The western arm of UWI is going on four years now, and doing fairly well. The MB;BS programme (of which I am a proud pioneer) is only two years old, and still working the kinks out. But I’m still so much more attached to this little slice of UWI than I could ever be to the main campus at Mona and it’s not just because here I’m one of 25 rather than one of 300+.

Yes, my batch is huge, and while I rep 2KMillion all the way, I am secretly (and guiltily) glad that I don’t have to fight for survival with 300-odd prospective doctors who are at least 100 times more motivated than I am. We at the Mobay campus are alternately reassured and reminded that we are all one class, a lack of distinction which includes being a part of Mona’s goings on, and also ‘not being special’. I could go on about how innately unrealistic that expectation/affirmation is, but today I’m just going to complain about being eventually thrust into the wading pool of piranhas that is medical school in Mona.

Come September, 2K15 will finally be ‘one class’ when all 300+ of us get shunted around on Junior Clerkship clinical rotations, and this prospect is daunting. It’s not just the idea of (finally) leaving home, or of being yet another clueless face attached to a stethoscope, or of having to fight tooth and nail to make sure I excel among the hordes; maybe it’s a composite of all those and more, but I am deeply perturbed.

I will have to trade in my beaches and trees for cold hospitals and concrete and leave my close-knit campus to disappear into sprawling obscurity, the mosaic that is UWI: my place to shine. And the mere thought is intolerable.

Pax.
–
Okay, I may be overreacting a little, but I really, really, really don’t want to leave.