First Full Day on St. Maarten/ Where I Bought my TV/ Happy New Years!

Since I have a few hours to burn until New Years at Bikini Beach with the rents, I figure why not write a quick post. It's been a beautiful day in St. Maarten and driving has definitely been less stressful today. I think we learned all the roads last night when we were lost for 3-4 hours. For an island that's 37 sq miles, it feels huge because of the mountainous terrain.

We woke up and left for Philipsburg in the morning. The day before we asked the guy at the front desk of our hotel for the best priced TVs and he recommended a place on Front St. called Klass. Front St. is probably the best shopping area on the whole island considering it is a line of stores for a mile down. And what makes this area so interesting is that it's a strip of land straddled by the Great Salt Pond and the Great Bay. Front street is parallel and one block from the boardwalk/beach and two blocks from the
Pond.

This area is known as the jewelry district

I can't compare Klass to any other stores, but I felt we got a decent price for the tv we ended up buying.  It was $400 for my Panasonic TV with an LCD screen and 32 inches, I believe. As a off/on side note, for great deals on flatscreens, definitely buy a Vizio from BJ's or Costco. My brother ended up buying a 42 inch for $500 and the picture quality is equal to any Sony in my humble opinion. 

After the TV purchase we walked to Ace hardware and bought an HD cable (they sadly don't sell TV cables at Klass... not too classy if you ask me) and I also got a garbage can for the kitchen and a full sized mirror. We later stopped by the grocery store and went all out buying food. The total ended up being a lot higher than I was expecting, but there you go, that always happens with me and food. Generally speaking almost everything on this island is a lot more expensive than anything you would buy in the US, but you wanna know what surprisingly isn't? Booze.  The grocery store next to AUC was selling 750mL Smirnoff for $8 when that same bottle is $22 back home. And another huge plus to the island is that there are no taxes. My flatscreen was $400 flat. No tax on that. 

Happy New Years, guys!

Finally on St. Maarten

Our rental upgrade. This car is overrated by the way.

It's been one hell of a day. I had a 6 am flight from Boston to Charlotte and then from there to St. Maarten. The first issue of the day was our car situation. My parents rented a car for the next five days, but it seems that they did not have the four wheel drive truck we had reserved. Instead, the folks at Hertz upgraded us to an H3 Hummer. Absurd is probably the best word I can think of at the moment. Not only is the Hummer sporting "environment first" stickers on the dash, but it is also a bright urine yellow, semi-gold color. We stick out horribly everywhere we go. Rolling up to AUC to start the moving in process wasn't very smooth either. I believe people instantly dislike you when you are driving a car like this. I didn't bring my acceptance letter (I didn't know I had to) so the woman at the gate was first skeptical of me even being a student. Eventually she pulled out a list of all the first year students living on campus, and verified that I was indeed among them.

I was a little disappointed when I saw my dorm. It's spacious enough for the likes of me, but I couldn't help but feel cheated for not having a living room area. I've got an oversized bedroom with a light-less walk-in closet and bathroom and the next large room is the kitchen. I've got a small table in the kitchen area with three chairs. One of the chairs is broken and I don't know what to do about this. I tried getting my internet to work. I had a ethernet cable attached to what I believed was the internet and connected it to the computer, but nothing happened. My mac didn't even register that I was connected to anything. I don't know. Perhaps the cord is broken, or I'm just stupid. Knowing my track record I'll have to go with the latter choice.

Next my parents and I were lost for 3 hours looking for our hotel all the way in Orient Beach (I've yet to see nude beach-goers, most likely French). That is clear across the island and the traffic here is pretty unbearable at this time of day. We are staying at The Alamanda Resort in the French side for the next few days and that is where I'm currently typing this. Sorry if this post is completely boring, but I'm running on fumes here. For this same reason, please forgive my negative demeanor. I know things will look a hell of a lot better once I get more than 4 hours of sleep.

Where I'm going with all this

I didn't know what to expect from this blog when I started writing a few months back. Or maybe the more truthful statement is, I didn't know what to expect of myself. After my first post, I wasn't sure if I would write again. I wrote a couple more times as an experiment and after hitting "publish", I sat silently and wondered how I felt.

Ridiculous, by the way.

I asked who the hell would read this? Was this blog just supposed to be a diary for myself? Maybe a personal place to chronicle my journey into medicine? I had the blog for three months and no one even knew it existed. But although I was the only person who visited, I continued to write new posts. I always wrote to an imaginary audience of prospective Caribbean med students. I would publish a new post and check back every couple days to see if anyone visited. When no one had, I felt slight disappointment, but also relief.

I'm not confident in my writing. It's usually a jumbled mess, chaotic, a semi-stream of consciousness where I can't quite determine if I ever accurately convey what I'm trying to share. My sentence structure isn't fluid and my own personal word-bank is "average" as the SATs would have you know. And grammar? Atrocious. I've got issues with the proper use of a comma. I felt exposed attaching my identity to my posts with such writing. I felt vulnerable to the judgments of my imagined anonymous readers and so I stopped.

It wasn't until the beginning of November when I remembered my own blog. I logged on, checked my stats and was instantly confused. Within the last month, I had 500 page views. FIVE HUNDRED and I hadn't written anything in almost two months. I couldn't believe it. I came to realize that 500 pageviews did not mean 500 people, but that hardly mattered. Compared to my traffic before, my blog now seemed wildly popular. I felt happy people were visiting and even happier with a side of relief after receiving my first couple comments. They were kind, curious and absolutely the perfect push for me to continue writing. Since then, I've made a concerted effort to post regularly and I think I've been doing a pretty good job, but lately I've been struggling to find new material to write about. You can imagine the difficulty of writing about Caribbean med school when you haven't even set foot on the island yet. Suffering from this mini writer's block has left me with some time to contemplate on what I want to accomplish with this blog and its general direction.

I've read a lot of different medical school blogs the last year and follow a few regularly now and I find the ones I enjoy most are the blogs that are honest, intimate, and thoughtful. It's amazing to read a complete stranger's blog and feel a connection to them and actually care to see how they're doing. In the beginning, I thought to use this blog as a resource for prospective Caribbean students, and while I'm sure I'll have many more posts that are informative and useful to this type of audience, I don't want this to be my only objective. I want to give people a reason to come back here that isn't purely for information. I guess what I'm saying is I want people to come back for lil' ol' me... for my feelings, thoughts, bad comma usage,  experiences and in order to achieve all this, I know I'm going to have to make you people care! Or at least pique you're interest (Please Log on for my LIVE Webcast StripTease 10 o'clock on Satur--.... haha just kidding. Sorry John. Bad joke).

