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| View from the sixth floor of Soroka Medical Center. |
Four months after arriving in Beer Sheva, I have begun to appreciate a patch of greenery in the desert. This green oasis exists within the borders of the Soroka Medical Center campus. Soroka is unlike any hospital I am familiar with back home in New York City. Other, more familiar hospitals are comprised of one or two vertical buildings with different wings and extensions added over the years.
In contrast, Soroka is a sprawling, beautiful campus, similar to a compact college. There are various small buildings, each with a different purpose, providing different services. The courtyard connecting these buildings is covered with trees and green grass. Real flourishing grass. Not the astroturf which “grows” in front of my new apartment building in the Dalet neighborhood.
Our days in medical school are long, occasionally ending as late as 5:00pm or 7:00pm. It is refreshing to step out onto the beautiful green lawns of the hospital campus to absorb the sun’s rays, and appreciate the scenery. The lawns of Soroka reveal a microcosm of the diversity that makes Beer Sheva and the Negev region of Israel so unique. At any given moment, one can see patients and loved ones, doctors, nurses, students, Jews, Bedouins, and one or two Beer Sheva cats, all enjoying the fertile relief of this lush spot in the desert. Patients on stretchers are being transported, hospital employees drive carts of freshly laundered sheets, and students bike from one building to another.
Sometimes, the floor to ceiling windows in our classroom are open, allowing warm breezes and streaming sunlight from this beautiful green patch in the desert to infiltrate our room. There is a communal sigh of disappointment when the professor closes the window and curtains to make it easier to view PowerPoint slides.
The weather in Beer Sheva has been beautiful these past few weeks. The temperature has fallen from the painfully hot days of July and August to comfortable temperatures in the mid 20s°C or high 70s°F for Americans. I know that cold weather awaits me when I travel home this winter, and I will have to reacquaint myself with down coats, boots, and gloves. Even in Beer Sheva there has been a change. I felt raindrops falling on me in the desert for the first time. For now, however, I will continue to enjoy the warm Beer Sheva sun from the green grass of the Soroka Medical Center. - Britany Weissman, blogger of the month
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