Palm Trees, Pathology & the Truth About Caribbean Medical Schools

“Oh…you Go to medical school in the Caribbean?”

There is a very specific reaction people have when I tell them I go to medical school in the Caribbean.

Actually, let me correct that.

There are two.

The first usually sounds something like: “Oh my gosh, you go to medical school in Grenada?! That must be AMAZING.”

And honestly?

It is.

I live on a ridiculously beautiful Caribbean island. There are turquoise beaches, palm trees, sunsets that genuinely look fake, and days when I have to remind myself that this is somehow the place where I am becoming a doctor.

It is an incredibly unique experience.

Unfortunately, my professors are still under the impression that I should learn things while I am here.

Very inconsiderate.

Because despite what my camera roll may suggest, I do not spend my days sitting underneath a palm tree with a pathology textbook in one hand and a piña colada in the other.

Most days, the closest I get to enjoying the tropical weather is looking outside and thinking, Wow, it looks beautiful out there, before returning to whatever disease process is currently ruining my afternoon.

The island may be giving vacation.

My schedule is very much giving medical school.

But then there is the other reaction.

If you have been a Caribbean medical student for any amount of time, you probably know exactly the one I am talking about.

You tell someone where you go to school, and there is this tiny shift.

“Ohhh…you go to medical school in the Caribbean.”

Same sentence.

Completely different font.

Sometimes it is followed by a question. Sometimes it is a comment about residency. Sometimes someone brings up something they heard from a friend of a friend’s cousin who once considered medical school.

And sometimes nobody says anything at all.

Honestly, sometimes the silence does plenty.

And I want to be clear: not everyone reacts this way. Most people in my life have been incredibly supportive of me and genuinely excited about what I am doing. Plenty of people are simply curious because studying medicine on an island thousands of miles from home is, objectively, a pretty interesting life choice.

But I would be lying if I said I have not felt the weight of the stereotypes attached to being a Caribbean medical student.

I knew they existed before I started medical school.

Caribbean schools are the “easy way in.”

You could not get into a “real” medical school.

The education is not as good.

You will never match into the specialty you actually want.

If you were a stronger student, you would not have needed to go there.

There are legitimate conversations to have about Caribbean medical education, and we will get there. The pathway can be different. There are challenges that deserve to be discussed honestly, and I would never tell someone considering this route to ignore them.

But stereotypes do not tend to arrive with nuance.

They just sit quietly in the back of your brain.

And when I first started this journey, I think I let them take up far more space than I realized.

Suddenly, saying “I’m a medical student” did not always feel complete.

There was an invisible asterisk attached to it.

"I’m a medical student, but I go to school in the Caribbean."

As though I needed to disclose a side effect before anyone got too excited.

Warning: medical degree may contain traces of ocean.

And the funny thing is, most of the time, nobody was asking me to justify anything.

I was doing it for them.

Before someone could question my education, I wanted to explain it.

Before someone could wonder whether I was capable, I wanted to prove that I was.

Before someone could make an assumption about why I was there, I wanted them to know the entire story.

And girl…that is exhausting.

Because once you start believing you need to prove that you deserve to call yourself a medical student, every normal medical-school struggle starts feeling like it means something bigger.

A difficult exam is not simply a difficult exam anymore.

Not understanding something immediately is not simply part of learning medicine.

Struggling does not feel like something essentially every medical student does at some point.

Instead, there is this tiny, incredibly annoying voice waiting in the back of your mind: See? Maybe they’re right.

My imposter syndrome absolutely loved that.

She was thriving.

Five stars. Excellent accommodations. Would absolutely stay again.

Meanwhile, I was trying to learn medicine while carrying around an imaginary jury of people I had apparently appointed to evaluate whether I deserved to be there.

And it took me longer than I would like to admit to realize something: Most of those people were not even in the room.

I was.

I was the one sitting through the lectures.

I was the one studying for the exams.

I was the one learning how to talk to patients, stumbling through clinical skills, getting things wrong, trying again, and slowly realizing that I actually knew more than I thought I did.

I was the one doing the work.

And yet, for a while, I was letting hypothetical opinions have a very real influence over how I saw myself.

Which is why I think talking honestly about Caribbean medical school matters.

Not because I want to convince everyone that this path is perfect.

It is not.

Not because my experience represents every Caribbean medical student.

It does not.

And definitely not because I am interested in spending the next several thousand words fighting strangers on the internet.

I have pathology to study. I simply do not have the bandwidth.

