Physicians for Human Rights, by blogger of the month, Sam Nesemann

This past weekend my roommate, Kyle, and I went to the West Bank to shadow doctors working with PHR.  PHR stands for Physicians for Human’s Rights.  They travel to the West Bank and Gaza providing healthcare for people who are underserved.  The experience was incredible.  We all met outside Tel Aviv and drove in in two vans.  We first arrived at a sort of municipality building and were introduced to the town.  We then drove to a school where each doctor set up in a room to see patients.  Drugs were brought in the van and a pharmacist set up on the second floor.  I followed an internist from Belfast up to the third floor with a translator who I had just found out knew of my sister as they have a mutual friend from University in Scotland—small world.  The cases we saw varied from normal tonsillitis to an 8 year-old boy with blood pressure of 160/80, and a young girl with no eye-brows, eye-lashes, and losing more hair with normal thyroid hormones.  Too many people to see set up shop outside the rooms and a few tried to push their way in each time the doors were opened.  At one point the Mayor came in to personally thank the Doctor and have a picture taken with them.  I don’t know if he did it with every doctor, but I would assume so.  The entire time, a guard from the town was helping us with translating more cultural nuances, and advocating a bit for himself by asking for medication for a peptic ulcer in a seemingly half-joking way.  We worked for several hours without a second for a break.  I helped where I could (which wasn’t too much since I’m still a first-year) and shadowed the rest of the time.  Once we were finished we headed back to the municipal building and had a dinner with all the doctors and several people from the town.

The experience was an incredible opportunity to get a taste of a global health experience.  I HIGHLY recommend to any future students to jump on the opportunity to volunteer with PHR.  - blogger of the month, Sam Nesemann

Fiddler on the Roof, by blogger of the month Sam Nesemann

The other week we went to see a production of Fiddler on the Roof that two of our classmates were in.  It was a fun time and a good showcase of the amount of time you have to do things beyond medicine.  Medical school isn’t a walk in the park, but it isn’t a death sentence either.  You have time, if you use it wisely, to explore hobbies and passions other than medicine.  I’d argue that it helps keep you balanced and allows you to learn more easily.

In global health we are presenting the research that we did last semester.  The presentations were good to solidify the knowledge we had gained and a great opportunity to practice advocating (which, as future global health physicians, we will probably be doing quite a lot). Our instructor can be tough, but she has an incredible wealth of experience, knowledge, and skill for us to learn from.  Overall, second semester is moving faster and there is more to learn, but it’s still a really great experience.  Plus, you are in Israel, which, to me, is an incredible bonus.  - blogger of the month, Sam Nesemann

"Every day is Valentine's Day at MSIH", by blogger of the month Shauna Dunton

Valentine's Day

The middle of February marks our 6th month of attending the Medical School for International Health, of living in Be’er Sheva, Israel, of knowing and growing very close with our classmates, and of being far away from our loved ones at home.

Our time here is truly flying by.  We have learned so much and we have gotten so close to one another in such a short time.  In fact we have become so close as a class that we find any excuse to spend more time with each other which is quite incredible considering we spend eight hours a day with each other at school already, not to mention that most of us live together. For example, we recently celebrated Valentines day together as a class by having a “breakfast for dinner” Valentines Day Feast complete with card signing for each and every student in our class. There were heart shaped pancakes, french toast dyed pink, and loads of loving glances at one another as you might expect at such an event.

In other news, this past Thursday, two of our classmates played in Light Opera Group of the Negev’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. It was an amazing production and about half of our class came out to support them in this great endeavor. The acting and the dancing were spot on and I know we’ve all got those catchy tunes still stuck in our heads a week later.

Fiddler on the Roof

Last but not least, on Monday night a group of woman from all years of MSIH put on a spectacular production of the Vagina Monologues. I had watched a production of the monologues performed at Colgate University where I went for undergrad, but as another student in our program pointed out, it was quite powerful to see this production done by an array of multi-talented women that are all going to become doctors.

Vagina Monologues

You might think at this point in my blog post that we may not realize that we are here to study medicine, but believe me, we do! I will elaborate on all the things we are doing in the classroom in my next blog post.

Until then, lehitra’ot!                                                 - Shauna Dunton, 1st year blogger of the month