Last weekend, Rebekah and I were able to go to the national Internal Medicine Conference in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. Three doctors from Brown (Joseph Diaz, Mark Fagan, and Douglass Shemin) gave talks. Drs. Joe Diaz and Mark Fagan direct the Brown-Dominican Republic exchange program, and it was good to spend some time with them here in the DR. It was held at the Grand Oasis Hotel, an all-inclusive resort on the north coast.
Here are the doctors from Brown after giving their conferences. Their conferences were translated in real-time by a medical student. They said this made it hard for them to interact with the audience, because they were listening to the translation on headphones!
I also got to see some interesting talks given by other international doctors. This included a talk by a Cuban doctor talking about protocols they use for medical assistance. It is a very rigid, idealistic system; it's hard to know if this type of a system could ever work. As you can imagine, this talk was given from a perspective that we aren't exposed to much in U.S. medical schools!
Things weren't all business; we spent plenty of time in the enormous pool.
The beach wasn't too bad either...
Rebekah and I also went snorkeling, kayaking, and sailing. I tried wind-surfing with Edward, and here is a video look at our attempt.
It was nice to be pampered at the all-inclusive resort and experience what is a huge part of Dominican economy. We are very glad, however, that we're able to experience all else that the Dominican Republic has to offer. You honestly don't get to see much of Dominican life if you stay inside of the hotel gates!
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