In short, no cast for Ishie! No cast for Ishie!!
In our last installment of the Ishie's Ankle Saga, we left our clueless heroine (riiight) awaiting a ride outside a town hospital in a small island nation in the Caribbean.
While I was lying in wait, working on my sunburn, a local woman smiled at me. So far, I've found the locals to be quite warm, and any ill at ease feelings that come from occasionally finding yourself confused, lost or culturally ignorant is well received so long as you act aware of your own idiocy, as I do frequently.
A moment later, the bus driver/private escort came over and said "I've been looking for you!" To my credit, he pulled up in a different place where he'd dropped me off, and to his credit, I hadn't been paying the least bit of attention because the view was pretty.
I hobbled up the hill to his van at which point, he called "thank you!" to the woman that had smiled at me. I wonder how that conversation went.... "Have you seen a moron lobster-colored clueless student sunning herself like she's on holiday instead of at a hospital?" "Oh yes, she's right over there."
We had some stops on the route home, which allowed me a nice tour of the island! The driver, who'd been one of the bus drivers on the tour chatted with me all the way about Grenada's history; he pointed out the prime minister's building, and we compared disaster stories based on my surprise that the prime minister's building was still in tact with the entire front being made out of glass (Hurricane Ivan versus the 89 earthquake).
Back to the clinic for a long wait, that I knew would be punctuated with getting my foot dipped in plaster... and wait... and wait...
Inexplicably my parents found me at the clinic and were properly guilted into securing me a chicken roti and a chocolate ice cream. Wahoo! Injury guilt. It was pressing toward introductory lectures and I hadn't been seen so I broke out... dug out with a spoon!
My parents secured a bandage and a pair of youth crutches for me as I fled to eat lunch and avoid the wrath that noncompliance tends to bring among medical personnel.
Naturally, the intro lectures weren't ones I found all that important. The meat of the material started today with yesterday serving to kind of coddle us back into an academic environment since most of us have been out for at least a little while.
So blah blah blah.
White coat ceremony!!! Everyone was SO nice. J'Leise and her mom carried some of my stuff since I was managing with the wretched too small crutches, I was given a faculty seat to wait for the procession to assemble, and people were *very* accommodating in wanting to take the crutches (at my insistance) for when I went up the stairs and across the stage.
The ceremony was really nice. The processional leader carried a mace and everything, and I was able to join the procession and hop to my seat. Then, the speakers, who actually weren't bad. Since this is the school's 30 year celebration, they're making a big deal of it, and a bunch of the charter members were there and chatted with us after. Apparently they lived in barracks; there were no stores, and had to buy meat from "chicken man" who would slaughter the chickens in front of them, wait for the birds to bleed out, and then the med students got to pluck and clean them... I imagine that would cut into study time. This sort of takes the weight out of "Can you believe the local bus route supermarket ran out of eggs this week?"
Following the speakers was the meat! (and not the chicken). We were called up on stage, had faculty (and charter members?) put our white coats onto us, shook some hands and walked or limped off. Some people cheered for me just to be nice which was cool, though it paled in comparison to you crazies from Trinidad and Tobago! (Woooo!)
So I'm on the way to being a doctor, officially, and now feel comfortable calling myself a med student! Wahoo!
Team Bravo!
And now that I've been initiated into the prestigious field of medicine, I immediately set out to conduct myself in a manner befitting such an honor:
Beeeeeeeeeer!!! My partner in crime is pre-vet, but I'll be sure to bring him beer at his white coat.
Instead of carrying the party to Banana's, I opted to be a good girl, go home, study, and pass out since as a "group A" person for EVERYTHING, I had anatomy dry lab at 8 am. Sigh.
Cool class though; I think it'll go well, and by being a couple minutes late (again, gor blimey, crutches are a pain in the ass!), I accidentally ousted an overly polite gentleman from the seat he'd secured by being on time, since there weren't enough. Sorry dude!
Today, my back honestly hurt more than my ankle. Stupid undersized crutches. After lab, I wandered back over to clinic to take my punishment. The nurse was bemused and said "How was the White Coat?" to which I replied "awesome", to which she replied "Was it worth it?" to which I replied "Totally!" Hey, I have two legs, but only one White Coat ceremony!
I sat down to wait; my parents came by, this time expectedly, since I knew they were leaving today, with spare money in tow (wahoo!). Different doctor today, specifically, one of my clinical skills professor who engaged me with the time he broke his fibula playing golf to make me feel less ashamed of damaging myself by slipping off an inch-high path.