For the people I'm leaving behind in Rhode Island and Boston, I hope you check back every so often because this is for you too! I love you guys and I'm going to miss all of you. You better be skyping me every so often. Yes, I'm talking to you Albi, Meg, JZ, Pengal, Chris,  Rachel, Jaimie, and Zoe.

As for you John, I love you and I know you're gonna know what's happening with me everyday  :)
I'm going to miss you most of all.

NYTimes: Medical Schools in Region Fight Caribbean Flow-- A response

In light of the controversy surrounding this recent article by the New York Times, I thought it appropriate to take the time to write a response as a student who will be attending a Caribbean medical school in 1 week and as someone who plans to do most, if not all, her core rotations in New York City hospitals.

First off, there is a looming shortage of doctors that's projected to hit 90,000 by 2020 (that's only 9 years people) and of the 42,000 people applying to US medical schools today, only 18,600 get spots. And what of the other 23,400? A percentage of them end up going to Caribbean medical schools. What's particularly infuriating about the discussion stemming from this article's publication is the number of people commenting that they would never go to a doctor trained in the Caribbean because they weren't "good enough" for the US... I'm sorry, but do people just ignore all the stats found in the very beginning of the article? It's quite obvious that there is no way medical schools can accept all the good candidates applying because there are SO FEW SPOTS AVAILABLE.

As a consequence of this exclusivity, there is a spill-over effect of good medical applicants going to the Caribbean. My stats are average I'll fully admit, but at AUC I know of students who scored 40s on their MCATs and I know others who have GPAs of 3.5 and higher. I'm not saying by any means there aren't bad students who go to the Caribbean, of course there are. Many students who start in the Caribbean will inevitably drop-out for a number of reasons, but those who do finish and graduate are just as capable and knowledgeable as any US medical graduate. In the end, *ALL* medical school students who wish to practice in the US have to pass the *SAME* exact test, which is the USMLE. As it stands now, the average first time pass rate for US med students taking Step 1  is 92% and guess what? AUC's first time pass rate for Step 1 is a 94%. That's right, a CARIBBEAN school has a HIGHER pass rate than some American schools. And who can one ignore the fact that 1/3 of the last AUC class who sat for the exam scored a 99?!  (Please note, if given a chance any Caribbean med student would go to an American school at a moment's notice. It sure beats all the stigma and false preconceived notions)

After reading the article, I could not help but think the claims of the 16 New York med school deans were ridiculous and laughable. Let's look at some of their arguments as stated by the journalist.

1. The deans are looking to expand their enrollment to their own schools, but are impeded by competition with Caribbean schools for clinical training slots in NY hospitals.
2. Caribbean schools turn out poorly trained students who undercut the quality of training for their New York peers learning alongside that at the same hospital.
3. Caribbean medical schools are profit-making institutions that are "bribing" New York hospitals by paying them millions of dollars to take their students. American schools traditionally pay nothing, because hospitals like the prestige of being associated with universities.
4. City hospital officials have defended their contracts with Caribbean schools as a way of getting students into hospitals in poor neighborhoods that have been shunned by New York medical schools.
5. These very same students, after completing their clinical training, often return as residents and then full-fledged attending physicians at these poor, city hospitals.

Is it just me or does there seem to be some gaping inconsistencies in this report? I think it's first important to highlight the fact that no matter how many more students medical schools are willing to accept, nothing is going to fix the shortage problem if more residency spots aren't available. A medical school graduate cannot become a practicing physician until they have completed residency and the positions available have remained stagnant for YEARS. It's simply impossible to solve the impending crisis by increasing medical school enrollment without a corresponding increase in residency programs. You only increase the competition levels for the same few residencies, leaving even more people out in the dark defaulting on $200,000 loans. So the deans' claim that they want to increase their class sizes have no real bearing presently. Furthermore, these deans are pushing to suspend Caribbean medical students as soon as possible from New York hospitals, when they themselves don't even have the students to fill these clerkships. Absurd if you ask me.

Secondly, after reading the response of the hospital officials, it seems that the clinical sites available to Caribbean students aren't places that the American students even associate with.  So why this anger? Why do these deans want to stop Caribbean students from rotating at the hospitals that their own students don't even go to? I'm not going to pretend to know the answer because no one can know this answer but the deans themselves, however, for speculative purpose... I  feel this is one part territorialism with a dash of snobbery, but at the end of the day, isn't everything always about money? Caribbean medical schools are paying millions of dollars to have their students rotate at hospitals all across the country, not just New York. I think the NY medical board members realize that they may eventually have to start compensating hospitals, but they don't want to pay any money themselves. To them, it should be free and it's a privilege for the hospitals to be associated with THEM (Again, I'm only musing here on the alterior motives of these rabble-rousers). Never mind the fact that many of these hospitals would be bankrupt if not for the influx of Caribbean money, and that they would close down like so many in their stead, further depriving millions of their access to some semblance of quality healthcare. And most of the attendings and physicians working in these hospitals are foreign trained, from the Caribbean! Let's face it, if you are a US med school student, you're not trying to get a general residency in a poor city hospital.


I think I'm done with the diatribe for now. I was thankful to read at the end of the article many positive comments in support of the good work done by Caribbean-trained doctors. I liked the fact that people remember to judge doctors by their merit, compassion, and professionalism and not just where they went to school. Hope that's the majority out there. If not, well maybe one day they can read this blog and think otherwise. I hope to be an example to prove all the nay-sayers wrong.

Hey all, Merry Christmas Eve

I just wanted to wish anyone reading a warm happy holidays! I hope you all eat, drink, and be merry!
May all your Christmas' be white.

Six more days till the move.

TV Channels on St. Maarten

Not that I plan on watching much TV while I'm here, but how can anyone deny the comfort of turning on the tube and hearing all those familiar voices in the background? I'm one of those people who will switch on a TV, grab a snack and then walk to the adjacent room to sit down for work. I don't know why this is, but I see no real issues in continuing my pre-study ritual. More often than not, my preference is SportsCenter since it is just a looped segment for hours.

The other reason why I'm concerned with what channels are available to me is because I will be leaving for the island right BEFORE the NFL Playoffs! And with the way my Patriots have been playing this season, I don't want to miss a thing.

After a quick google search of the cable channels available, I found that most of the channels are American with NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, ESPN, CNN, and so forth. If you are really into movies you have the option to get the premium channels like HBO and Showtime. For the complete list of cable channels you can click here.

"Bowel Movements for Shit Heads?"

When I told my boyfriend I was going to purchase "Anatomy and Physiology for Dummies",
this was his response as he was kneading chocolate chip cookie dough.

