Renaissance

Greetings, happy campers! This post follows a long delay in posting, which seems to happen to me after every time I post. I appear only to have the stamina and fortitude to post once every 4 months, on average. Ah, well, take what you can get.

I'm coming to you live from New York City - Queens, actually. Following my 16 months on the island of Dominica, and 3 months in Miami, Florida, I spent a blissful 5 months at home in Panama City, Florida, preparing for and taking the US Medical Licensing Exam (Step 1), and then waiting for my clinical rotations to begin. The test went very well, for those of you that had not heard, and I nearly achieved my personal, if slightly unrealistic, goal for the exam. Following the receipt of my score, I languished in self-satisfaction as I awaited my first clinical assignment.

Lo and behold, I received the assignment on December 16th: Obstetrics & Gynecology at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens, New York, to begin on January 3rd of 2011. Doing the math for you, that left me 18 days to report to New York for vulgar vulvar duty. In addition, due to the holiday interceding between my assignment notification and start date, there has been a significant amount of confusion and consternation just in getting up here and being ready for work on the 3rd. Add in the inclement weather the Northeast has been hit with recently, and I had a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, good friend and former Notre Dame roomie of mine Danny Wiederkehr lives in New York and has allowed me to crash at his place for a short time while I locate and secure slightly more permanent living arrangements.

New York, thus far, has not failed to disappoint - cold temps, gruff cabbies, delicious accents, dirty subways, and even a subway prophet who preached at no one in particular.

That's all I've got for you, now, campers. I'll let you know how the first week of OB/GYN goes. Until then, take care!