savoy096

Today was our last exam. Goodbye to the 6 th floor of Soroka, goodbye to Caroline House, goodbye to the hallways of Deichman, until we start (or technically, continue) 2 nd year in the fall (well, late summer)! The last few weeks, we have been studying hematology with Dr. Moser. He is a very dedicated professor and also a bit of a hero. Shortly before we began our hematology block, he returned from a mission to supply medical care to people in Nepal who had been affected by the earthquake. One day during lunch, he was kind enough to give us a presentation on his time there and field all sorts of questions about the reality of being on a mission. When he is not giving a lecture, he often sits in on other professors so that he can use our classroom time more efficiently when we have a session with him. He is also a vocal supporter of problem based learning, so here is some visual documentation of students teaching students. One of the nice things about having a small class is that when...

That dazed feeling of being nearly done with 11 months of what you always wanted to do… We have one more week of class before our final final, and I know that the collective sigh of relief our whole class breathes will be tempered, at least from my corner, by a tinge of sadness. I will be grateful not only that it will be over, but also that it will have happened. Back to the present moment, though. It is springtime in Beer Sheva (well, high summer by any normal person's thermometer), and there are a thousand kittens to mark the season. Leaving the hospital, going to the SuperSal or the vegetable stand, I will infallibly be surprised by some tiny cats making tentative steps from under a ramp or behind a railing. This type of unsolicited cuteness exponentially increases the amount of time I spend running errands. Here is an example: In other news, we took a trip North and saw some very pretty sights, including the Baha'i gardens in Haifa and the ruins of Caesarea. Although I lov...

I held a teratoma in my hands and there was hair and teeth inside of it. Did I get your attention? For some of us non-science majors like myself, Pathology lab was the first time we were able to touch and inspect human organs, and because it was a pathology lab, we were able to see different manifestations of cancers, hemorrhages, and ischemia. I think our class was most impressed and intrigued by the organs with teratoma’s that were passed around. I find it so important to be able to shorten the time gap between learning material from a book or a lecture, and being able to see first hand manifestations of what you are learning, and this class really did an excellent job of that.  Our class recently embarked on an organized trip to Sde Boker where we visited a satellite school of Ben Gurion University, called the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, along with Ben Gurion’s hut and his final resting place overlooking Zin Valley. I think we all felt it was important, as rec...