Let's Talk About My Brand Spanking New Scrubs

Just got everything in the mail today, and now I know why the Grey's Anatomy scrubs cost more... it's because they are amazing. Women will be happy to own these. Not only is the material awesome (oh so soft), but the whole outfit feels tailored for my body. The shirt is fitted so it looks like I have an actual waist-- always a bonus in my book. Secondly, the straight leg pants I ordered as "petite" truly came petite. No hemming needed.

The Cherokee "Flexibles" brand stuff, however.... a little bit of a different story here. The material is nice, but these pants, which I also ordered as petite, are still about 1-2 inches too long for me. I've got to get them hemmed... and I don't like dishing out an extra couple bucks for that. These pants were also supposed to be "straight leg" but I look like something out of the 70s when I put these puppies on. I'm talking about serious bell-bottoms here. I also bought two shirts from the "Flexibles" family and I'm a fan so far. One is pink/navy blue and the other is yellow/black. I like that these shirts are not one complete solid color, but I've started questioning my choices after my dad asked if they were bowling shirts.

The Dickies pants were the cheapest article of clothing for $14 and I like them. They're black, not too long and these are actually straight leg. The material though..... think snow pants... made to be semi-water repellant. And they make that swish swish sound too when walking.

Maybe I should've tried looking for a real store after all?
Nah.


Edit: And you know what this post just reminded me of?
Scrub,
I don't want no scrub
A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me
Hanging from the passenger side of his best friend's ride
trying to holler at me

You may be thinking, oh no she didn't.
But oh yes I did.

Saw this on valuemd and it made me laugh

Sometimes people get a little too crazy arguing about things, especially on valuemd and most certainly when students are discussing who's school is better, which class has it tougher.... yatta yatta yatta

Still No Snow

If it's snowing during a Pats game-- we win, you lose

Call me crazy, but I love snow and the wintertime.  I like the cold, I like bundling up, ice skating, snowy football games, fires, hot chocolate, clam chowda, Uggs. Of course by February I'm getting tired of all the cold and looking forward to Spring, but Christmas isn't Christmas for me unless it's under 30º with some snow on the ground. You can imagine my disappointment with the fact that it has yet to even flurry here! Living in New England I can't help but appreciate the changes from season to season. Everyone loves summer, and as much as I'll enjoy living on a Caribbean island for the next 1.5 years, I know I'm going to miss New England weather come next fall.

Here's hoping for some snow in the next two weeks. I'd hate to leave without seeing any.

Scrub a dub dub. Scrubs!

One of the shirts I ended up buying. Grey's Anatomy brand
is supposed to be more fitted for women than other brands.

Another thing for the packing list. I realized the other day that I'll need to buy my first set of scrubs for anatomy lab.  Since you have to go to lab everyday, some AUC students recommend getting three pairs of scrubs so you can keep you're clothing fresh.  I have no idea where to find scrubs and I'm sure if I asked anybody, I could've found out easily enough, but I did the lazy thing and went online.  I feel like I haven't stepped foot in a store for a year now.

My name is Andrea, and I am an online shopping junkie.

I like the discounts I dig up and I like the wide assortment of merchandise available. I ordered three sets of scrubs and I should be getting my order sometime this week. Here is a link to tons of the scrubs online stores and many corresponding coupon codes to save some cash. Click me.

Some tips if you order online:
1. Use the size charts/ fit guides available to you. This is the best way to estimate your size.
2. Cross check the item you want to purchase with amazon.com so you can get a number of different customer reviews on quality, fit, etc
3. Check return policies as well as shipping policies. Some sites may give you free shipping both ways, if you do decide to return the item. 

Let it Snow

Getting extremely excited for this patriots-bears matchup!!!
And its a snow bowl!
Pats play pretty damn well in the snow

What are Green Book Rotations? Why are they important? AUC Green Book Rotation List

I said a few posts ago that I would delve into the subject of green book rotations, so here I am. For the third and fourth year of medical school, students have to do their core and elective clinical rotations at hospitals. If you're a medical student in the US, you have the luxury of having a teaching hospital right in the vicinity of your school. Caribbean students, however, spend the last two years of med school in the US rotating at different hospitals across the country that are affiliated with the Caribbean school.  When you do rotate, you want to make sure the clerkships you're doing are greenbook.

Officially, "green book" means a specific program that is approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). These green book clinical rotations (clerkships) are pretty much always associated with a TEACHING HOSPITAL that HAS A RESIDENCY PROGRAM for the PARTICULAR CLERKSHIP you wish to rotate in, whether it be Peds, Surgery, Family Medicine etc. These hospitals are focused on actual TEACHING. There will be interns, attendings, residents, and fellows that you will be working with and thus you will have many more opportunities for learning. If you go to a hospital or a clinic that  has no residency program then that's considered blue book and it's not ACGME approved. Why does it matter? Because this can be a problem for gaining full licensure or a residency spot in some specific states in which it's required by law that all potential doctors completed their training in ACGME approved programs. States that fall under this category are California, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.  So please remember to research all your clerkship options and be sure that they are all ACGME-accredited so you don't run into any problems in the future.

For those of you who are curious "Blue Book" programs are those that do not have a residency program in the clerkship you are rotating in, but the hospital itself does have residency programs for other associated specialities. Example: you are doing a peds rotation at a hospital that has no pediatrics residency program, but does have a Family medicine program--> this would be considered blue book.

You can find out which programs are approved by the ACGME by going to the official portal here.

Since I will be attending AUC, I decided to do the extra leg-work and find which programs are greenbook at each US hospital site affiliated with AUC. Please note that I'm missing a few programs that are accredited! Although, the clerkship doesn't appear on the ACGME site, it could still be affiliated with another hospital program that is approved by ACGME, thus making it greenbook.

