Diagnosing in Dominica: Pancakes.

Pancakes. What kind of image does that word inspire? What other words come to mind to describe them? I imagine for most people such things as salivation, anticipation, excitement, and if you’re an adult, a sense of childhood. For us, here, at Ross; however, that word has forever been tainted by a speech delivered during orientation. In fact, it made such an impact that using a graphic of pancakes was an option we voted on for our class shirts. Context: imagine each day is a pancake. Each day you receive at least four hours of more information. Each day you are expected to understand and master that day’s material before moving onto tomorrow. If you fall behind, the next day you now have not only that day’s pancake, but also the pancake from the day before. Now, you get two days behind and you have three pancakes. You get the idea, I’m sure. Let’s just say I have about five pancakes sitting on my plate right now, and feel a bit overwhelmed. Do we have an exam coming up? Nope, not for four weeks, so I’ve got time, right? Well, technically, yes, but within those four weeks lies both the majority of my grade for the semester, as well as the busiest days we've had thus far. Additionally, every upper semester student I have spoken with has one piece of advice for the fourth mini exam of the semester: “Don’t get behind.” Let’s just say I’m keeping the faith, but at times, barely hanging on. Then again, what would medical school be without that feeling of constantly being on the brink of losing your mind, at least to a certain extent? It’s a feeling I’ve quickly grown accustomed to, and now embrace, especially knowing I'm not completely alone.

This topic of pancakes; however, leads me to a conversation I had with a friend of mine earlier this week. She and I have established a weekly “lunch date” during which we meet, if even for 15 minutes, to get out of our respective study spaces and have a human conversation. One thing that came up in our discussion this week was what to tell our friends and family regarding what the day to day activities consist of. I mean, here I am in Dominica, 3000 miles away from the place I’ve called home for 25 years, so my life must be pretty exotic- I must be going on great adventures to see the island and meeting local community members, right? Actually, not at all. Outside of my walk to and from campus each day, and the regular stop at the shacks for food and local juice, I don't have a whole lot of time to get out. Now, in my mind, writing about this and telling you all that I sit in a classroom all day staring at a computer screen is completely boring. Where’s the excitement and imagination in that? She; however, had a different take on it. That IS exciting. The whole reason I started this blog was to keep you up to date with the goings on in my life, so laying out my day to day is something that I should include, right? I think so. Thus far, you’ve gotten a pretty good insight into how I’ve been feeling and what various experiences have taught me, but I haven’t said much about what I actually DO. So, with my cup of Yogi tea and Billy Joel Spotify playlist, here I am.

First of all, days of the week? They don’t exist. There are now either “days that we have class” or “days that we don’t.” I can’t count on one hand the number of times I have been completely unaware of which day of the week it is, and have answered people’s questions with the incorrect day. Luckily, most of us are in the same boat, and we all find it incredibly funny. Humerus, if you will. Secondly, weekends simply serve as days to catch up on everything we didn’t get through during the week, review material from the previous week, and begin to answer some of the many practice questions in attempts to drill the content further into our brains for recall throughout our future careers. For me thus far in the semester, Saturdays have been defined by my getting up in the morning, packing my backpack for the day, grabbing a quick breakfast on the way to campus, staking out a table in the LLL, pulling up GopherSports.com on my computer, and simultaneously tracking whatever Gopher Football game is going on and checking items off my to- do list. Granted, it’s not ideal, but it’s my new normal. My beers and La Loma chicken burrito have since been replaced by water, coffee and an abundance of citrus fruits, and the immediate company of fellow Gopher fans has been replaced by text message conversations, twitter exchanges, and sometimes brief FaceTime meetings with the best Gopher fans I could ever ask for- former college roommates and family.

Typically during the week, lectures are delivered from 8am to Noon, and the remainder of the day is made up of preparing “study products,” reviewing whatever material we received, and going into the anatomy lab for dissection or simply to study. Studying is my job. “How do you stay sane?” you may ask. Well, that depends. Depends on what exactly is driving me insane, how far behind I am in subject matter, and what I feel is needed to decompress. In many cases, due to time constraints and other responsibilities, a fifteen- minute break to take a walk down to the ocean or watch the sunset does the trick. On Thursday and Friday afternoons, there is often an intramural football game played just outside of my “home” at which you will most likely find myself and a close friend. We chit- chat about things not related to school, and at the applicable games, support our “firstie” colleagues as they face their opponents. Other times, a social life is necessitated, and a few of us head to one of the four bars near campus, grab a couple beers, and just decompress. And, on those days that it all seems completely insane and I begin to believe it may be impossible, taking a personal day to stay home, paint my fingernails, watch a movie or read a book, momentarily forgetting the main responsibilities awaiting is exactly what I need to recharge and begin to put one foot in front of the other again.

Of course, me being myself, simply being a student without being involved in organizations and campus life is nearly impossible. Therefore, at the beginning of the semester, I decided to become a member of the Pediatrics Student Association and the Ross Emergency Medicine Association (REMA), two of the specialties I am most interested in entering once I graduate from medical school. Despite my apprehensions of being “too busy,” I applied to an open executive position within the Pediatrics Association to serve as an Assistant Clinic Coordinator. This basically means I help sort out all of the details for one of two clinics run throughout the semester at an elementary school in the community. My clinic is in a week, and yesterday morning I got a taste of what to expect next Saturday. Myself and about twenty- five other Ross students traveled 45 minutes south of campus to the capital city of Roseau to an elementary school where roughly 500 students arrived with their parents. They were mandated by their principle to go through a fundamental health screening and receive a basic lesson in public health with topics such as the importance of brushing one's teeth and staying active. We, as medical students, were responsible for collecting such information as their height, weight, visual acuity, blood pressure, pulse, hearing, and an overall general survey of their health. It was amazing. I spent three hours taking blood pressure with what we began to fondly refer to as our “arm hugger,” and taking pulses of kids anywhere from one year old to sixteen years old. It was better than any “practice session” I could have done on campus, and I can’t wait to do it again. There are honestly so many things about this clinic that I would love to talk about, and yet neither know exactly where to start, nor have the time right now to lay it all out. Maybe after my clinic next Saturday. Aside from that, though, despite it being school related, this clinic was my break. I returned to campus and hit the ground running to try to tackle the endless mound of pancakes awaiting my return with a newfound sense of enthusiasm and level of energy.

Now, despite me feeling like I have an incredibly long list of topics in addition to the clinic that I want to talk about, and again, not knowing exactly where to start, I must leave you with a “to be continued…”

In the meantime, I have some pictures to share of the school where we held our clinic, as well as an example of signs made by students at the prep school on campus (children of students attending Ross) that were placed throughout campus and have been incredibly inspiring for me over the last week.

As always, with love.