Well, to let everyone know what is going on we are going to leave this visually beautiful island in 4 days. BOO HOO!! I, we, feel sad in some respects such as we will miss the stunning waters, beach fun, excellent French food and our new friends we have made; the rest, however, can stay on this island forever and I will never miss it one bit (Many long stories that I will not elaborate about now).
We will be taking Delta Airlines back to Denver this Sunday through Atlanta and land in Denver at about 11:15pm. We plan to relax the next day, maybe swim in the pool and do some shopping at a Mall with good discounts and decent quality. But the next day--WoooHooo we are going to take the kids to Six Flags Elitch Gardens in Denver. They are really excited about riding some roller coasters and watching some of the shows.
The next morning we are going to take the AMTRAK (California Zephyr) train to Grand Junction through the Rocky Mountains. It's an 8 hour train ride but it should be fun for the kids, very scenic, and leave indelible memories for all of us. It also only costs $129 for all 4 of us which is hundreds cheaper than airfare or one-way car rental.
We plan to stay in Junction for a few days. I will visit St. Mary's Hospital to say Hello to old friends and to also say Goodbye to one of the most amazing physicians I have ever known, Ann Olewnik, M.D., an incredible neonatologist/clinician, and fantastic person. She is retiring.
I will also see an old Friend and Teacher Extraordinaire Forbes Davidson who was instrumental in the realization of my dream of becoming a physician. I will hopefully also speak to the premedical students and answer any questions they may have on the trials and tribulations of medical school in the Caribbean and/or medical school in general.
We also have many other friends that we want to stop by and say hello to also. All of whom have been extremely supportive in our endeavor.
From there we will try to make our way to my parents house in Emmett, Idaho to see them and let their grandchildren enjoy their company. The kids are very excited about possibly getting the chance to shoot one of Grandpa's guns at his target range. I'm not sure where we will go from there but by then I should have my USMLE score back and know whether or not I will be able to go to England for the summer or have to continue studying to retake the darn thing. The USMLE was not a fun nor enjoyable experience: Only 350 questions to prove if you are worthy; only 350 questions to show if you learned something in five semesters or not. Yikes!!!!
If that works out then their should be an available Clinical spot for me in Bakersfield, CA at Kern Medical Center in October. There we would not have to move for the rest of my clinicals and I would be able to finish my MD degree in one place. Going to Kern allows me to stay in the western US for practicing medicine--what type of medicine I'm not sure of yet but Emergency Medicine is appealing because of the variety of patients and the NO CALL factor. I have already had call for 8 years in Echocardiography and I am not very fond of it. I would rather Work Hard and Relax Hard. But we'll see.
Let me apologize for not being very good at writing often. I have been very busy and blogging is not a priority; especially when a lot of the things I would have like to have talked about were negative things against the school and the school is fond of retribution. Our new dean has actually been ruled on as having falsely and maliciously destroyed a physicians career because this doc was questioning where our Dean had placed over 2 million dollars in donations. Another story for another time. Interestingly, I do have the actual court proceedings and rulings for this Dean. (He He) He has already threatened to "Dismiss me from school" if I chose to further investigate some improper, illegal, and unethical collections of certain funds. Nice guy huh?????!!!!!!!
Anyway, I will write you again soon as to what is going on.
Ciao for now.