AUC requires their students to do core clerkships for a total of 42 weeks.
12 weeks-Internal Medicine
12 weeks- Surgery
6 weeks- Pediatrics
6 weeks- OB/GYN
6 weeks- Psychiatry

And then AUC wants you to do elective clerkships for 30 weeks.
4 weeks- Neurology (required elective)
4 weeks- Family Medicine (required elective)
4-8 weeks- Clerkship of Interest
18-22 weeks- Internal Medicine subspecialties


List of AUC Affiliated Hospital Sites and Greenbook Clinical Programs of Each Hospital

• California
• 
  
• Connecticut
• Griffen Hospital
• Internal Medicine 
• St. Mary's Hospital
•  General Surgery, Internal Medicine
• Florida
• Miami Beach Community Center
• Psychiatry*
• Illinois
• Mount Sinai Medical Center 
• Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, Family Medicine
• Louisiana
• Brentwood Behavioral Center
• Psychiatry 
• Ohio
• Aultman Hospital
•  OB/GYN, Family Medicine
• Maryland
• St. Agnes
• General Surgery, Internal medicine
• Spring Grove
•  none
• Union Memorial
•  General Surgery, Internal medicine
• Michigan
• Providence Hospital
• General Surgery, Internal Med, OB/GYN, Pediatrics*, Psychiatry*, Family Med
• New York
• Bronx- Lebanon Hospital Center
• General Surgery, Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, Family Medicine
• Brooklyn Hospital
• General Surgery, Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, Family Medicine
• Flushing Hospital
• Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatrics
• Lutheran Medical Center
• Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Family Medicine
• Mount Vernon Hospital
• Internal Medicine
• Internal Medicine Sub-I
• Nassau Health Center Corporation
• General Surgery, Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, Psychiatry
• St. John's Episcopal Hospital
• Internal Medicine, Psychiatry
• Staten Island University Hospital
• General Surgery, Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatrics

* The program is affiliated with an ACGME-approved program from another hospital. 

   Bottom-line: GREENBOOK


Related articles

• ABMS, ACGME Increase Emphasis on "Procedural Skills" as a Core Competency for Physician Measurement (eon.businesswire.com)
• CMSS Applauds ACGME for Proposed Duty Hours Task Force Recommendations (eon.businesswire.com)
• Perspective: Residency 101 for Physician-Scientists (sciencecareers.sciencemag.org)

What I've gotten out of "Stiff" so far- 75 pages in

Image via Wikipedia

The famous anatomist Knox who was also
 the buyer of Burke and Hares' "fresh" cadavers.

Strange, strange book. That's about all I can say right now and it is somewhat interesting, but I have no clue why people think this book is funny. It's about cadavers and yes, the author tries to make some jokes... but I suppose it's just not my type of humor. Example: in the introduction the author likens cadavers to people on cruise ships because both end up spending the days on their back. ????? Alright, maybe it's just me, but that joke isn't very good. I have yet to even crack a smile at one of her attempts to be funny, and find myself more often than not, put off by the overall repugnance of the subject matter.

I wasn't bad off two chapters ago. The reading was interesting and I was easily flowing through the pages, but I've had some trouble now finishing up this chapter on human decay. Roach, the author, goes to the University of Tennessee (UT) Anthropological Research facility, the only place in the world dedicated to the study of human decay. The lab is pretty much a grove behind the UT medical center where dead bodies are strewn about clothed and naked, in the sun/ under a tree and studied as they decompose. Roach loves nothing more than giving us the disgusting details of all the bodies she sees going through the phases of breakdown. She goes into the maggots feasting on the fat and juices of the stomach, face, and genitals. She goes into the last stage when the body and organs lose shape and turn into a puddle of soup. She goes into the smell of a dead body and the fact that she's stepping in the wet soil saturated with corpse juice and how her shoes, despite all her cleaning, smelled like dead people for months. And on top of all this, she tries to pull bad jokes. Fantastic.

Maybe this is a low point of the book and it will pick up in the next chapter, but before that, I was actually enjoying the reading. The first chapter is dedicated to what I and many other first year medical students will be doing-- dissecting cadavers. Roach's central objective in the opening chapter is to highlight the importance of being respectful and thankful to those who have willingly donated their bodies to the teaching and advancement of medicine. She opens her book in a seminar for plastic surgeons. The plastic surgeons are at this workshop using the cadavers to hone their skills and to ultimately become better at what they do. And while they are working on the bodies, they are careful to be gentle and mindful of how they treat their subjects. After this scene, Roach takes readers to a memorial service at the University of California- San Francisco Medical School. We soon find out this three hour affair complete with student tributes, a capella  renditions of "Time of Your Life", and folk ballads is for none other than the 20 dissected cadavers of the anatomy lab. Talk about gratitude and respect.

You may be thinking, why all this talk about being thankful for getting to cut into bodies? For the first time in history (as Roach will have us know) we have a surplus of "fresh" bodies available, and people no longer have to dig up graves of the recently dead, or murder anyone to be able to dissect a body...  hence the subject matter of the second chapter! Roach briefly examines the history of human dissection and she ends up taking a great deal of time discussing the grave-digging and "body-snatching" epidemic that hit England in the 18th and 19th centuries. It seems that anatomists were so desperate for bodies, they would pay common thugs a good deal of money to go dig up graves and steal the bodies from them. There was even one duo that went as far as murdering customers from their "flop-house" (motel, I suppose) and sell the bodies to a well-known and respected anatomist in Edinburgh. The two men went by the names of William Burke and William Hare and eventually Burke was brought to justice and hung for his crimes, while Hare received immunity. I don't understand that one...

25 More Days-Questions/Doubts

As I sit here watching a horribly boring defensive struggle between the Steelers and Ravens, I can't help but wonder what's on the horizon for me. I'm nervous. I've been so nervous, it's actually made me somewhat depressed this last week. It's forced me to look at myself and question if I really have it in me to become a doctor. Can I really study again and deal with ridiculous stress for the next 4 years? Do I want to spend the next 6-8 years in hospitals? I mean, it's not a place I'm fond of to begin with, so how can I honestly expect to work there for that long and be happy? Do I even want to be a doctor? These days I can't help but seriously reconsider what it is that I'm trying to do.

Is anyone surprised to know that I'm the daughter of two doctors? Probably not. While my father has been complacent, if not utterly indifferent to what my career aspirations were in the past and are today, it's been my mother who's taken the active role in pushing me to a career in medicine. She's been medicine's own champion since I was a 5th grader. "You are going to be doctor," she would tell me, and I figured I'd go along with what she wanted since I had no clue of what else I could do. Over the years if I questioned her assertions, she would only later convince me with her arguments for the benefits and opportunities of becoming a doctor.  Fast forward 14 years, here I am ready to attend medical school, but am I still *just going along* with what she wants? I'm afraid this could be the case.

But as afraid and sad I've been, I still won't allow myself to back out now. I have a tendency to make the worst assumptions about what is unknown to me and as much research I've done, as many hours I've spent pouring over other's accounts of Caribbean med schools, this is still unchartered territory for me. Everyone has their own unique experience and I cannot know what mine will be until I've actually flown to St Maarten and experienced the full onslaught of medical school for myself. And while this experiment may be an expensive one if I do indeed decide this isn't for me, it's still worth every penny because I will at least have the satisfaction of walking away with peace of mind.

Related articles

• Careers for a medical school drop-out? (ask.metafilter.com)
• Balancing dreams and happiness. (ask.metafilter.com)
• Making the decision to go to medical school (kevinmd.com)

Where is St. Maarten?