I want to talk about it because somewhere between the palm trees, the exams, the homesickness, the beautiful moments, the incredibly difficult ones, and the approximately seventeen identity crises medical school seems to provide free of charge, I have learned that there is a pretty significant difference between the stereotypes surrounding this path and what it actually feels like to live it.

And maybe the biggest difference is that eventually, I had to stop looking at myself through the eyes of people who had never walked it.

The Stereotypes I Started Carrying for Other People

The hardest part about stereotypes is not always hearing them from other people.

Sometimes it is realizing that, somewhere along the way, you started repeating them to yourself.

And I definitely did.

When I first started medical school, I was painfully aware of the reputation surrounding Caribbean schools. I knew what people said. I knew there were people who viewed this route as somehow “less than,” and I knew that eventually I would be applying for residency alongside students who had taken very different paths to get there.

So I did what any completely reasonable person with absolutely no tendency toward overthinking would do.

I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself.

Obviously.

I felt like I needed to be good enough to compensate for where I went to school.

Except “good enough” is a wonderfully vague standard, so my brain was free to move the goalpost whenever it felt like ruining my day.

Doing well was not enough because I was supposed to do well.

Struggling felt unacceptable because surely that meant something.

Watching someone else understand something faster than I did could turn into an entire internal TED Talk about whether I belonged in medicine.

Very productive stuff.

And I think that is where the stereotypes became much more damaging than anything a stranger could have actually said to me.

Because eventually, I did not need anyone else to underestimate me.

I was doing a perfectly good job of it myself.

Every normal medical school experience suddenly had this second meaning attached to it.

If I struggled with a concept, it was not simply, "This is difficult, and I'm still learning it."

It became, "Maybe I'm not as capable as everyone else."

If I did not perform the way I wanted to on an assessment, it was not simply, "Okay, what happened, and what do I need to change?"

It became, "Maybe this says something about whether I deserve to be here."

And when I thought about residency or the specialty I was interested in, there was always that tiny question hiding somewhere underneath everything else: Will where I go to medical school stop me from becoming the doctor I want to be?

That question hit especially hard when I thought about forensic pathology.

Because forensic pathology has never been some vague maybe someday career sitting in the back of my mind.

This is what I want.

I can picture the work. I can picture pathology residency. I can picture eventually pursuing forensic pathology fellowship and walking back into a medical examiner's office, not as the college student who was absolutely thrilled to be allowed anywhere near the work, but as the physician responsible for doing it.

That future means something to me.

So naturally, my anxiety looked at something I cared deeply about and said: "Perfect. Let's worry about whether you're allowed to have it."

Love that for us.

There were times when I found myself wondering whether I was being unrealistic. Whether I needed to make my goals smaller or safer because my route into medicine looked different. Whether residency programs would see the name of my school before they ever saw me.

And I think that is one of the quietest ways insecurity can change you.

It does not always convince you to quit.

Sometimes it convinces you to dream more cautiously.

You start mentally adding disclaimers to things you have not even attempted yet.

I would love to do this, but…

Maybe I could, except…

That would be amazing, although someone from my background probably…

And suddenly you are rejecting yourself from opportunities that nobody has actually rejected you from.

That realization was uncomfortable.

Because at some point I had to ask myself: "How much of my future was I willing to give away to an outcome that had not even happened?"

I do not know exactly what my residency application season will look like yet. I do not know every obstacle I will encounter between where I am now and forensic pathology. I cannot promise myself that every door I knock on will open simply because I worked hard and really wanted it to.

That is not how medicine works.

And honestly, that is not how life works either.

There are real considerations that come with being an international medical graduate, and pretending they do not exist would not make me confident. It would just make me uninformed.

But being realistic about a challenge and deciding you are incapable before you have even faced it are two very different things.

It took me a while to separate them.

And medical school has given me plenty of opportunities to practice.

Because I have struggled.

I have had exams that did not go the way I wanted. I have walked out of assessments replaying every answer in my head. I have had moments when everyone around me seemed to understand something, and I was sitting there wondering whether the professor had quietly switched languages halfway through the lecture.

I have doubted myself.

I have compared myself.

I have had moments when my confidence was basically held together by caffeine, a prayer, and whatever information I could convince my brain to retain before the next exam.

But I have also done well.

I have surprised myself.

I have learned things I once thought I would never understand. I have walked into situations terrified and discovered that I was more capable than I gave myself credit for. I have had people come to me for help with concepts I once needed someone else to explain to me.

