One Down, Nineteen to Go!

This first month is behind me now. The adjustment, learning phase/adaptation phase of this journey is over. The first block exams have came and went like a sudden violent storm, one that drives everyone to panic and to seek shelter wherever they can. Only as soon as it started, it was gone again; its ostensible violence seems trivial compared to the expectations of its arrival. The sun still comes back out stronger than ever, shining brightly and ensuring everyone that tomorrow will still arrive.
Still though, I am glad that first hump has been transversed and successfully overtaken. With the worries of wondering if I can actually do this at this stage in the game put to rest, I am able to function on a level more closely resembling that of a human that can go outside once again; sort of a nice boost in the right direction.

To help with going in that direction, AUC has a terrific tradition for the first semester students after their initial block exams. They set up this "mandatory meeting" to be held immediately after the last exam of the day, which is held down on the bottom floor and is filled with a bunch of mindless chatter from the lecturer. But this is only a diversion tactic, it conceals the first semester students away from what awaits. After adjourning from the brief meeting we all walked back through the main building of the campus that is called the Rotunda. Upon entering, the entire campus, upperclassmen, staff, faculty were all jammed in there on the bottom floor, up on the balconies looking down at us, cheering,clapping and whistling voraciously. This went on for 3-5 minutes; everyone was all smiles as we made our first big step toward becoming what we dreamed.

After blocks are over, the next big tradition is for the parties to start, with no new material to have to review everyone is able to relax and unwind a little with much less stress on them. I used my time snorkeling down at Mullet Beach. Although it was overcast, the visibilty was still at least 70 to 80 feet. I found a long wall that extended out into the ocean and followed it out, finding enormous sea urchin, trumpet fish, parrotfish, puffers, queen angels, and others I did not know. My next goal is to grab one of those elusive Caribbean lobsters and hold him under some boiling water, till ready. I haven't been able to find any Zataran's Crab Boil anywhere here though, it seems that with crawfish this big there would be somewhat of a demand on that suff. I will just have to see what I can do.


But for now the next step approaches, muscles, nerves, vessels of the head and neck....joy!! Gotta go read.

Till next time.....

Repeat Offender!!!

Another earthquake last night.

I sure hope these silly subterranean plates are not undergoing warm up exercises for a big sprint. I do not know the strength of this one but it was early in the morning around 2 or 3 AM; it was strong enough to wake me up and make me hop out of my bed with an "en guarde" approach to whatever nocturnal stalker had breached my little modest apartment.

No other big news to tell of, I have been very sedentary once again, just hovering over lecture notes, a biochem book and some cadaver photos. T-minus 38 hours to the big exam. Not even a bike ride or a run, its tragic.

Later.....

Earthqukes, Anatomy, and Molecular Biology...what a combo!!

So get this....I'm lying in bed Wednesday night when suddenly the entire building made a big lateral shift to the west followed by a horrendous rumbling which dislodged several items from the shelves in my humble abode. Never have I moved as quickly as I did at that moment I don't believe, my first thought was a plane crash. They fly in and out of here, one right after another, form little single engine Cessnas to 747s. But there was no orange glow of a jet fuel induced explosion on the horizon, my second thought...earthquake. What the hell do Louisiana people know about earthquakes?? Then my mind began to calculate all the other possibilities, "hey, all these islands were built by volcanoes, hey..this school was destroyed by a volcano when it was on the island of Montserrat, hey...didn't an earthquake cause the tsunami in Indonesia" All of this rambling occurred in a matter of nanoseconds, after a little careful research I discovered that apparently there are earthquakes on this island and one quite significant occurred in 2007 that was 7.4 on the Richter scale. The Wednesday night quake was reported to be a 4.3....I do not wish to feel the 7.4 at all.
With all paranoia about being washed away in a torrential wave of epic proportions abated, I picked up the fallen items from the floor and went on my merry way, read some molecular and cellular biology and went to bed with thoughts of waking up to find 6 stories of building in my lap (I am so lucky to be on the bottom floor of a concrete and rebar building).