I've been getting that question a lot.
And for awhile, I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know either.
But, I have remedied this issue and after looking it up on google, I now know exactly where I'm flying to in three weeks! The red arrow in the map below shows the tiny little island of St. Maarten

How big is St. Maarten you ask? It's around 36 sq miles and to really put that into perspective, it's  driving six miles north, then six miles east and you have now covered the dimensions of the entire island. 

The country itself is split by two nations. It is shared by the Netherlands and France. The two official languages are Dutch and French, but everyone knows English on the island.

The population stands at around 30,235 (CIA World Factbook) 

And climate? 80-85ºF all year long, low humidity, and brief, but intense rain showers. Love it.

Comparing class size and attrition rate ---AUC, SGU, Ross, Saba

American University of the Caribbean- Average class size: 100 in January and May terms; 200 in September.
Attrition (i.e. drop-out, transfer, etc): 13%

When I started class at AUC in January 2011, my class size was 112 students. One semester later (where most of the drop-outs, transfers occur) we are down to 107. Not bad. The starting class for September 2010 was 208 students, and I believe they are around 180 at the start of their third semester.

St. George's University- Average class size 400 

Attrition: 10%

The class size in St. George's is at around 400 currently per semester, however the big difference here in comparison to Ross is that the attrition rate is so much lower. About 10% or even less of the starting class ends up leaving or failing out of SGU. 

Saba University- Average Class Size is 80-100
Attrition: 40-50%

Saba is the smallest school of the "Big 4" but half the people who begin first semester do not make it to the end. Attrition is particularly high for this tiny school because the passing grade needed to advance is a 75%. I can't speak for the other schools, but AUC's passing grade is a 70%. Those 5 percentage points make all the difference. 

Ross University: Average class size anywhere from 400-600 students. 

Attrition: 40-50%

For the Jan 2010 class at Ross, there were 600 students! 600! That's double the size of the largest medical school in the United States. And what's more alarming here is that I've read that anywhere between 40-50% of these students leave or fail out by the end of the 4 years. After looking at these stats, to me there's no question that Ross is a business first. It seems that the admissions committee preys upon people's dreams of getting an MD and proceeds to accept hundreds who have no business of becoming doctors in the first place.  This isn't to take away from the other students who are meant to be there, however. All I'm saying is you have to be careful, work hard and hope you aren't one of the many that's meant to pay $10,000s only to be weeded out shortly after.

(Edit: It seems that Ross is making a concerted effort to reduce size. The May 2010 semester had around 300 incoming students.... but that may also be because it was the May term, which characteristically has the smallest class sizes.)

I have one article here about the "horrors" of Ross.  To read, click here.

Let me remind everyone though that Ross is still a good school and if you work hard and pass all your classes/exams, Ross will take you where you want to go. After reading the article, go ahead and read the comments at the end of it to get a different perspective.

Of what I know of myself, I wouldn't do well in a school like Ross.

Related articles

• Semester 2: Block 1 Results and Revisiting the Idea that AUC is the Best Medical School in the Caribbean (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
• AUC vs. Ross vs. SGU: Factors to Consider (caribbeanmedstudent.com)
• Why AUC? (caribbeanmedstudent.com)
• Why AUC Opposed to St. George's? (caribbeanmedstudent.com)
• What Led Me to Choose AUC: Objective (myplasticity.com)
• What Led Me to Choose AUC: Subjective (myplasticity.com)
• Caribbean Medical Schools (pankeys.info)

Cost of Caribbean medical schools in comparison to American schools

***update: the cost continually rises every year. please note the values on this post have most likely increased****

Relatively speaking, most of these Carib schools are a lot cheaper than American schools and that is one reason why people may choose to go abroad. But is it really worth it? Here are the numbers and you can decide for yourself. (Note: this is for tuition only! Fees and insurance not included in final amounts.)

The total cost of tuition after 4 years,

Saba: $98,500
Ross: $165,150
AUC: $169,550 (AUC just raised tuition 6/26/11)
St. George's: $205,163



Average cost of US public schools:  $174,172
Average cost of US private schools: $175,588


St. George's not looking like a great place to go considering it costs the same as if you were going to a private, Ivy-league, city school. And Saba is so much less expensive because American students are not eligible for federal loans. They have to either pay out of pocket or use private loans with high interest rates, and this brings me to my next point-- I realize federal loans are there to make it easier for students to pay for their education, but I hate how schools drive up the price based on how much the government is willing to dish out for loans. We end up paying A LOT more in the end. All med schools should be priced around Saba. If you've got cash, I'd recommend going here to save a lot of $ and the quality of the education is no different from AUC or St. George's.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

I don't have much else to say, except eat up and be merry!
Also, go Patriots!

A night at the hospital

I pulled pretty much an all-nighter Friday night and before you start thinking, right on, it is sadly due to a grim situation. It was 12:30 by the time I got into bed and I just could not fall asleep. After what seemed like 5 minutes of bliss, my mom woke me up at 2 a.m. asking if I could go to the hospital with her. My grandfather has been sick the last few days and on this particular night, he contracted uncontrollable hiccups and was vomiting. My mom is a doctor and for the last week she's been afraid that my grandfather has cancer. He's lost a considerable amount of weight and it's been nearly impossible to get him to eat anything at all. His late night call only reaffirmed my mom's worst fears.

I drove to pick up my grandfather and then we all went to the emergency room. An emergency room at 2:30 in the morning is such an odd place to be. The whole city is pretty much shut down and dark at this point of the night, but once we arrived to the ER, it was strangely alive, for a lack of a better term. There was a bunch of loud, drunk, young people (it is a Friday night, after all) waiting for their drunk/roofied friends and significant others. There were night guards milling around and joking, and others making coffee, talking, and eating at the cafe area near by. It felt like any other place but a hospital. I was brought back to reality, however, when we witnessed one of the more somber sites of the evening. A woman walked into the ER sobbing because she was just informed her son had been in a car accident and in critical condition.

My mom and I waited quietly and my grandfather continued his ominous hiccuping. He had the hiccups on/off for the last 36 hours and it was because of this sign that my mom felt there was something seriously wrong with his gastrointestinal tract. An hour went by and they finally admitted him. We soon found out there was only one doctor working the shift, responsible for all the patients who came in, and I knew I was in for a very long night. The nurse conducted a urinalysis and blood work, and my grandfather's results came back normal. We waited until 4:30 a.m. for him to get a CT scan of his abdomen and it was 7:00 a.m. before the one working doctor read and reported his results to us. One tumor the "size of a pool ball" grew next to his duodenum of the small intestines and obstructed his digestive tract. My mom sure knows her ish.

