The Miami Herald September 30, 2004 Thursday F1 EDITION

The Miami Herald

September 30, 2004 Thursday F1 EDITION

SECTION: B; Pg. 5

Grenada medical school moves to Dade;
A medical school in the Caribbean, paralyzed three weeks ago by
Hurricane Ivan, has moved its entire second-year medical school class
to Barry University.;

BY ROBERT L. STEINBACK; rsteinback@herald.com

Barry University will play host to a new class this semester: 320
medical students from Grenada, whose campus is being used as relief
center for the devastated island nation.

The second-year med students from St. George's University had their
educations abruptly halted Sept. 8, when Hurricane Ivan blew through
as a Category 4 storm.

On Wednesday, the students attended class for the first time in three
weeks inside Thompson Hall, the university's just vacated former
student center.

''We've just picked up right where we left off,'' said Jeff Johnston,
associate dean of curriculum for St. George's. ''Our goal is to
provide the same quality of education up here, even though we don't
have the same facilities as we would have had in Grenada.''

The accommodations are certainly not elegant. As many as 150 students
were clustered Wednesday afternoon in groups of 10 or 12 around
rectangular tables in a blandly institutional former dining hall,
peering at slides of diseased cells on laptop computers and straining
to hear St. George's professors over the maddening murmur that filled
the room.

GLAD TO BE HERE

But no one complained.

''We're in our fourth term, as second-year medical students,'' said
student Olivier de Raet of Belgium by way of Potomac, Md. ''If we
don't finish the term by Christmas, it would mean we would not be able
to take our medical boards next summer. By not finishing the semester,
we'd have to postpone our [third-year clinical rotations] in the
United States and postpone our graduations a whole year.''

Within a week of Ivan's strike, St. George's chancellor Charles ******
-- who happens to be vice chairman of Barry's board of trustees --
approached Barry about borrowing a campus site.

''Thank God we had Thompson Hall available, as we've just completed
our new Student Union,'' said Sister Peggy Albert, Barry's executive
vice president and chair of the task force handling the St. George's
arrangements. ''We had all that space upstairs in our old cafeteria,
and so we turned it into a huge lecture hall.''

When Ivan struck Grenada, its winds clocked at more than 130 mph, the
relatively new campus sustained only minor damage -- some broken
windows and lots of dislodged roof tiles.

Students and university staff expected classes to resume within days.

'At first they said, 'By Monday, we'll resume classes,' '' recalled de
Raet, a member of the St. George's student government who served on
its relocation task force. 'A lot of people started saying, 'What are
you talking about? This island is completely destroyed.' ''

RELIEF CENTER

The storm destroyed the residences of many students, faculty and staff
who lived off-campus. Furthermore, the campus -- because it was
largely intact -- became a staging area for relief efforts directed to
other parts of the devastated island. Relief and reconstruction
personnel were even placed in residence halls.

''During that time, we didn't know where we would study, so we were
pretty anxious,'' said Clarisse Glen of Toronto, who anticipates a
career in gastroenterology or nephrology. ''That period was pretty
unsettling.''

Barry University is one of several alternate teaching venues arranged
by St. George's administrators: First-year medical students were sent
to classrooms on Long Island. Veterinary students are now attending
classes at North Carolina State, Purdue and Kansas State universities.

MORE COMING

Twenty more St. George's master's in public health students will
arrive next week.

Most of Barry's contributions are in-kind, such as campus space,
Albert said. No Barry professors are teaching St. George's students.
The school sent its own staff.

Three local hotels are providing rooms for students and faculty who
can't find lodging through friends or family in South Florida.

This isn't the first time St. George's has had to relocate students. A
bloody 1983 coup that left Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and
three cabinet members dead triggered a U.S. invasion intended to
rescue as many as 1,000 American medical students -- at St. George's.
The campus closed for about three months, and classes were moved to
Long Island, New Jersey and Barbados.

Although St. George's medical students represent some 80 nations,
about 80 percent are from the United States. For them, the transition
back to the States was not so striking -- although it did have some
benefits.

''McDonald's, Wendy's, real food,'' said Ahsan Riaz of Jersey City, N.J.

''Grocery stores, TV, milk whenever you need it,'' Clarisse Glen said.

''Cars that drive on the right side of the road,'' Riaz added.

Herald writer Lauren Rivera contributed to this report.

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