Buenas (y malas) noticias

A couple years ago there was a clinical externship site in Madrid which was placed on hold shortly after I began my studies in Boston. It was a sad day, since the site in Spain and the opportunity to learn to practice Optometry in an immersion Spanish setting had been one of the exciting things that attracted us to NECO. Anyway, we never gave up hope that the site would be re-opened, despite the fact that there never seemed to be progress whenever I asked people at the school about it. Last spring (over a year ago) we submitted our choices for our 4th year rotations, and I harassed the Dean of Academic Affairs weekly for the two months prior to the submission deadline, to see if there was any hope of getting the site restored. Unfortunately, the deadline came and went, with Spain still on hold.

About two weeks ago the school sent out an email inviting faculty and students to attend a seminar - "How to give an Optometric Exam in Spanish." I was naturally interested, even more so when I learned that it was being given by the head of the program in Spain, who was visiting. Shortly thereafter another email was sent out by the college to ask for student volunteers to help set up and serve at a bar-b-que on the cape for "visiting Spanish dignitaries." As it turned out, there were about 25 optometric students visiting from Spain as part of their program in Madrid. They were here to take a few classes and see how optometry is practiced in the U.S.

So I got to spend a day at the bar-b-que making friends with the optometry students from Spain, and I got to meet Dr. Hidalgo, who heads the clinic site. The whole day was a blast, and offered me lots of fun Spanish practice. And naturally, I got to ask about the program, and learn that it could get re-opened in the future. I figured it was way too late for me, but it would be neat if one of the next classes got to do it.

Anyway, after that I figured I'd seen the last of the visiting Spaniards except for the short seminar that Dr. Hidalgo would give two days later. As it turned out, during that time he would be meeting with people at the school to discuss the possibility of re-opening the program sometime in the future. I went to the seminar and enjoyed learning some new eye-vocab, and afterwards chatted with Dr. Hidalgo and asked if anything looked promising for Spain. I was floored when he said it was ok with him if I wanted to go, and that I just needed to talk to the Clinical Education Department at NECO to see if I could swap one of my sites.

So early this morning we found out that this winter (Dec-Feb) we'll be going to Madrid for 3 months. That's the phenomenal, awesome, totally-unexpected, amazingly-good news. The only downside, as many of you may have guessed, is that it will take the place of our Utah rotation. As such, for all of you who were looking forward to seeing us over Christmas, you'll have to come visit us in Spain. :-)

We love you all, and we'll send postcards.