Not that this post is all bad news though, because things have been looking up since then. My grandfather had a biopsy done yesterday and I am happy to report that the doctors found the tumor to be benign. They are going to try some pills to see if they can reduce the size of the growth and if that doesn't work, he'll be having surgery to remove it asap. Thankfully my grandpa has been doing pretty well in the hospital overall, but his only problem currently is that he is super hungry. He hasn't been allowed to eat for three days now.

And my thoughts I'll be taking away from this experience?

Only that I can't imagine having to deal with this stuff on a daily basis. Yet here I am, prepared to go to med school in a month for 4 long years and for what? Strangely, to try to get to this very point, dealing with all the same situations, but trying to do it from the other side.

The Packing/Shopping List

It's never too early to start thinking about what to pack on my extended trip to St. Maarten, right?
Wrong.
It's still far too early. Well, at least for me anyway.
There's still another month and half and I've got Thanksgiving and Christmas to worry about, people!
And if you've been reading my blog, you know by now that I'm completely jobless and spend most of my days doing nothing productive. Therefore I can start the packing and shopping for my trip a week or two before I actually have to leave because I will have all the hours of the day to do this, right?
But, nooooo, I don't get the luxury to procrastinate.

Due to the unfortunate circumstance that I live at home with my OCD-driven, semi-neurotic mother, I haven't heard the end of "Make a list! Make a list!"for two weeks now.  So here it goes and let me first state clearly: this is solely to placate my mother's incessant demands of my making a list.

The List:
Clothing/Footwear/Accessories 
Jeans
Shorts
Skirts
Shirts
Couple of dresses
Bras
Socks
Undies
Sandals
Sneakers
Heels
Rain Boots
Rain Coat
Umbrella
Select Jewelry
Sunglasses
Belts
Red Sox Hat

Hygiene/Beauty-Related Objects
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Floss
Mouth Wash
Contact Lenses
Shampoo/Conditioner
Razor and blades
Deodorant
CK1 Perfume
Lotion
Hair Brush
Hair Straightener
Hair elastics
Makeup

Kitchen Things
Pan
Pot
Silverware
Plates
Bowls
Sponges

Misc.
Shower curtain and rings (dorms do not come with these!!!)
Ethernet Cable
Flash Drive
Alarm/Clock Radio battery powered
MacBook Pro and adapter
iPod
Bug Poison (I'm on the first floor and supposedly my dorm may have ants!)
Towels


Edit: I will be adding more to this list as I think of more things I'm going to need



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• Scrub-a-Dub Dub Scrubs! (medschoolcaribstyle.com) 

Some Breaking News: AUC is Tripling the Bandwidth!

Over the last month, many AUC students have taken to the boards of valuemd to vent out their internet-related grievances. The internet is slow, everything takes forever to load, and students are having trouble watching the Kaplan videos necessary for USMLE preparation.  Of course, as someone who will be arriving to the island in less than two months, I've been growing increasingly concerned over this situation, but I'm thankful to write that the issue has been resolved!

The administration heard the cries and responded.
They are upgrading the bandwidth from 10 mbps to 30 mbps!

Congrats to all those who petitioned and wrote in emails and complaints to the administration, now it makes life that much easier. I'm just happy to know my skype will be working fine once I get there.

Apparently I've got Required Reading

Ah yes. This brings back fond memories of summertime in high school.  Somehow we were always supposed to read like 4 books, fill out that huge packet of math problems and even write a short essay or two by the time school resumed in September. August was never a fun month for me.  But required reading in medical school when peeps haven't even set foot in a classroom in years? That's tough. I've been out of school for a year and half now and I can't even imagine what it's like for those people who are like 30, married with kids coming to the island who currently have a full-time job.... and... yea... I feel like a jackass.  After writing that last sentence, I realize I shouldn't even be complaining.

I stopped working and now I spend my free-time obsessing over fantasy football and go on TV marathons of 24 with my boyfriend. Yea... clearly far too busy to read one book spanning 304 pages. Nothing I can't get done in 2 months.

Cover via Amazon                                 

The book we have to read is called "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach and it looks like it has a lot of great reviews and is "uproariously funny." The author describes the productive roles cadavers have been used for and even includes a chapter examining cannibalism. Mmmm yummy.

Why require us to read this book? In conjunction with the anatomy department, the Student Judiciary Committee (SJC) believes this is a good way to help us get into the mindset of becoming medical school students. For many of us, this will be our  first encounter with a cadaver and the SJC hopes this book will be an enjoyable introduction to the privilege of dissecting a human body. Once classes begin, we will be broken down into small groups to discuss this book and participation will constitute a whopping 1% of our first block lab grade.

Related articles

• What I've gotten out of "Stiff" so far- 75 pages in (medschoolcaribstyle.com)

Some Info on AUC Housing and Dorm Pictures

The dorms, or I should say apartments since that is really what they are, are reserved for first semester and fifth semester medical students. Although, I have read recent accounts that because AUC has been increasing its class sizes, the school has been accommodating most of its first semester students and leaving the fifth semies out in the cold.

It cost $5400/semester for a single bedroom
and $4600/semester for a double

All rooms come with kitchen, bathroom, furnished living space, and bedroom. If you're interested in the floor plans you can go ahead and click here.

Going to med school is stressful enough, but going to med school in another country? Whoa. So the fact that you can have some piece of mind about where you're living more than justifies the price-tag of the dorms. Not to mention you can get to know the people you will be spending time with for the next two years. Other perks of the dorms include:
–24-hour power because the school has backup generators (the island sometime loses power)
–The school itself was built to withstand category-5 hurricanes (safe)
–The rooms are already wired for internet and cable tv (yay)
– And of course you have the ability to keep that AC on alllll day without having to worry about paying an expensive electric bill.

I'll be living on the first floor and I hear there are may be a couple problems. I've read that sometimes ants can invade so buying bug poison is a must and a simple solution to deal with this problem. Also, when it rains excessively, apparently dorms can have water seep in through the crack between the floor and the door.... so I may also need to invest in a stopper to go under my door. We'll see if this is an actual issue first.

I found some pictures. Courtesy of Benji Ho's Blog Diary of a Caribbean Med Student

Related articles

• Pictures of my AUC Dorm Room (medschoolcaribstyle.com)

I got a spot in the DORMS for first semester! And it's a single ;)

Disaster averted. There's nothing quite as nerve-wracking as thinking you have a place to live in a foreign country during medical school to only find out that may not actually be true.

