The Third Day

June 8, 2015

Hello Ladies and Gents, the third day in London has come to an end, so it is only fair to share with you my glorious experience. Of course, you can be the judge of that.  I woke up at 6:30am and strolled to breakfast at 7:15am after giving my co-hort member a wake call to avoid yesterday's
fiasco. He showed up 15 minutes later.  The food was the same as yesterday, but I still enjoyed it entirely. We made our way to St. George's College affiliated with the University of London.  This college is a hospital and medical school.  We toured the facilities and were surprised how much the hospital looked like the 1970s.  This image concerned quite a few of us; however, the parts that we saw may not have been the best representation of the hospital or maybe it was.  They are actually filming a reality tv show called 24 Hours in the A&E.  I learned that the ER is called the A&E, which stands for action and emergency.  Something else that interested me was how applicants interviewed blindly to get into the school, which meant that the candidate's application is not reviewed until after the interview.  Please keep in mind that the minimal requirements for the application are still reviewed prior to the interview.  The interviews are conducted through a series of rotations with each interviewer every 5 minutes with a 15 second gap between the interviews.  This process reminded me of how Mississippi State University (MSU) conducts their Resident Adviser (RA) interviews, which conducts rotating interviews as well.

There was a bar in the Student Union and all revenue from alcohol purchases are funneled back into the the student activities budget.  St. George's College enrolls around 260 UK students and 50 international students.  The international student population is about 7.5% of their student population.  As the day progressed, we had several college officials talk with us about their roles within the institution.  We heard from the Dean of Students and learned that the college is now embracing the student experience concept with more focus on student services and programming such as outreach workshops for 6 to 9 year olds and Tea Time with the Dean.  Our British Chaps are copying us Americans for something that we are really good at doing.  Unlike America, UK medical doctors are paid more as General Practitioners than Specialists and to actually see a Specialist the General Practitioners must provide a referral to the patient.  I found it interesting that all staff members can receive permanent positions and not just faculty members; however, every employee receives a one year probationary period, which used to be three years.  The title of professor is a really big deal in the UK and most faculty members would rather be called professor than doctor.  Students do their first two years experiencing case base learning and then shift to problem based learning for the next two years.  The average time to become a doctor or specialists is 7 to 8 years.  I apologize for these details, but this was the majority of my experience this morning.  Please read below for the fun stuff!

Before lunch, the same co-hort member who missed breakfast yesterday, who I will call Wendell to protect his identity, leaned back in his chair and the chair just snapped, and he just got up and switched the chair.  I mean it broke completely through on one side.  After a few breathless laughs, we calmed down and continued on with speakers.  I got a special sandwich because the UK apparently puts mayonnaise on all their sandwiches, and I needed to stay out of the bathroom today.  The sandwich was a warm toasted Chicken Panini, and I had a sweet British Cola with it.  There is a running joke with a female co-hort member concerning urinals.  I will call her Karen to protect her identity.  She has never seen an urinal trough in a men's bathroom.  Wendell took Karen to the men's room to show her what one looked like, and she said that "To avoid cross streaming, do you angle to the opposite side."  As Wendell told me this story, I could not stop laughing and wondered if anyone saw Karen actually go into the men's room.  I guess no one did.

The St. George's College visit lasted longer than originally planned, and the weather was bad today so we did not get to go to and ride the London Eye.  Instead, I got to go to an Indian restaurant and had some lamb and curry.  It was not bad, but I would still take some Mexican Cuisine any day over Indian food.  I got another real sugar coke, but it was flat tonight.  After dinner, I went with some co-hort members to see the play The Book of Mormon and on the way I saw Piccadilly Square, which is London's equivalent to Times Square in New York.  There will be a selfie posted to Facebook later.  The Book of Mormon was entertaining but as crude as you can possibly get.  I heard that the same person that wrote South Park also wrote this play, so you can use your imagination with the content material.  We will be traveling to Oxford tomorrow, and it will be exciting to see one of the oldest universities in Europe.  My storytelling should be more interesting tomorrow.  As I conclude my blog tonight, I had a Mars bar and am disappointed to learn that it is nothing more than just a Milky Way bar over here.  I was really craving some almonds tonight.

Mind the Gap!