on the road again

wow. now that's what I call a blogging hiatus. so hopefully I have been in touch with most people who regularly read this blog so you haven't gone the last three month's thinking that I have died.

in fact, the last few months have been incredibly exciting. first of all, the south africa trip was amazing. it was such a great experience working with all of the ADP staff again. for both trips, the volunteers and staff of Atlantis ADP served as our hosts and rapidly became like our family while we were in South Africa. in addition to working with the ADP staff, it was a humbling experience to return this year as a "senior" participant and be somewhat responsible for a team of first-year medical students. in some ways, it was interesting to see if an extra year of preclinical education would truly make that much of a difference in the clinical setting. I was happy to discover that the extra year of studying had some benefit - more so clinical decision making rather than the "absolute diagnosis" category. working with first-years was also humbling in this respect because as one of the seniors in the group, I felt like there was a certain level of expectation for us to answer all the questions. evaluating over twenty kids each, I quickly remembered how to say "I don't know." in addition to the clinical challenges, this trip was also a great exercise in teamwork. not only did we double the size of the group on this trip, but we also added four dental students, colleagues that specialize in a subject that we as medical students are more or less in the dark.

so, upon returning to kirksville, we immediatey began our last quarter of preclinical education. it was basically a whirlwind tour all of the organs in the head. I would be lying if I said I took away something concrete from either the ophthalmology or otorhinolaryngology courses, but I think I'm going to attribute that to the fact that we would have about four hours of one subject each day. in my opinion, that is a lot of any one subject when the weather is telling me to go fishing. regardless, classes went well and I am proud to say that the preclinical portion of my medical education is officially over.

in a slightly related topic, just as the quarter ended, I got another useful tidbit of feedback. USMLE scores were reported a whole week ahead of schedule. as soon as I found out that they were released, every trip to my mailbox was like a death march. I can honestly say that I almost vomited in the hallway several times as the days went by. fortunately, when the envelope finally appeared in my mailbox, it brought some good news. I was absolutely relieved to find out that I passed. it was a slightly mixed moment because I wish that I had done slightly better, but on a deeper level I was happy just to have passed. so, now I'm just waiting to hear about the COMLEX.

so, that pretty much leads up to the last couple of days. even though I have been packing for the past three weeks, I was shocked when I was confronted with the mounds of clothes, books and knick-knacks that were still loose in my apartment. fortunately, I had most of this past week to organize everything before comprehensive testing on thursday. despite that fact, it still took me well into friday night to get packed and it wasn't until this afternoon that I was ready to ship off. I can't even count how many times I said "I just don't understand where all this crap came from." other events of note include the fantastic surprise birthday party my classmates threw for me on thursday night. it was great to see everyone one last time before we all headed out our separate ways.

now, I'm in wichita, kansas after getting out of kirksville a little behind schedule. I figured that six hours of driving would be enough for today and I will make up time tomorrow. if everything goes well, I will be able to make it to new mexico by tomorrow and then have a short drive to arizona on monday.