The Last Summer

For the past few months, I've been trying to lock down my plans for this upcoming summer. The summer between the first and second year of medical school is often referred to by med students, residents, and attendings as "the last summer," due to it being the last ever scheduled summer break. Lots of med students do research (for the experience and as CV padding), some do humanitarian work, some study for the Step 1 boards exam (taken after second year),  and a handful just relax or go on a vacation.

After weighing all my options, I decided that I wanted to do a little bit of everything. Classic me. I have a hard time choosing between good options. Nothing new about that. So what will I be doing? I'm proud to announce that this summer I will be...  drum roll please [click on the video]...

Working on a research project in Kigali, Rwanda!!! How exciting is that?? I'll get to travel, do some research, relax, and possibly study a little for boards. Ok, let's be real. I'm probably not going to study for boards. But all of the other stuff is definitely going to happen! 

As for the research stuff, I'm still narrowing the focus of my project, but it'll be something along the lines of medical professionals' perceptions of domestic abuse in a developing country. I'll have to come up with a catchier title, but you get the idea. Until then, I'm in full Rwanda mode. We had an orientation dinner on Tuesday, where we talked about our research, Rwandan history, travel tips, etc. I leave at the beginning of June. Pretty sure I'm going to listen to this song every day till I leave....