Considering I was probably the first student accepted for the Jan 2011 class (I got accepted way back in July) I KNEW I was going to get a dorm and I figured might as well go all out and try to secure one of the few singles available to incoming students.  After I sent my housing request form in the beginning of August, I contented myself with the thought of having a nice, cool, ocean-view single room for my first semester of medical school.

Month after month passed and I soon realized I hadn't heard a word about my rooming situation on the island. So I called one of the AUC enrollment managers and asked when I would find out about housing and he told me I would hear back a month before classes begin. Alrighty then. I felt better and put the subject out of my mind.... but then I got the call two weeks ago.

A man from AUC called asking if I planned on living in the dorms.
"Uh...yes... I sent in my housing request form all they way back in August." Dread building.
"Oh, we never received your housing deposit of $1650."
WHAT?!?!?! (I didn't actually yell this) "I didn't even know I was supposed to send in a deposit."
"Did you ever get the email?"
Obviously hell no I didn't, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation, mister! And I get all my damn emails on my phone and I will not have my housing situation jeopardized because of the incompetency of you admissions people!!! "No I'm sorry, but I never got an email."
"Well we had sent you an email."
Well f-you, no you didn't because it would have been on my phone like every other email I've received from AUC! "Yeah, sorry, I never got an email."
"There are about 20 spots left so we will send you the email now and you need to try and send us your housing deposit as soon as possible."

With that I hung up the phone and I got the email one second later. I printed out the forms, filled them out and sent them out by the next day. Feeling angry about this situation I quickly took to my email and sent a message to the housing coordinator explaining that I applied for a single 4 months ago and no one ever sent me ANYTHING asking for ANYTHING.  She replied saying she understood and would wait for my deposit.

And yesterday I got an email from her. I got a room, and not only that.... it's a single,  room 110!!!!! wooooooo!!!! Back in paradise.

And again, disaster averted.

Exactly 50 more days till I move to St. Maarten

Time's been speeding up and I'm starting to feel nervous/excited for this new chapter in my life. I'm not happy about leaving my friends, family, and my boyfriend in particular, and I know once I get to the island, most of my life will probably be in a library or my room.... or perhaps on a nice beach..... no, no! In a library! Face in book, studying hard! Very hard!

The last few days on valuemd I've been reading that most students (past and present) consider the school (and all the Caribbean schools actually) to be pretty much a "do-it-yourself" type of institution.  However the more I read of other students experiences with the school, it seems that it isn't as do-it-yourself  as one might think. Of course you must go to lectures, lab, and get the slides, and you have to do plenty of studying on your own but after classes everyday there are TA tutoring sessions available to all the students to go over all the information of a class on that day. That seems like a nice resource to me, especially if I'm seriously struggling in a class, but I can't help but feel sick with the thought of going to class all day, then going to anatomy lab, and then going home to study, but only to return a couple hours later for these TA sessions, followed by even more studying at home. Yuck and I will have to do the same thing the following day FOR TWO YEARS.

Now I'm freaking out thinking about this.

 I'll be able to write more on the subject once I get there, but for now I'll just content myself for having another 50 days to relax and do what I want with my soon-to-be-gone freedom.

News Flash- AUC 2009 USMLE Step 1 Pass Rate is 95%

EDIT: New results for 2010 are out. Click here


Trying to make a decision on which Caribbean school is best for you? Why don't you check out these new AUC stats on the testing taking class of 2010.
It was announced at the AUC white coat ceremony this past weekend that the first time pass rate for USMLE Step 1 was 95% and 1/3 of AUC students scored a 99, which is truly remarkable.

(Note: 99 does not mean 99th percentile. When you receive the results of your exam you get a two digit and a three digit score. A 99 is the highest two digit score possible, but a student can score a 99/240 or a 99/265. Of course the latter score is near perfect, but both scores are outstanding. They use the two digit score to gauge how well a student does in comparison to the rest of the test takers for that particular exam. For example, someone can score a 230/96 one year, but someone else received a 230/99 a year before, meaning that although both test takers received a 230, the one with the 99 had the better score relative to  his or her  peers for that particular exam.)

Why is the USMLE so important? Well your scores in the step 1 and step 2 portions determines where you go and what you ultimately specialize in for residency. Here is a snippet from the 2009 results of the National Residency Match Program (NRMP):

"USMLE Step 1 scores are a measure of a student’s understanding of important basic science concepts and the ability to apply that knowledge to the practice of medicine.  Although such knowledge is only one facet of applicant qualifications considered by program directors in their selection process [for residency programs], it is the only one that is comparable across applicants, and available during the interview season and prior to the NRMP’s ranking deadline. Overall, U.S. senior applicants [US med school applicants] have mean USMLE Step 1 scores of 224.3 (s.d. = 19.6) and independent applicants [foreign med school applicants] have mean scores of 211.0 (s.d. = 19.7), both well above the minimum passing score of 182." 

 The correlation between the two digit score and the three digit score changes every year, but generally speaking a 99 is something around a 235 and above. If you do manage to score a 99 on the USMLE, you are competitive for most residency programs in the United States (plastic surgery and dermatology are outrageously competitive). For more info/stats on the USMLE and specialty residency programs, the information for the 2009 Residency Match had been compiled by the NRMP and is right here.

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• 2010 AUC Step 1 Statistics (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
• Revisiting the Idea that AUC is the Best Med School in the Caribbean (medschoolcaribstyle.com)

Stigma

Since learning of my acceptance to AUC, I find myself in a recurring situation.


I run into a friend, neighbor, or acquaintance who I haven't seen in months (sometimes even a year) and they ask what I'm up to. 
"I'm going to medical school in January," I tell them.
"Awesome!" and as certain as the rising of the sun,"where are you going?"
Without pause, I respond, "the American University of the Caribbean." 
Crickets.
"It's on St. Maarten." 


After crossing this threshold, I usually receive one of two responses: the first being some comment on the wonderfulness of the weather, the beauty of the island and/or how lucky I am to be studying on the beach. 


The second response usually involves the person taking a more direct approach and asking why I'm going to the Caribbean instead of the United States. I give my automated explanation- explaining that although I never applied to US med schools, I knew my undergrad GPA was not particularly competitive, and I didn't want to spend time and money going to a postbach program to get better grades or apply to med schools and have to wait another two years before I can start my education.


I could stop there. My response sufficiently answers the question, but somehow I never do. I always feel a need to defend myself under that familiar blank gaze. I go on to explain how Caribbean med schools are just like US schools and that I only live in the island for a short while and spend my last two years rotating at US hospitals. I explain that the thing that really matters for getting good residencies is the USMLE step scores, that I will become a doctor and end up in the same place in life regardless of the med school I attend (so long as it's legitimate), thus it doesn't really matter and I'll be as good a doctor as the next bright person.


