The month of October has flown by and it's been a beautiful transition from summer to fall. This is my first time living in a city where the leaves changes colors. Every morning's bicycle ride to class is surrounded by crisp green grass, grazing cows, orange fall leaves and the rush of the river Cam.
The month of October was dedicated to diving head first into Cambridge life. I've joined the rowing team for my college, Lady Margaret Boathouse, despite never having rowed before, and also joined the University of Cambridge Women's Football club (aka soccer). This has meant lots of new friends and cold mornings rowing on the river at sunrise. Also this month was the Cambridge Rotary welcome reception. See below for a photo of our group. We were warmly welcomed with wine, food and a program in which each scholar gave a 5-minute speech about their studies at Cambridge. It was inspiring to be surrounded by leaders in the fields of Education, International Relations, and History, to name a few. Most of the scholars are from the US, but no other scholar is studying science so it's a unique experience to have friends and Rotary colleagues outside my college and discipline. I look forward to getting to know the scholars better through a number of events District 1080 has planned for us. One of the other scholars, Sophia from New Jersey, ended up on the Cambridge women's soccer team with me! It was great to have already met her through Rotary. In my Public Health course we have buckled down and started to work on our first term paper. We are assigned to review current literature on a disease of our choosing and discuss the epidemiology, or incidence and prevalence, of the disease in a certain population. After completing an elective in Otolaryngology/Ear Nose and Throat Surgery at UCSF in August I became intrigued to learn that HIV positive individuals may be at an increased risk for hearing loss. While HIV-medications continue to improve, new studies focus on quality-of-life measures. Hearing is an imperative part of daily life and it interested me to find out more about how it's affected by HIV. Therefore, my first essay will be a review of all current research describing hearing impairment in HIV-infected individuals in Africa. Stay posted to find out more. Also in October, I was also lucky enough to travel outside Cambridge to Lake Conistan, of the famous Lake District in northern England, over a weekend. The area is a national park full of gorgeous hikes overlooking a series of lakes. October in the Lake District meant rolling hills of greens and oranges, scattered with grazing sheep. We had tea by the fire, scones with clotted cream and jam and sticky toffee pudding to round out a truly English weekend away. Highlight of the weekend was a sailing lesson on the lake. November started off with my first Rotary presentation to my host club of Cambridge Sawston. I was welcomed with a lovely dinner in a pub built in 1000 AD. My presentation was followed by numerous questions about my research and path to the UK, including thoughts on Obamacare and the upcoming election. It was great to share my experiences and plans for the year, in addition to my first experience as a Rotary Ambassador of San Marino. Ok, back to class! A few photos below.
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I've arrived safely in Cambridge! And my first impression is WOW, this place is gorgeous. I'm enrolled at St John's College, which serves as my residential college for the year. Cambridge University is composed of 31 colleges, each with its own unique student cohort and history. Being part of a residential college means that my housing and meals are all based within the walls of an old castle, with other members of St. John's. St John's College was founded exactly 500 years ago by Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother to King Henry the VII and grandmother to the infamous King Henry VIII. The college has a long history of prestigious graduates, winning accolades primarily in science and medicine, including nobel laureates. The history of academic curiosity is tangible. Orientation week started off with a bang, with orientation activities encompassing dressing up in Harry Potter-style black robes for a class photo, a chapel service to bless the term, and various social activities to meet colleagues. One such social gathering involved pints of beer in the bar where Watson and Crick are said to have discovered DNA (so cool). Another highlight of the week was dinner with my Rotary Host, Irene Childrey, of the Cambridge Sawston Rotary club (see photo below). Her tales of the Cambridge Sawston club are very similar to the visions and goals of the San Marino Rotary Club, and I feel even more inspired to be part of such an impressive and international organization. My classes started this week as well. I'm studying public health which the World Health Organization defines as "the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health." We were introduced to the course through a lecture entitled "When the Population is your Patient." As a medical student, much of my education up to now has focused on treating individuals, and their unique diseases. But much of health, and effectively delivering healthcare, revolves around treating disease on a population-level. I'm excited to learn more of the methods to tackle large-scale problems, such as HIV/AIDS. For our first exercise I worked with a group of classmates to brainstorm risk factors and solutions to an assigned public health problem - smoking during pregnancy. A problem with a multitude of drivers and challenges ranging from the media to mental health. In the coming weeks we'll study how to quantify the scale of illness using statistics and then how to tackle them. Back to class, Stay posted! |
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AuthorI'm Gaelen Stanford-Moore, a fourth year medical student in San Fransisco, taking a gap year to study public health with an international perspective at Cambridge University, England. Archives
June 2017
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