this week emory invited me to have a phone interview, which i had yesterday. i think the part where i asked questions went well-- we had a great conversation and i learned a lot more about emory's program. curriculum-wise, i think emory is incredibly innovative-- they have a totally separate class that focuses on breast feeding management and another class that focuses on genetics and embryology, in addition to offering the family nurse-midwifery degree (family nurse practitioner degree + a nurse-midwifery degree). although i applied to the straight-up nurse-midwifery program, it would apparently be very easy for me to switch to family nurse-midwifery should i get in. and i really enjoyed talking with
jane mashburn, the midwifery faculty person who interviewed me-- she described herself as a clinician at heart and talked with such passion about her start as a midwife and teacher.
however, the first part of the interview, where i was answering questions, felt terrible!! everything i said sounded so idiotic to me, and i felt like i was talking in such general and boring terms about why i want to become a midwife. i didn't even mention being a doula until the tail end of the conversation. and the worst part is, there were these looming silent pauses after i said anything-- i'm hoping it was because jane was engrossed in what i was saying and writing down everything, but i'm fearing she was in shock with how horribly i was presenting myself. i should hear about an admissions decision from emory by the third week of february (around the same time as yale).
yesterday, i also met with the powers at be at MGH to discuss the feasibility of doing my summer immersion clinical in haiti. i had gotten the green light before the earthquake, but now, understandably so, they want to hammer down more details to see if it could still work. there are a lot of details to work out, so i'm not holding my breath, but during the meeting i learned that MGH is interested in creating a partnership with a nursing school in haiti. between that and my interest in nurse training models in haiti and supporting nursing within partners in health, the very idea that MGH is even interested in doing something like that only added another layer of consideration for staying at MGH for graduate school...
in the meantime, in addition to sort of paying attention to spring semester of nursing school (loving the pediatrics rotation at spaulding rehab, rather checked out of our nearly exclusively online classes for everything else), i'm starting a haitian creole class at harvard medical school next week and using
these free language audiobooks to practice creole at home. whether or not i go to haiti over the summer is irrelevant-- it will be useful to learn some creole no matter what and it's better for the soul than watching cnn obsessively for haiti updates.