And slowly, I started realizing that none of those experiences proved or disproved a stereotype.

They proved that I was a medical student.

Sometimes I know the answer.

Sometimes I absolutely do not.

Sometimes I feel like I was born to do this.

Sometimes I stare at a question and wonder whether I have ever encountered the human body before.

Apparently, all of those versions of me are enrolled in the same degree program.

The biggest shift came when I stopped asking myself: "Am I good enough despite being a Caribbean medical student?"

And started asking: "What kind of doctor am I becoming because of everything this path is teaching me?"

Because this experience is shaping me.

It has forced me to become adaptable. It has made me learn how to build a life far away from the people and places that once made everything feel familiar. It has taught me how to keep showing up when I am homesick, overwhelmed, uncertain, or simply very tired of looking at powerpoint slides.

It has made me confront my confidence over and over again.

And perhaps most importantly, it has taught me that struggling and belonging are not opposites.

I wish I had understood that sooner.

A hard exam does not revoke my seat in medical school.

Needing help does not expose me as some kind of academic fraud.

Getting something wrong does not suddenly validate every stereotype anyone has ever had about Caribbean students.

Sometimes I just got the question wrong.

Tragic.

We regroup.

We move on.

And the more I have allowed myself to experience medical school without constantly treating my performance like evidence for or against my worth, the more I have actually been able to enjoy becoming a physician.

I am still ambitious.

Believe me, that problem has not resolved itself.

I still care deeply about doing well. I still have big goals for myself. And yes, I am very aware that there are parts of my future application where I will need to be thoughtful, strategic, and prepared.

But I do not want fear to be the reason I work hard anymore.

I do not want to spend my entire medical education trying to prove that some imaginary person was wrong about me.

I would much rather spend it becoming really, really good at the thing I came here to learn.

Medicine.

And eventually, if everything goes according to plan, forensic pathology.

The stereotypes may have followed me onto the island.

But I am finally learning that I do not have to carry them all the way off of it.

No, I Do Not Spend Medical School on the Beach

Okay, now that we have unpacked the emotional baggage, I think it is time to address one of the greatest misconceptions surrounding Caribbean medical school.

Apparently, some people think I am on vacation.

And listen.

I understand how we got here.

I live in Grenada. The water is turquoise. There are palm trees everywhere. The weather is warm year-round. I can leave campus and, within a relatively short amount of time, be sitting on a beach that someone else probably has saved to their Pinterest board under dream vacations.

It is objectively ridiculous.

Sometimes I will be walking outside, look around, and have this tiny moment of: "Wait. I actually live here."

And then I remember I have 147 powerpoint slides waiting for me at home, and the moment passes.

Because while the location is the Caribbean, the medical school part is unfortunately still very much medical school.

The Krebs cycle did not become easier because I learned it near the ocean.

Pharmacology has never once looked at a beautiful Grenadian sunset and said, "You know what? She deserves the evening off."

And pathology?

Pathology does not care where I live.

Pathology wants answers.

So when people say, “It must be amazing going to medical school in the Caribbean!” my answer is genuinely: "Yes. It is."

But probably not for the reasons people imagine.

There absolutely are days when I go to the beach. There are evenings when I get to watch a gorgeous sunset. There have been weekends spent exploring the island, trying different restaurants, being with friends, and having experiences I probably never would have had if medical school had not brought me here.

I do not want to minimize that part of this experience just to prove that I am working hard.

Grenada is beautiful.

Living here has given me memories I will carry with me long after I leave.

And frankly, I think medical students are allowed to enjoy their lives.

Controversial opinion, apparently.

But most of my life here looks much less like a travel advertisement and much more like...well, being a medical student.

Lectures.

Studying.

Small groups.

Practice questions.

Exams.

Realizing I somehow need groceries despite the fact that I distinctly remember buying groceries approximately four minutes ago.

Laundry.

More studying.

Opening my laptop to review one tiny concept and resurfacing three hours later with seventeen tabs open and several new questions about the human body.

You know.

Island life.

There have been entire stretches of time when I have barely experienced the beautiful place outside my window because I was so focused on school.

Which is honestly one of the strangest parts of living here.

People save for months to spend a week somewhere that looks like this, and sometimes I am sitting inside staring at a histology slide thinking: "I should probably go outside."

And then the histology slide is like: "Absolutely not. Identify me!"

So I do.

But studying medicine in the Caribbean has also been about much more than learning medicine somewhere pretty.

It meant leaving home.

Really leaving.