The mass morning pedestrian traffic to the campus from the residential areas

Everything is all coming together for the blocks on Monday (or at least it seems to be), I go to sleep with muscle group mnemonics, nervous system pathways and steps of DNA nucleotide repair sequences running through my head, only to find out that they are still there in the morning--running just as rapidly as they were when I last left them. The only way I have found to negate the squatter's rights they have claimed on every hemisphere of my brain is to make myself physically suffer instead of mentally suffer. Short, steep bike rides on the trusty Orbea up to the French lowlands or a brisk run to Maho and back seems to do the trick nicely. Nothing takes your mind off of things like a little lactic acid burn in your legs.

Till next time.....

Slave to the Grind

When I first thought of tracking my journey through med school on a public blog, I made a promise that I would write every day just to keep the writing muscles in my brain from atrophying and as a way to keep a little bit of sanity in all of this craziness called Basic Sciences.

Hard as I try and much as I would like to write every day (in a sort of surreal Doogie Howser wrap up) I just can't squeeze another hour into the day; I have tried. So I am guessing that these posts will come as sporadic as my sleeping schedule. Now don't get me wrong I am definitely not complaining, I love being busy and love always having something to do. At least this way I have a nice reward at the end of this road, compared to the other roads that I have traversed.

Time, as I have said before, has become a precious commodity. If you are trading sell, sell, sell cause I'm buying. I am figuring out this balancing act for now, get up, run, shower, , have a granola and an apple on the walk to school, class, study, eat, study, lab, (wash stink of formaldehyde off) study, eat, study, study, read some Chuck Palahniuk, sleep for 6 hours do it all over again. At least it is the same thing everyday, no surprises -- which is nice. Only have to do this for 570 more days and then I can really get started.

The first block exams are upcoming, in only 5 short days. There is a frantic energy emanating from most every waking soul around, all heads are seen bowed in an ostensible reverence over their notes, computer screens or homemade flashcards. The lab is open for extended hours and there is almost always at least two cadavers uncovered and undergoing more scrutinizing dissection. It is feverent. So no big adventures to tell of, other than the recurrent monotony of sustained studying.

I'm breaking a bit of the daily ritual today though, gotta get away and let some of this sink in. Gonna ride the Orbea up to the French side into the Lowlands and make the loop around the million dollar homes. Check it out--the loop follows the beaches Baie aux Plums and Baie Rouge

White Coat Ceremony and a Morning Bike Ride

Last night was the formal induction of the incoming May 2009 class into thier physician training at AUC. Dubbed the "White Coat Cerermony", the induction and the donning of the white coat by one of our professors symbolized the transition of our former civilan life into that of a professioinal health care provider. There were many eloquent speakers that all spoke of thier own white coat ceremonies and the struggles, experiences, and rewards that their own education bought them. If you care to watch the ceremony it is available via webcast at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1511669 the highlight of the event is around 2:00:20 ;-). The following is an excerpt from an article about the white coat ceremony writen by Dr. Ellen Rothman:

"The white coat ceremony...was intended to herald our introduction into the medical community. while no the long coat of a phyusician or residen, the white coat signals our afiliaion, and differentiates us from the civilian garb of visitors and volunteers.

Yet as a first year medical student, this is not an affiliation I am necessaarily tready to claim. After anatomy, pharmacolgy, physiology, genetics, and embryology, I am more deeply impressed with how little I know than how much I have learned."

It is hard to imagine how much knowlege we truly lack, until we expose ourselves to new experiences, new countries, new people, new challenges, all the while remaing on the path that we have chosen to lead us for the rest of our lives.

Shortly after the ceremony we were all bussed into Maho for a fantastic dinner provided by AUC at the nightclub Tantra, the dinner was catered by an Italian resturaunt named Sopranos. The nightclubs here do not open until 1100 so we had the place to ourselves until then. Met alot of new people, spoke with alot of professors. And even traveled 2000 miles to meet up with a guy that I worked with in Baton Rouge who is in his 3rd semester here. Pretty cool huh!

