You know those days which are way too long for you to believe it was just one day? Well, yesterday in B7, that was our day. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. But oh boy, did I sleep well.
To begin, I should state that my peers and I feel relatively safe in Beersheva and Israel, and security events are extremely rare. The morning started off with an early 5:30am citywide wake-up call, in the form of rocket sirens. Now, the right thing to do is go towards a bomb shelter or eastern side of the apartment. The wrong thing to do is to pull the cover over your head and try to go back to sleep. Well, I did the wrong thing. But in my defense, I was in such a deep sleep, I integrated the siren into my dreams, and wasn't actually sure that any siren actually went off until I started getting text messages and emails.
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| Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, where a group of students spent a day during Cardiovascular Week. |
A short nap later, I woke up again to my alarm and got ready to go to Ashkelon for the day. This week is CV week. It's a special week dedicated to cardiac illnesses with special lectures on atherosclerosis, cardiac surgery, nutrition, etc. And for a few of us, we went to Ashkelon's Barzilai hospital. For those readers unfamiliar with Israeli geography, Ashkelon is on the coast, and the beautiful beach can be seen from the hospital. As well, we had an incredible day of lectures. In the first half, we spoke to a stroke patient and then looked at the angiography of the damaged blood vessel. After lunch, we got a detailed lesson on how to read an angiogram of a severe coronary heart disease (CHD) leading to a Myocardial Infarction. The groups of students were mixed up of MSIHers and Israeli Med students. It was a great way to learn a lot about cardiac illnesses, as well as to make friends with our Israeli counterparts.
We then ran back to BeerSheva after a long and educational day in Ashkelon for IHM Modules. The IHM modules are the introduction to International Medicine classes which first and second years take. In the final class of the Disaster Management module, the students were split up into different NGOs, such as the WFP, WHO, Media, Red Cross, and others. We then had to work together in a mock emergency in the country of “Exotica.” With curve balls being thrown in at every turn, it was a very educational game as we learned the capabilities and restrictions of an NGO. Of course, everyone left a winner.
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| The musical talent of MSIH at the Spring Formal |
The class ended at 7pm, and it was now time to run home and get ready for MSIH's first annual Spring Formal. Although many of us were hoping for the theme of “Bar Mitzvah” being that MSIH is 13 years old, the theme was MSIH Prom. So, all of us got dressed up and had a great meal along with some student led entertainment and dancing. The dancing continued until the restaurant closed at 1am, and the night was immensely fun; or at least, I remember it as fun based on those embarrassing pictures I keep getting tagged in on Facebook.
And there you have it: a day in Beer-Sheva. Started off with a little startle, continued with great Medical classes, then an International health project, and ending with a night of dancing and drinking. - March blogger of the month Justin Levinson