foreign language: June 2015

Friday, June 26, 2015

A reflection on the first year of medical school: A dedicated professor, small class size and themed dress by blogger of the month Maia Reiley

Today was our last exam. Goodbye to the 6^th floor of Soroka, goodbye to Caroline House, goodbye to the hallways of Deichman, until we start (or technically, continue) 2^nd year in the fall (well, late summer)! The last few weeks, we have been studying hematology with Dr. Moser. He is a very dedicated professor and also a bit of a hero. Shortly before we began our hematology block, he returned from a mission to supply medical care to people in Nepal who had been affected by the earthquake. One day during lunch, he was kind enough to give us a presentation on his time there and field all sorts of questions about the reality of being on a mission. When he is not giving a lecture, he often sits in on other professors so that he can use our classroom time more efficiently when we have a session with him. He is also a vocal supporter of problem based learning, so here is some visual documentation of students teaching students.

One of the nice things about having a small class is that when you walk out of an exam, there is always someone waiting outside. Although most people will say they don't like to talk about the exam once it is over, I think we all benefit from a feeling of solidarity. Even if you are the first one out of the room, there is usually a professor or a proctor who will ask you how it went, what your next block is, or where you are going for the summer. Generally, we all wait outside and chat, then head off to celebrate or pick up whatever we dropped when we entered exam mode. Some people basically had their bags packed and headed to the airport after the test, so today's post-exam hangout doubled as a time to give out hugs and promises to catch up when we see each other in August.

At some point during the last semester, the class go-getters decided that we should have themed dress up days. Yes, this is medical school. Obviously, for our hematology final, we were all supposed to wear red (get it, red like blood?)

Here we are, a little over ¼ of the way to being licensed doctors...

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Taking time to enjoy the sights, and the cats, amidst the crunch of finals, by Blogger of the month Maia Reiley

That dazed feeling of being nearly done with 11 months of what you always wanted to do…

We have one more week of class before our final final, and I know that the collective sigh of relief our whole class breathes will be tempered, at least from my corner, by a tinge of sadness. I will be grateful not only that it will be over, but also that it will have happened.

Back to the present moment, though. It is springtime in Beer Sheva (well, high summer by any normal person's thermometer), and there are a thousand kittens to mark the season. Leaving the hospital, going to the SuperSal or the vegetable stand, I will infallibly be surprised by some tiny cats making tentative steps from under a ramp or behind a railing. This type of unsolicited cuteness exponentially increases the amount of time I spend running errands.

Here is an example:

In other news, we took a trip North and saw some very pretty sights, including the Baha'i gardens in Haifa and the ruins of Caesarea. Although I love living in Beer Sheva and the unique perspectives it offers, seeing a beautiful city on a hill overlooking the ocean reminds me that I eventually want to move back near the water.

As an illustration of why, here's a throwback picture from Passover. We took a few buses down to Dahab on the Sinai coast to learn to scuba dive. The Sinai is basically a barren wasteland, in which I wouldn't want to wander for 40 minutes, let alone 40 years, but the Red Sea is a miraculous paradise full of beautiful life forms. As this year wraps up, I am already looking forward to returning to the Sinai and planning new adventures in this amazing part of the world.

But for now, back to the coagulation cascade.

Monday, June 8, 2015

Teratoma's, Trips, and Theme Parties, by blogger of the month Shauna Dunton

I held a teratoma in my hands and there was hair and teeth inside of it. Did I get your attention?

For some of us non-science majors like myself, Pathology lab was the first time we were able to touch and inspect human organs, and because it was a pathology lab, we were able to see different manifestations of cancers, hemorrhages, and ischemia. I think our class was most impressed and intrigued by the organs with teratoma’s that were passed around. I find it so important to be able to shorten the time gap between learning material from a book or a lecture, and being able to see first hand manifestations of what you are learning, and this class really did an excellent job of that.

Our class recently embarked on an organized trip to Sde Boker where we visited a satellite school of Ben Gurion University, called the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, along with Ben Gurion’s hut and his final resting place overlooking Zin Valley. I think we all felt it was important, as recent residents of southern Israel, to understand the vision Ben Gurion had for populating the South and also to know something about the research that is going on in this area. Yet, if these things don’t intrigue you, the views of Zin valley alone were certainly worth the short bus ride to Sde Boker. As a resident of Beer Sheva, I often don’t feel like I am living in the Negev desert, except when there is a sandstorm of course, and it’s always humbling to see the nature that defines the area in which you live.

March is a very exciting month at MSIH, and although I promised more “from the classroom” material I must also gush about the things going on outside the classroom. First of all, Purim was last week and our class celebrated it in full style at the main campus’s purim festival while stuffing our faces with Hamentaschen, which are (traditional for Purim) triangular shaped cookies filled with dates, figs, apricots, chocolate and sometimes even Halva. The costumes were quite extraordinary and MSIH was aptly represented as well.

Every year, MSIH has a formal called MSIH prom, complete with a full dinner, photo booth and open bar and this year it was spectacular. All four years of MSIH were together at last (the fourth years have just recently come back from being abroad for their global heath rotations) and we were able to mingle and dance the night away in what was an unforgettable night.