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Goodbye, Med School!

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“I am going to burn my white coat.”

That was Ben’s half-joking answer to my question about his plans for his short white coat, the daily uniform of med students that distinguishes them from long-coat-wearing doctors. I was thinking of making a shadowbox, but OK.

The fact that we were even having that conversation means that MED SCHOOL IS FINALLY OVER!

I am not a fan of writing in all-caps, but some things warrant digital yelling, people.

Three and a half years. Seven moves. Twenty-five day-long tests. Five life-changing tests. Countless flights. Eight hospitals or clinics. Two countries. Three states. And a partrige in a pear tree… Make that an iguana in a flamboyant tree! That (and a whole lot of prayer) is what it took for Ben to finish medical school.

Add an agonizing application process (so many decisions!) and nine interviews, and you get the residency match process. Match Day 2019 turned out succesfully with Ben getting residency at his top choice. He’ll be working in Phoenix for the next three years. We’re home! Every day, we thank God and are grateful that it’s over.

What a ride!

If you aren’t familiar with the med school process, here’s what it looks like:

-4 years of undergrad with pre-med emphasis. Ideally includes volunteer work, research, clinical experience. Thinking you’re going to die yet knowing med school is exponentially more difficult.

We are still friends with Ben’s lab partner!

-Take the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test)

Study, study, study… And check out that green carpet

-Write a stellar application, apply, interview.

Interview for AUC in LA

-Year One: Classes. Lots of tests, anatomy lab, studying until you fall asleep in your desk. All-nighters because you get home from studying at 3 AM to find your wife forgot she borrowed your key, and locked the door, and went to bed (sorry).

Ben in his lab coat

-Year Two: Classes. More tests, harder subjects, memorizing the molecular structure and chemical behavior of every drug ever. Cramming an impossible amount of information into your brain. Comprehensive exam.

-Step One: First licensing exam. Eight-hour test over everything learned in the past two years.

Ben was medic at a camp after Step 1

– Year Three: Clinical rotations, which means spending long days at hospitals and clinics learning the ropes of various specialties.

-Step 2: A two-part test over two days on both clinical knowledge and clinical skills. Most students have to travel to take this test.

-Year four: Slightly more humane work hours. Basically paying to work in hospitals and clinics. Getting to participate more in deliveries and surgeries. Lots of seminars. Senioritis. Agonizing decision about which specialty to pursue.

-Applying for residency: Long application followed by applying to up to 100 programs.

Ben after finishing his applications

-Interviews: Weed through invitations, pick your favorites and attend as many as you can afford/convince your supervisor to give you days off to attend. Travel the country. Attend fancy dinners.

-The Match: Rank your favorite residency programs. Hope your favorites rank you high in their list. Bite your nails as a computer algorithm matches you to a program.

-Match Day: Best day or worst day of your life.

-Graduation: Finishing med school, burning your short white coat (apparently) and getting that $250,000 piece of paper that proves you can legally slice people open, or give out narcotics, or remove organs.

-Rest of your life: Continuing education, plus saving lives and hopefully finding the cure for cancer.

Ben actually managed to finish a four-year med school program in three and a half years, which meant skipping the life-giving breaks between clinical rotations and jumping into each new challenge without time to recuperate from the demanding schedule. He did take some time to study for Step 1 (an eight-hour exam over 2 years of information), but not much. Taking the test early meant he had a rare opportunity to start his third year of school early, which meant finishing fourth year early and matching in 2019. A lot of people who started in September 2015 with him will have to match in 2020, thanks to their clinical rotation placement and its schedule, which students don’t have a lot of control over. So we are very thankful for the way things worked out!

We had to fill out an alumni survey at our alma matter’s homecoming celebration this weekend. When he came to the “title” section, it was with great flourish that Ben skipped over the “Mr.” box and checked “Dr.” He’s waited a long time to introduce himself as Dr. Johnson.

First Day of 20th Grade

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It’s that time of year…. you know, when all the moms are posting cute photos of their kids holding Pinteresty signs announcing what grade they are about to begin. Not to be outdone, I was sure to take a photo of my (very cooperative) husband on his first day of med school year four:

 

 

Folks, this is the last first day of school for him. Ever. Twenty-plus years of school is enough. Next year, I’ll have him post for a “first day of work as a doctor” photo. But I probably won’t ask him to hold a sign.

I decided to find his other “first day of school” photos. I took them every year, usually chasing him out the door at the last minute because I just remembered I wanted a picture. His first year of medical school, we actually got a pretty nice photo for the first day of school, which was his white coat ceremony:

 

 

I’m not positive which photo is the “first day” photo from med school year 2, but here’s a photo from that year:

 

 

You can see Kito is enjoying her favorite perch, which is always behind Ben in whatever chair he happens to be sitting in.

Here’s last year, the third year of medical school, with his white coat freshly ironed on his way to his first family medicine rotation at the clinic:

 

 

And, of course, I can’t forget to do a throwback to his first day of college. This picture is provided by his Aunt Barb, who dropped him off at school not long after he arrived in Arizona from Tanzania.

 

 

Hard to believe that was almost ten years ago, in 2009!

So, what does 20th grade look like for Ben? Well, for the first four weeks, he has a subinternship rotation in internal medicine. He works 60-some hours a week over six days. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty sad to lose that Saturday with him. BUT- they aren’t requiring any overnight on-call shifts, so that is a major benefit. He doesn’t get “paternity leave,” since he’s a student, but fortunately he can take a couple of days when the baby is born. I’m hoping the baby decides to make his grand debut on one of Ben’s days off. Baby is due September 26, during his last week on this rotation, We’ll see if he comes on time or early. Or late– who knows?