He said he'd cast it if I wanted (bwa???), but if I wasn't feeling significant pain with just an ace bandage (and I'm not), to just get some proper height crutches, ice and elevate it semi regularly, and take it easy, using it when it felt healed, essentially. This resulted in a one footed chicken dance. Waaaaahhhoooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
So I now have proper crutches, have seen off my parents (love you guys; thanks for everything!), and hit *real* lecture.
Two hours of anatomy, which was really interesting. I like the instructor and he has an engaging accent. Of course, I love anatomy, so there you go. "Use the words!" That seems to be the motto, which is actually pretty accurate. "Know Latin/Greek!" would be my motto.
After this was embryology, which I had more difficulty following since I had some trouble understanding the instructor and he was going at light speed. Hello lecture notes, course companion, and slides!
Then came Clinical Skills with a focus on ethics today, which I have mixed feelings about... the course portion, not ethics in general. It seems a bit... post modern, and I am decidedly not. It's hard to express.
This brought me to the realization that sitting for four hours of lecture in the same hall with 350 people is a bit exhausting, and I was not alone, seeing episodes of yawning and outright narcolepsy taking place in droves around me.
The absolutely BEAUTIFUL day outside snapped me out of pre slumber so I actually took the long, slow route back to the dorm and got some productive studying done. Yea baby!
3 comments:
Hey, glad to hear you don't need a cast. That's always good news. Stupid itchy things.
Regarding my last comment to your post from a couple days ago, just want to make sure you know i was kidding about the more frequent updates. Was trying to make a joke and/or compliment you on your blog. I'm hugely impatient and I check back multiple times during the day when I'm actually supposed to be studying to see if you'd posted.
Kinda like following your initial impressions of Grenada and SGU and you really do crack me up. I think I've laughed out loud more than once.
Regarding that Anatomy prof, if it's Dr. B., I personally don't care for him too much. Some people love him though. IMO, he's out more to show what he knows rather than to teach. Of course, he does teach along the way...
One tip is to ALWAYS be prepared for when you have dry lab with him. He likes to single people out and ask them questions. Kinda makes you feel like an idiot if you don't know so best to avoid that. :)
Clinical Skills lectures were generally a huge waste of time when I was in first term. Second term too I believe. They only become useful in 4th term. Of course, things may have changed from 2 years ago. It's surprising how they change from term to term even. I swear we're guinea pigs.
Well that's it for me.
PS Respect to those brave students who first ventured out to the great unknown to pursue their dream of medicine. I was a little child at the time and I couldn't image trying to deal with medical school in the conditions they had to live in. I seriously laugh at people who complain about Grenada now. As you yourself have noticed, things are more or less available. They're just bloody expensive.
PPS Rotis are freaking awesome.
PPPS If you haven't yet, get yourself a smoothie from the place in the food court (lol at calling it that) in the mall. Their soups are bloody awesome too. Yay for pumpkin soup!!
LOL, knew you were kidding and thanks! I take it as an incredible compliment.
Anatomy prof so far has been Dr. C, who seems cool. Dr. J is tommorow, and I liked him at both open houses, so that shouldn't be bad.
Major props to the charter students, particularly in the hands of a then 29 year old founder. Yikes.
Rotis ARE frigging awesome, and I haven't seen them served as such in the states. I'm going to end up in withdrawal.
No smoothies yet (line too long during tour) but I'll have to head there for soups and smoothies. I did get my nutmeg ice cream from that mall though, only to discover they have it in the student center. D'oh!
Just a quick reply because I've been going to bed too late each night and it's time to change that but Dr. Curry is a great lecturer (okay, maybe not great but I liked him). He wrote the student handbook thingy and everything you need to know is IN there so learn it all. If it isn't there you don't need to focus too much energy into it. Again, this is from 2 years ago and they've since merged Anat and Embryo and I don't know how that affects things.
As well I, like many people, had a bit of trouble with sympathetics. Went to him for some help and he cleared it up for me in less than 20 minutes. That's worth remembering if you have the same issue cause it will come back repeatedly in Neuro, Path, Pathophys and Pharm.
Dr. Champney from Histo is also good for help in Anatomy but I saw Dr. Paparo in the gym the other day (by the way, he's incredibly awesome and really cares about students; and as an aside hilarious to see in the gym cause he seems to do whatever pops into his head that he thinks would be a good workout) and he said Dr. Champney is going to be teaching in the UK so dunno if he's here this term.
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