So much to tell since so much time has past since my last correspondence.

First off, I am now a third year medical student, not entirely cleanly, yet here nonetheless. Fatima has a different method of handling those that had difficulty academically. You may remember that my first school, Far Eastern University, had tests called removals. Removals are offered the week after finals, and usually encompass even more than the finals the person just (probably) failed. Those tests are make and break, that if you pass, you get promoted by the Promotion Board.

Well, here at Fatima, the system is a little different. They also offer removal exams, but only after the student in question takes the "remedial" class. Remedials are very intensive 8-hour classes, between 2-5 days longs, offered for most of the classes given during the semester. After all the remedials have been given, the final week the removal exams are given. I very much prefer this method since a doctor will review the material, and then highlight what he/she considers important. The downside is that it can make your summer disappear, since each of the majors are a week long, with the minors being 2-3 days each. Since we have 7 major subjects, and 5 minors, if you did very poorly, there would be no vacation at all.

So how did I do?

Well, I am extremely proud to say that I passed Pathology. Although this class is very intellectually important for practice of medicine, it holds particularly heavy weight to me due to the fact that the chairwoman and occasional lecturer was Dra. Magkasi, one of my father's teachers for whom he has utmost respect. My dad might question why I transferred out of his alma mater, but since Dra. Magkasi is chair of pathology here, he absolutely does not doubt the quality nor the difficulty of this core science. In all, I cleanly passed Pathology, Medicine I [aka physical diagnosis], Surgery I, Family Medicine/Community Health [aka biostatistics], Emergency Medicine, Neurology, and Psychiatry II. I was up for remedials in Pediatrics, Pharmacology, Parasitology, Microbiology, and Lab Diagnosis.

I got lucky. Most of my remedial classes were scheduled for the back end of summer vacation, so for 5 weeks I got to go home!

And when I got there, it was time to move! That's right: Christine moved into a house located literally 6 doors down from my parents. This is probably the best thing to happen since my mom watches my two wild sons during the day, so mornings and evenings do not involve nearly as much driving and transferring as was the case when we lived in Lehigh Acres.

An older house, it needed some renovation, which was in process before I had even started finals. The tough stuff, like tiling and plumbing, was handled by friends of family, while I got to do the painting. Then we were ready to move. Thanks to some incredible help from Donald and Co., we were able to get the bulk of things from Lehigh to North Fort Myers. It was still in process of getting settled when I left.

And how my sons are growing. Although the moving and construction process took a lot of time (which is why I didn't get to see all of you while I was home; sorry :-(), I did get to spend quite a few days with my boys, just having a good time. I am glad to say that they are both fanatical seafarers, and would choose boating and fishing over eating if given the opportunity. With occasional attitude melt-downs, they seemed a little more human, but for the most part, I had a wonderful time with my heaven-sent angels. I missed them from the second we parted.

Back at school, I was neck-deep back into classes. They proved to be a very, very good review, and I attended some remedials that I was not required to simply for the review. It is all very pertinent for the US board exams.

The other thing I got to do was take part in 2 more medical missions. The feeling of exuberance has not gone away; if anything, it has grown in intensity. Being home, I missed the 2 surgical missions that handled circumcisions, but between being with my boys or trimming little boys, I chose the former with no regrets. I actually made a YouTube video of our medical missions. You can see it here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CxHh86J2zKk&mode=user&search=

On to other news. . . .

I now have a new room mate. He's another Fil-Am in whom I have taken personal interest. Not because of his dedication, or his sense of humor, or his work-out routine, but because he is my brother. Yes: Christopher pulled the trigger and decided to move here to study. He is now enrolled in and taking an excellent preparatory undergraduate course called Medical Technology. I've done my best to minimize the cultural shocks, but to learn how to swim you have to get wet, and so it is with Chris. I am sure he has his own stories to tell, but I will say that I can only laugh with empathy when he relates these experiences to me. You can reach him through email at Christopher@caangay.com.

Having him around is a surprising emotional booster for me. First of all, even though we are related, I really didn't know him that well. We hadn't lived in the same house for over 10 years. With him being a mere 23, much has changed emotionally in that time. His sense of humor parallels mine, so we can laugh at many of the same things. Since we are both still alive, that means we either get along very well, or have well-built locks on the doors. Just having family around has helped me as well. I'll let you know how we are doing as the year progresses. You need to encourage him to start his own journal as well.

This year will probably not be much better when it comes to regular correspondence. I have been told 2nd year was the toughest part of medical school. That is only true until you get into 3rd. At this school, third year is divided into the medical and surgical semesters. We start with the medical. We have 17 classes consisting of 42 hours of classroom time, with another 6 hours of scheduled ward time a week. This is only Monday - Friday. My classes are:

* Rehabilitation medicine * Endocrinology * Communicable diseases * Legal Medicine/Medical Juris * Radiology * Cardiology * Hematology/Oncology * Clinical Neurology * Pediatrics III * Rheumatology * Gastroenterology * Psychiatry III * Applied Nutrition * Pulmonology * Dermatology Nephrology * Family Medicine and Community Health III (epidemiology) * Ward

Just the list was bad to read. That's my week. Even worse is reading. There are primarily 4 books, each about 4,000 pages, that we will finish before we are done. The physicians will recognize these books - Harrison's, Nelson's, Schwartz's, and Williams. Ugh! Those last two will be read during the surgical semester, but it is still a lot since those are just the primary texts, and does not include specialty info and journals.

Considering the amount, it will still make for a very interesting time. We are now beyond the raw memorization into the recognition and analysis, which I find fascinating. I can only hope I can keep up.

I will be talking to you later. Please drop me a line and let me know how much has changed that I wasn't a part of.

Ephraim

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