As soon as the 1100 hour rang it was time for me to go, the tables were being cleared out and the ravers were coming in. Wondering how I was going to get back through the dreaded golf course in the middle of the night without loosing all of my possessions, I was met with another surprise outside. The school had also arranged for transportion back to the school with the campus police, who by far has the greatest motto I have ever seen on a law enforcement vehicle.

Safe and secure back home, I found the apartment complex was lit up quite nicely. Which encouraged a short swim before getting some sleep. It is so nice to be on a regular schedule!

Today was all about the bike, I awoke with a new task on hand. Get the Orbea put together and tuned up and ride, ride, ride. Except not alot of forethought went into my packaging of the bike, I did not pack any means of inflating the tires, so I had to ride up to the bike shop on about 40 psi of air in a tire that normally takes 120 psi. I made the journey without incidnet and met the owner of the shop in Simpson Bay, who tried to encourage me to come to the races tomorrow. Apparently every Sunday is race day in St. Maarten. The owner said that there was an "80 km race through the mountains tomorrow, but all of our races are very causal" 80K and mountains has never sounded casual to me, maybe the week after our first block exams (which are on May 25th so light a candle or whatever you can think of to get me over this first big hump), unless I implode before then.

After the ride, I made my way down to Mullet Bay Beach where the American Medical Student Association was having a welcome BBQ/recruitment party. Since being reverted to near poverty living on loans and a tight budget I can never turn away free food, no matter what it is. The weather was great, and it was a good way to get the mind off of the task at hand for a little while. As the rest of the day was observed from the confines of my little apartment study area, trying to decipher the nerves of the brachial plexus and tracing it back to the correct areas in the spinal cord.


Later and thanks for following my adventure.

A Very Full Week

So far so good, well at least for the first full week of class and all that accompanies it. It is quite amazing how much a mind can absorb in such a short time. But for a mind that has been starved for a lifetime of what it really wants to know, I do not find it so difficult to comprehend.
The pace has definitely picked up to a nice tempo, but it is manageable. Nothing that 6 or 7 hours of studying a day cannot handle...The most consuming is the Anatomy which is also the most interesting at this point. We began dissecting on Monday which was quite an experience in itself, much more fantastic than discovering some deserted beach or dragging the mangled muffler of a tiny silver car half away across a Caribbean Island.
I have discovered that the body is like a landscape and with the proper map and the proper tools and a little determination one can find many of its secrets. How the muscles attach to the various bones and make us move and how the nerves and vessels all thread themselves through everything to drive all these muscles is mesmerizing. We had a good architect somewhere along the line, did we not!
Time has become a precious commodity, sleep, study time, class time, time to decompress, time to wash clothes and dishes and even time to eat have to all be balanced...completely. One can not overpower the other, time cannot be diverted from one to appease another.


I did make another discovery today, this island plays host to some enormous snails. This guy was right out my apartment door chewing on a discarded chicken leg and growling, easily 6-7 inches long

New Study Hall Discovered

The four walls of this empty feeling apartment have a tendency to close in and no change of avenue or bodily position has the ability to make the words go from the page and into my brain. A new srategy had to be developed: I realized that I can read down at the beach just as well as I can read here. So the trusty backpack and I (along with my neighbor/study partner here) loaded up on some snacks, books and lots of water and made the short walk down to the beach at Cupecoy. The sand was comforting, the souds of the waves crashing on the rocks had the perfect amount of white noise in the back ground, the cliffs provided the perfect amount of shade, and the cool water offered the perfect study break. Despite the random passing of a nude and obese octogenerian or 2 it was a wonderful afternoon (they can be lurking aound any corner so one has to be prepared to deal with this at any given moment) and I actually absorbed a lot more information than I thought I would scoring quite high on the online practice test.

On the road back home I discovered that if left unharvested and untouched cotton and cuckleburr plants can get quite enormous.

Till Later