one weekend in march i was lucky enough to fly half way around the world to attend the amsa (american medical student's association) annual convention in washington dc! big thanks to the amsa chapter at my school and to my university for almost all of the funding! flew there through both zurich and london - the more flights the more free food and movies, eh! the convention was quite interesting. we heard from the real-life dr. patch adams! turns out he didn't even want that robin williams movie made about him, and he doesn't like it. he's also a pyjamas-in-public self-described communist who did quite a bit of ranting about capitalism. he's worked his entire professional life for free. he did have some very practical and apt thoughts on how physicians can better relate to patients. we also heard from recently retired johns hopkins neurosurgeon, author, and recently potential presidential hopeful dr. ben carson. for me, the best talk was from another johns hopkins neurosurgeon, dr. alfredo quinones-hinojosa. from rural mexico, he "illegally" entered the united states as a child and started picking vegetables. long story short, he ended up becoming a prominent neurosurgeon, and a down-to earth one at that. proof that citizenship or a certain background isn't a prerequisite for living the american dream. when someone suggested that he change his last name because it was hard for americans to pronounce, he changed it by hyphenating and enlongating it in honor of his mother, and as a symbolic flippage of the proverbial bird to those who would want where he came from to hold him back. love it! cnn did a nice piece on him too which can be read here. almost got to see every medical student's favorite pathologist and bodybuilder dr. edward goljan, but alas he got sick at the last minute. a cool thing about the conference was that it overlapped with a conference of the international medical student's association, so we got to meet a bunch of medical students from all over the world! for example, we were hanging out at a party and met the israeli and the lebanese medical student contingents, and we all started dancing together! where else does that happen!?! it warmed my heart. i also got to hang out with my sister maria for a day, which was so nice. also a great day at the zoo with my friend sylvie, with whom i had been skyping quite a bit. and a big thank you to my friend joel who let me stay at his house!
