Coming To America... III

III. THE CRISIS

Please settle down quickly everyone. Dr. Tariq was ready to hand out what he called an assessment test, the purpose of which was two-fold. It would provide the staff with a good idea of each individual's current medical knowledge while alerting the students themselves to how much preparation they would need in order for them to ace the board exams when the time came. I became slightly nervous and from the looks of others I wasn't the only one. I'm not sure I'm ready for this, remarked Lori. Me too, responded Eleni. We each received a test booklet and a pencil and were permitted to begin immediately. After this would be lunchtime. Opening my test I shut out every other thought, said a silent prayer and filled my name. Then I started reading the questions and was no longer aware of anything or anyone else in the class. An hour and fifteen minutes later I walked down to the front and turned in my answer sheet. Many people had already left for lunch, but many were still seated and shading in answer choices. I returned to my seat to collect my things and exited the hall. Once outside the building I made a call to a friend. I suddenly felt so lonely. After gathering myself together I walked towards the canteen on the premises. I had overheard someone pointing it out to another student so why not I check it out.

On getting there I found a small but typical American college dining room. The kids there looked so young, maybe in their late teens. A fleeting memory of my freshman year at Boston University. At seventeen it had been my first time in America. Oh how the world turns. I opted for the salad bar and desert. After paying for the meal I found a seat away from the various groups of noisy students. Eating in silence allowed my mind to wander in and out of past experiences. Emerging from this afternoon reverie I returned my tray to the rack and left. Even though twenty minutes remained I headed straight back to class and laid my head upon my desk for a cat-nap. Not that I was tired, but I didn't want anyone coming to strike up conversation with me. Eventually class resumed and by four o'clock we were let out for the day. I waited a few minutes before my ride came. The Kenyan lady I lived with had agreed to drop me off in the mornings and pick me up in the evenings, until I learned the route. I didn't mind at all because I loved to walk anyway. I didn't enjoy the cold though, and I had such a fear of falling in the snow. Within a week I was walking to and from school by myself. It took a good thirty-five minutes each way, but with so much studying going on I welcomed the mandatory exercise which always did wonders in clearing my head.

Time flew and the course progressed. We had some pleasant lecturers, some friendly ones and some who seemed to me to be aloof. Tests came at the end of each individual subject and I worked hard to keep up. I missed home a lot. Many of us did. I made myself focus on my reason for being here and thought that the harder I worked then the sooner I'd be out and on my way to a Family Practice residency. There was no social outlet for me so it was a monotonous routine- home to class and back to the house every day. One day in a week we would get the day off school and this meant a lazy day for me. I would get out of bed whenever I wanted, take time to have breakfast and then head to class for self-study. It was on one of our days off that Asha asked if we wanted to form a study group. Back in medical school I had discovered that group study sessions always helped me learn and retain the information better. I was definitely in. Our study group came to include Inga, Lori, Eleni and also a couple of others in the class, three of whom were second generation Americans of Indian heritage. These three were still in medical school... bright young ambitious minds. One lady was Russian, two guys were Haitian and one guy was British but of Pakistani ancestry. An amalgam of alien physicians trying to carve out a niche for themselves in America's medical world.

Let me tell you about Henri. Henri was born in Port-au-Prince and came here with his parents when he was seven years old. He went to college and studied computer sciences. After a brief computer career he decided to take out a loan and apply to medical school. His was a foreign medical school located in the U.K. By this I mean that it was not a British medical school. It was akin to all the American medical schools founded in the West Indies. After two years of basic sciences, a few weeks into our prep course, Henri received word that his school might be shut down for reasons yet unclear to him. It was a very anxious period and he just could not concentrate on anything. The implications were grave. If the school were shut down, what about all the money he had already spent? Then he would need to reapply to another medical school. He researched his options and found that no other medical school was willing to take him on for a host of different reasons. Primarily, if a school is shut down their reputation becomes questionable and consequently their standard and who is to say whether their students would be able to cope with the self-declared high standards of an institution that might consider taking them on? Obviously this was a risk no school wanted to take. No school except the one in Grenada. To Henri's joy, Grenada finally responded to his enquiry but he would have to repeat a semester which meant a whole semester of fees that was not in the original budget. A dilemma indeed. In fact, a crisis. What was the point of continuing with the prep course at this juncture with the future so uncertain?

Asha and I intervened in the only way we knew how... we prayed. We prayed with Henri and we prayed for him. The weeks rolled by, turning into months. Henri got more and more confused. At the last, with still no encouraging word from his school, Henri decided to withdraw from our program. We were all sad to see him go. His decision was to apply to nursing school. He did and got accepted. His two years of medical school gained him leverage and he was exempted from some essential courses. This meant that he would graduate within two years. This would enable him to earn a living and start repaying the enormous student loans while preparing for the medical Boards. This way he could continue with medical school rotations whenever his school's troubles were resolved. Eventually his school did sort out itself and by that time he was a certified nurse. The added advantage was that by attending an American University and then working as a nurse, he was exposed to the right people. He knew the doctors, hospital faculty and program directors. Needless to say, when the time came for him to apply for residency training, he'd be all set. As is said, Under every dark cloud is a silver lining. The bible puts it like this, Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning [Psalm 30v5]. With that told, Henri leaves my story. I last spoke with him about a year ago and pray that life continues to go well for him.