers (didn't need it for this bathroom). The bathrooms were not LABELED. I saw a gentleman near one entance, so I assumed that I needed to go to the other. Well, another guy came running and calling out to me, "wrong one, lady. The lady's room is the other one." It was nice of him to warn me and I'm sure the nearby locals were laughing at me.

I finally found my correct bathroom. Unlike every other bathroom in Dominica, this one wasn't as clean or well equipped. However, it wasn't the worst bathroom I've ever seen. As I was heading back to the bus, I had the strangest experience. All of the highfivers and handshakers wanted to know what I thought about the bathroom: "How was our bathroom, pretty lady?" What does a girl say to that? All I know is that this was more excitement than I ever wanted out of a trip to find the bathroom. But apparently I wasn't the only one who thought finding this bathroom was too much work: some of the local gentleman made their own bathroom... on the grass. I guess I should stop drinking so much water.

I dare you to find the bathroom here at the Carabantic....good luck and watch out for high-fives. They don't call it the "Nature Island" for nothing!

VIruses remind me of the cold war..

One could take me literally noting that the common cold is primarly caused by rhinovirus and that every year we fight a war against colds. However, I'm not speaking of an actual cold when I say that viruses remind me of the cold war. No, I'm talking about the military percision, spy vs spy, sinking battleships, or intense capture the flag. There are sneaky viruses that quietly enter the cell, replicate and lyse (or POP) the cell to get out (murders--killing their host). Others are worse: they hang out using the cell to replicate under the radar of the cell. They are like the neighbors who steal your cable. You don't even know they are there. However, if the virus recieves a single that things are not so good in this cell anymore they, they jump ship. They rapidly reproduce until there are too many for the cell to hold and BAMB---they lyse the cell (killing the cell). I think it is so interesting--I guess I just like little things: viruses, bacteria, genetics, cancer, embrology and children.

I've been meaning to write to my blog, but I haven't been very exciting in the last week. It was Carnival last weekend. Pretty much the whole island shuts down to "jump up" and "party, mon." I was going to go to Portsmouth (it is the next town over--about a mile), but I decided to study. However, I could hear them. Since my apartment is on the water, I could hear the party. The noise was amplified accross the bay. I could hear the lyrics to the songs, the cheering, and drums. The funny thing is that, they don't REALLY start to party until about 2:00am. It was almost comical. I woke up the next day, and they were still going. I don't think they stopped all night. Actually,I know that they didn't. Carnival was one of the things that I was most excited to experience; however, I'm here to become a doctor--not a super partier. Thus, I had a lot of fun getting in an extra day of studies. Honestly, I did have fun because I REALLY love embrology. I've thought about becoming a fertility specialists and these lecture are peaking my interest.

This is my current favorite picture of the island. It is from our Island Tour a few weeks ago.