 

 

After that, we’re not sure what Ben’s schedule will be. I figure that all of the rotations will probably be pretty intense, but at this point it’s just about getting through everything until April, when he’ll finish his last rotation. He just took the 9-hour USMLE Step 2 exam two weeks ago, which means no massive exams to study for this year! Phew!

 

 

After so much school, it’s hard to believe Ben’s almost done. It will be pretty weird to have neither of us in school for the first time ever! But it will also be pretty awesome.

This is the Life!

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Island jeep, surfboards, tropical French countryside. This is the Caribbean life, and we love living it.

Most days are filled with studying for my husband, Ben and his friend Matt. They work hard at medical school, and were both selected as teacher’s assistants in Anatomy for good grades. Their life mainly consists of flashcards, lectures, and tests. But there are days, the best days, when they have a free afternoon.

This is one of those days. As we usually do when Ben and Matt have a break, we wax down our surfboards and get ready to ride the waves.

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We’re rolling down the road with the Caribbean trade winds tousling our hair. Matt’s new (make that old– really, really old) jeep is topless, and I’m amazed to realize how much more I notice without walls and windows to restrict my view of the sights around me. I’m feeling a little squished in the back seat with the surfboards taking up most of the space, but there’s no way to feel claustrophobic in this open jeep. I cling to the side for dear life and lean out of the car a little, enjoying the breeze and the floral scents around me. I jump back a little as a motorcyclist, breaking the world record for the longest wheelie ever held, goes zipping by us on the center line.

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I look behind me, where the wall of foaming water is raging toward me. I feel a little vulnerable way out here in the middle of the water on my board, but my nervousness turns to adrenaline as I face front and paddle like a maniac. I feel the foam first, hear the roar of energized water, and then I’m shooting forward like a rocket. I gather my wits and push myself up to my feet. I balance myself and smile. The reef below me seems to rush below my board. The wave slows suddenly, and the board drops away beneath my feet. I’m plunged into the warm tropical waters below, and I come up coughing and gasping and ready for more.

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I’m in the back seat of the jeep again. It’s a terrifying yet exhilarating experience, sitting in this little island car with no seat belt and barely any seat, for that matter. But I love it. Up the road we go– people, houses, and animals seem to fly by. Ben and Matt joke that driving here is like a video game; you have to dodge the pedestrians, potholes, cars and animals that jump out in front of you at every turn. I watch as the scenery around us changes. We go through the hills, where the goats and cows chew lazily, watching the flurry of human activity on the road. We go past little houses, painted powder blue and pink with neat, white trim. We zip through Grand Case, where women in bright dresses and men with dreads chat in French on the porches of stores and cafes. We crawl through the traffic of Marigot, inching past quaint 19th-century storefronts. Ahead, we’ll pass the oceanfront neighborhoods of the rich and famous.

I bite into the heavenly sweetness of a peach brioche. Stopping at Seraphina’s, our favorite French patisserie, is a surf day tradition for the three of us. Ben and Matt opted for chocolate twists, their usual favorite. We watch the boats on Marigot’s docks bob up and down in the water. In the distance, Anguilla’s long coastline hides the horizon, where the sun will soon set on our afternoon of freedom.

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White Coat Ceremony at AUC

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For a medical student, college graduation is just one ceremony in a series of celebrations. One of the most memorable events for a doctor-hopeful is the white coat ceremony. At this ceremony, the brand-new, straight-from-the box medical school student takes the Hippocratic Oath and his or her white coat.

Me and Ben at the cermony
Me and Ben at the ceremony

The Hippocratic Oath is as follows:

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug. I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.

Third Century fragment of the Hippocratic Oath
Third Century fragment of the Hippocratic Oath Photo Source

The Oath has been used for many centuries and in many places around the world. It originated in ancient Greece and was named after Hippocrates. You can read the original version of the Oath here if you are interested.

Byzantine manuscript of the Hippocratic Oath

Byzantine manuscript of the Hippocratic Oath Photo Credit Here

Every incoming student at American University of the Caribbean participates in the white coat ceremony. New classes enter the school each trimester. Ben’s class has about 250 students. After a welcome address from the president of the student government association, the introduction of faculty and staff, a few award presentations, the introduction of the honor society, and keynote address, the students stood to take their pledge.

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After the pledge, each student was called up to the stage, one by one, to receive his or her white coat and shake hands with the M.D. Chair and Assistant M.D. Chair.

Ben receives his white coat
Ben receives his white coat

You may notice from the photo that Ben’s coat is much shorter than Dr. McCarty’s coat. The student coat is, in fact, called the “short white coat.” Traditionally, medical students wear a short coat until they earn the title of Doctor. During medical school, Ben will wear his coat daily during lab period, when learning how to interact in a clinical setting, and when doing medical service in the community with the school.

American University of the Caribbean students at the white coat ceremony
American University of the Caribbean students at the white coat ceremony

After the ceremony, we were all shuttled to a classy catered dinner at Puerto Cupecoy, a shopping/dining area at the edge of Simpson Bay Lagoon.

Ben and his friend Matt at the celebration dinner after the ceremony
Ben and his friend Matt at the celebration dinner after the ceremony. Please appreciate Matt’s tie.

I’m so proud of Ben! This is a big step. The next milestone is far down the road, and it’s time to work hard and study.