At this point, I've long lost the interest of my company, and I realize that this particular person does not know about the medical school system or even really understands the process of becoming a doctor. They were just asking a question to simply placate a passing curiosity and don't actually care where I'm going to med school.


Even though I don't mind going to a Caribbean medical school myself (and I am really looking forward to it), why do I still find the need to defend myself? Will I have to explain my decision and bolster it for the rest of my life?  To the latter question, I honestly don't think so. Maybe in the beginning when I encounter other medical school students at home or in clinicals, it's a point of pride stating where you go to med school, but otherwise once you are in residency, I don't believe patients even ask. In reality, I think it's only other doctors and people in the medical field who will be the ones to pass judgement (if it happens at all). And even then, I believe it's for no greater reason than to be petty or to be primarily concerned with a superiority complex. I really don't know. 


What I do know is I don't mind that I will go to medical school in the Caribbean, I don't care that I'm going to a  school where "Caribbean" is in the name because AUC is giving me the shot at an MD that other schools probably wouldn't have. I know AUC will be the place where I will study hard and become a knowledgeable and compassionate doctor and that's all I'm interested in. The End. People who are overly concerned with names shouldn't waste their time becoming doctors anyway. 

Those in Favor of Removing Physics from med school prereqs say "Aye!"

This article completely boggled my mind and seriously made me wish I had known about this program when deciding my major in college. I bet I could have made the cutoff (slash not really): NY Times Article

"Required" Textbooks

Summer days are slowly drawing to a close, but the impending move to St. Maarten is not exactly looming in my mind. I sometimes even forget that I'm going to medical school all together, let alone in four months, but today I remember and today I decide to look over the required reading material for first semester students. 


The courses I'll be taking in Semester 1 include:
Anatomy/Embryology
Histology
Molecular and Cell Biology I


Total cost of books and other supplies: a whopping $737.73!


Naturally there is no way in hell I'm about to drop that much money for a single semester, so like any other intelligent and conscientious person, I defer to the knowledge and experience of my elders-- the basic science veterans on valuemd. After a quick post on what are the ACTUAL books needed to successfully pass first semester, I receive a number of replies all suggesting I invest in Netter's Atlas of Anatomy and/or BRS Anatomy. And THAT'S IT! Suddenly my ~$750 pricetag (who knows with shipping?) becomes a much more manageable $74 thanks to the used books on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com.


Woo la, magic.
~Andrea

Should I Pre-Study for Medical School?

I searched the boards of valuemd.com and came away with pretty much one answer: a resounding no.
I figured because I had four more months until med school it would probably be a good idea to get a jump on the extensive material. I have a lot of time on my hands and I'm not doing anything useful, but after reading the responses of many current and past AUC students, I realize I should just spend the remainder of my free time doing the things that I enjoy. It appears that once classes begin, there isn't much time for anything but studying and some people make the excellent point that if I start "prestudying" now, I will probably be burnt out from the material midway through block exams.

You can still become a doctor in the US without an Ultra High GPA and MCAT scores

In my four years of college, I know so many people who simply gave up their hopes for med school because they either didn't think their grades were good enough or the premed advisor convinced them that they weren't good enough. Even my own premed advisor told me there was little chance of me getting in. He never even told me about the real possibilities of Caribbean med schools until I directly asked him on my very last visit with him. I'm not sure if all premed advisors are like mine, but I know if there were a more optimistic and helpful advisor at my school, more kids who sincerely want to be doctors would be inclined to go the Caribbean route.

It's very difficult to get into American medical schools and it's true that you need some pretty great grades to get in. It's important to try to get the best students possible for the medical field, but what about all the other people like me? This is something I have wanted to do my whole life and because I messed up physics (which literally has absolutely nothing to do with medicine) I can't be admitted to a medical school? Sometimes the whole process baffles me. To get into medical school you must take a year of Biology (makes sense), General Chemistry (no sense), Organic Chemistry (okay), Physics (maybe if I was interested in rocket science...), and a semester of calculus (what?) and somehow the grades in these courses determine if you are suited for medicine (along with the MCAT score which tests your knowledge in all these subjects).  I have always done well in biology and organic chemistry, but math and equations.... not a strong suit of mine.  For those who have a real passion to go into medicine, who are good people and really invested in helping others, shouldn't they be allowed to study as well? I realize not all people can cut it with the rigors of med school and the stress of the boards, but there are many people who can do it and just aren't given a chance. And I think it's a bit of a crime to rob people of what they want by simply not telling them all their options.

Food for thought: Getting Rid of the Hard Sciences and the MCAT


Going to a Caribbean medical school is a great and viable option for students who truly want to become good doctors. It's easier to get into Caribbean medical schools--I got in with a 3.2 GPA and at 28O MCAT. And there are usually three start dates: September, January, May with rolling admission. You should apply 4-5 months ahead of the semester you wish to start, but I've heard of people applying two months before and getting in that upcoming semester. I actually applied 6 months before the January 2011 start date and I think I'm one of the first to be admitted for that class. After sending in your application, you normally hear back from the school in 2-6 weeks of your acceptance, denial, or interview. AUC normally does not interview their applicants, unless there are inconsistencies in the application. St. George's, Ross, and Saba all do interviews to determine acceptance. I only had to wait two weeks before I was contacted via email that I had been accepted into AUC and that I was granted an interview at St. George's.

In the Caribbean, it's 4 years of medical school and all the classes/textbooks are in English. You take the USMLE Step 1 after your second year just like in the US. Unlike US students however, Caribbean med students do their clinical rotations (years 3 and 4 of med school) at different hospital sites across the US which are affiliated with the school. So you only actually live on the island for 2 years and you can spend your second 2 years in the US at one or few of these affiliated hospitals. Of the "Big 4" St. George's has the most clinical sites with AUC and Ross closely behind and Saba has the least with 15. Another thing that you need to consider is whether or not your rotations are "greenbook" I'll get more into that in another post because it is important for residency programs.

After completing the 4th year of medical school, students then take step 2 of the USMLE and apply to residency programs in the United States. The USMLE is the great equalizer for medical students everywhere who wish to practice in the United States. It provides a great opportunity for people to show all that they have learned and to measure them against US medical students. So if you work hard in med schools and ace those board exams, it doesn't really matter which med school you're coming from-- you will be able to match and get the residency program you want. However if you are vying for a program in an ultra-competitive field like plastic surgery or neurosurgery, even Harvard grads are fighting amongst themselves to secure residencies of that caliber. Getting very competitive residency programs is hard coming out of the Caribbean, but it has been done before.

If there's a will there's a way.
Nothing truer has ever been said.

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