By: Erin Gouveia

5 March 2004

“I wouldn’t say that England is an experience for most SO’s. I think you have to be ready for an adventure if you come here…unless you’re rich or unless you don’t mind living the simple life while you’re here.

England is expensive! The dollar is bad. The highest it’s been since we’ve been here is $2.03 = 1 L. Right now it’s about $1.96. So we are on a very tight budget.

We gave BayShore our two choices- choices based on distance from London (we wanted to be close for traveling) and we wanted a core center so we could stay in one place for hospitals. About six weeks before our rotations would start, they told Sebastian he would be starting Surgery in the UK for sure but they didn’t have the exact hospitals. A month before he was supposed to start they told us Great Western Hospital in Swindon….then a week later they emailed him saying there had been a mistake and we were going to Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry.

Coventry….is not a great city. As it’s been described in travel books…it’s typical struggling England. It’s a city with little history other than the old cathedral in the city center that was bombed in WWII. But it is central for traveling and it has been easy to travel everywhere. It’s 20 miles from Birmingham and it’s airport, 1hr 30 min from London, close to Stratford, Oxford, Wales…it’s really central so that’s one good thing.

As far as housing….they have student housing for about £150 a month- typical dorm rooms. They do not have housing for couples. Student housing here is right near the city center at another Coventry hospital. There is a free bus from the city center that goes directly to the Walsgrave hospital (about 10 minutes / 2 miles away) although the driver's schedule is not always the same as the bus station schedule. There are also more regular buses you can pay for(90p one-way).

Places are easy to find furnished and unfurnished. I went to the local real estate agents and they have weekly lists of new rentals. Rent here is expensive, especially because of the dollar (roughly $1,000 a month at least). We are living in a very tiny flat very near the city center. We decided to live in a tiny, cheap place (we call it a closet) and travel. Everything is convenient: grocery, bus station and every other store you’d need is within a five minute walk. The main grocery here is Sainsbury’s…prices are pretty good…but I also found ASDA’s (which is a Walmart chain) so they have cheap food and “rollbacks”. Our staple dinner is chicken (I can get 2 dinners/4 servings for 5L.), rice and salad and lots of chocolate. It was hard to find inexpensive food that I didn’t have to make from scratch.

Transportation is great in England. I take the bus everywhere, whether it’s to the hospital, to the stable, or a neighboring town to explore. I also walk everywhere. We also ride the train everywhere (the train station is about a 20 minute walk from our flat). Since we live near the city center, the grocery store and everything else you need is very convenient. There is a public library that the students can use (they just show their letter from the hospital with their address on it and can get library cards and use the internet). I also got a library card for internet use only (though I can’t check out books because I have nothing printed with my address on it). It allows me one free hour a day and a second hour if the computer has not been booked after me. Walsgrave hospital has a great new clinical sciences library with about 30 brand new computers. I use to use those computers a lot until I found out about the public library. There is no time limit at the hospital.

As far as working…I’m not. I guess you could if you knew someone here that you could work for or you found someone to pay you under the table. The problem with getting a work visa is…you have to have a job here already before you arrive so that the company can sponsor you for a visa OR you can pay $1,500 to get a visa before you arrive. There are tons of things to get involved in. The local library has posting of organizations and classes to take. I wanted to work with horses so…I found a bunch of stables on the internet and just started calling them to see if they needed volunteers. I found one and I’m there all day Mondays and Tuesdays. I also just started riding a horse up the road from the stable I help out at. I love it! The mare needs a lot of work but it’s so great to ride in green fields. So I ride her every weekday practically. The rest of the time I fill with errands or I ride the bus to explore nearby towns. The weekends we’re always gone. We’ve gone to London twice, Birmingham, Stratford (Shakespeare country), Oxford, Warwick…and Paris last week for my birthday. You can get really cheap flights from Birmingham and Coventry airports. We’re also going to Dublin for St. Patti’s with two other SGU students.

I didn’t pack much when I came here. I actually packed way too many clothes and I didn’t even pack that much. But since I’ve been here it seems I wear the same few pairs of pants, shirts and sweaters with my coat. I’m patiently waiting for warmer weather so I can wear something different. I brought a few toiletries just to start us off but I figured we could get everything here. (Although now knowing the dollar, I would have brought more so I wasn’t paying double for it). Luckily we don’t need much. I bought one pot and one pan when I got here. And that’s it. We brought one sheet, our own towels and down comforter and a plastic set of dishes and silverware.

As for bank accounts…we don’t have one. We just withdraw from our accounts at home with our ATM card or use our credit card.

Also, when you arrive at customs they want to see a letter from the school saying where you’re going for what hospital. They were pretty strict about this. We’re fine if we come here for 6 months or less but if it’s longer you need a student visa.

As far as Sebastian’s next rotation…we knew at the start of this rotation that we’d be moving. He will be doing his Pediatric rotation at Stafford General…Stafford is only about 40 minutes from here. We’re actually looking forward to moving since we’re really not that settled here (and Coventry isn’t very pretty). It’ll be a nice change. I don’t know much about that hospital yet.

Walsgrave hospital has been great. They have some of the top surgeons in England here. Seb has been learning a lot and doing a lot...he routinely scrubs into surgeries, has done suturing, tons of bleeds. He’s at the hospital M-F from about 8-5 and he stays late about one day a week. His weekends are free. Unlike the US, he’s not ‘on-call’ here. The other thing is you really need to be motivated to put the effort in and get involved. They do notice the extra effort but if you don’t want to get involved then you don’t have to. What you have to do isn’t set in stone. So if you’re someone who needs a structured plan of your day you probably won’t like it. He has plenty of time for studying as we don’t have a TV for distraction. The library also has every book they need for Step 2 as well as their rotation so in case they forget a book they’ll have access to it.

Dr. Madden has suggested that students don’t do more than 20 weeks of their core rotations in the UK if they want to get residency in the states. It has to do with letters of recommendation and how the UK writes them (different from the US)…but we know students that are doing all their cores here as well as a student a year ahead of us who did all his cores here and has 3 interviews in California for residency…so… Seb is only doing surgery and Peds here. After that he’ll be doing an elective to see what he likes and then Pysch in NY. We think we want to come back to the UK to do electives after residency interviews next spring."

Cheers, Erin and Seb

5 May 2004

We're in Stafford now. It's a small town, about 30 minutes north of Birmingham by train. The hospital is Staffordshire General. Sebastian is doind Pediatrics right now and really likes it. He's having great experiences and his attending is great... a great teacher, hands on, and great with patients. There is no married housing so couples have to find their own. The single student housing is very nice though. They are flats with 3 or 4 students each, a stocked kitchen, TV, bathroom, all to share. I think it's about £200/month or so.

Stafford isn't a great location if you want to travel. There are less frequent trains and buses, and prices are expensive. It's a very quiet town with not much to do.

Cheers, Erin and Seb

Contact Info

If you would like to contact Erin for more information about the UK, please email her at: [email protected]