Hey everyone, it's been a minute. I promise I've been very busy: school hit us with some difficult sequences, and I was organizing a big event through an organization of which I am a part, Medical Students of Middle-Eastern Descent.
Basically, Southeastern Michigan is home to one of the largest concentrations of Arabs outside of the Arab world. A few classmates and I realized that a lot of med students from outside Michigan had no idea, or at least had not explored the manifestations of having such a large minority population nearby. So I organized an "Exploring Arab America" trip to Dearborn, MI, where 40% of the city's population is Arab-American, businesses have signs in English and Arabic, and even franchises cater to the population (the McDonald's in Dearborn has halal chicken nuggets to attract the Muslims in the area, for example).
With an overwhelming response from the med school classes, we took a U of M bus down to Dearborn, where we first received guided tours of the Arab American National Museum.
We then headed to Habib's Cuisine, where we feasted on delicious Arabic cuisine-- food is my favorite aspect of culture.
Our last major stop was at the ACCESS Community Health Center, which very impressively caters to the population in all majors arenas of health. Here are the students excited to take a tour of ACCESS's facilities:
The day was very long, to say the least. But it was great. It was nerve racking for me because I wanted to make sure everything worked out perfectly, but I got a lot of enthusiastic responses from classmates. So.. I was happy and tired. :) I then ended the day by heading to central campus to watch the Smoker, which is a parody/play/roast put on entirely by talented medical students. It was amazing. Not only is it impressive that med students put all of it together, it also is hilarious and cathartic to watch a parody portrayed from the students' perspective of the medical school and especially the faculty. Great end to a great day:) I'm good with adjectives.
See you all later!
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