Not moving a few hours away where I could decide on Friday afternoon that I wanted to see my family and be sitting on their couch that evening.

Home became flights, planning, luggage, airport connections, and figuring out exactly how many things I could emotionally justify cramming into a suitcase.

Suddenly, the people I loved were not just a drive away.

Birthdays happened while I was here.

Holidays happened while I was here.

Life continued at home while I was building another version of mine thousands of miles away.

And that part can be hard.

There are days when something happens, and I desperately wish I could go home for dinner.

There are moments when I miss the most ordinary things, not even big events, just the familiarity of being around the people who have known me forever.

Sometimes you do not realize how comforting “normal” is until absolutely nothing around you is your normal anymore.

At the same time, that distance forced me to create a life here.

I had to find routines that made the island feel like home.

I had to learn where to grocery shop, how to navigate things that worked differently than I was used to, what foods I could reliably find, and which tiny comforts from home were apparently important enough that I would eventually start packing them in my suitcase like precious cargo.

Medical school already asks you to become more independent.

Doing it in another country basically said: "Cute. Let's add an international component."

And somewhere in all of that, community became incredibly important.

The people around you are not only classmates anymore.

They are the people who understand exactly why you are panicking about the same exam.

They are the people you celebrate with when something goes well and sit beside when it absolutely does not.

They are the people you grab food with after a long day, complain about lectures with, study beside, laugh with, and occasionally look at across the room with an expression that communicates: "Are we okay?"

No words necessary.

And I think that is one of the truths about Caribbean medical school that gets missed when people reduce the experience to either “medical school in paradise” or “the scary alternative route.”

It is neither of those things all the time.

It is just...a life.

A really unusual, difficult, beautiful life.

There have been days when I have felt incredibly lucky to be here.

There have also been days when I would have traded every palm tree on this island for my own bed at home.

Both can be true.

I can love Grenada and miss home.

I can be grateful for this opportunity and acknowledge that it has been hard.

I can spend Saturday afternoon at the beach and still spend Sunday buried in pathology.

One does not somehow invalidate the other.

And honestly, learning that has changed the way I think about rest too.

Early in medical school, I sometimes felt guilty when I was not studying. There was always another lecture I could review, another set of practice questions I could do, another concept I could understand a little better.

There is no natural endpoint to studying medicine.

You eventually just have to decide: "That is enough human body for today."

Which can feel borderline illegal.

But living somewhere this beautiful has slowly taught me that stepping away from school for a few hours does not mean I am less committed to becoming a physician.

Sometimes going to the beach is exactly what I need.

Sometimes it is grabbing good food with friends.

Sometimes it is reading something that contains absolutely zero cytokines.

Sometimes it is calling home.

Sometimes it is doing nothing particularly productive and refusing to turn it into a moral crisis.

Medical school will happily consume every available minute if you let it.

I am learning not to let it.

So yes, occasionally my medical-school experience does involve the beach.

I will happily plead guilty to that stereotype.

I have studied with an ocean view.

I have watched sunsets between exams.

I have had moments when I have looked around and thought, "How is this my real life?"

And I am incredibly grateful for them.

But I also have exams.

I have deadlines.

I have days when I am exhausted, homesick, overwhelmed, or wondering why the human body needed quite so many receptors.

I have spent significantly more time staring at powerpoints than staring at the Caribbean Sea.

So when someone tells me: “Medical school in Grenada? That must feel like a vacation!”

I usually laugh.

Because technically, yes, I live somewhere people come to vacation.

I just happen to be studying medicine while they do it.

They have a beach itinerary.

I have a pathology exam.

We are not having the same trip.

The Part People Get Right About Caribbean Medical Schools

Okay.

We have laughed about the palm trees.

We have discussed my pathology exam rudely interfering with my tropical vacation.

But I also do not want to swing so far in the other direction that this becomes a post about how every concern surrounding Caribbean medical schools is completely made up.

Because it is not.

And I think pretending otherwise does Caribbean medical students a disservice too.

There are things about this path that can be harder.

There are realities you need to understand before choosing it. There are differences between schools. There can be additional considerations when it comes to licensing, clinical rotations, board exams, residency applications, finances, and navigating the process as an international medical graduate.

Those things matter.

And if someone came to me tomorrow and said, “I’m thinking about going to medical school in the Caribbean. Should I do it?” I would never respond: "Absolutely, babe, pack sunscreen and follow your dreams."

Please.

We need several coffees and a much longer conversation first.

Because I genuinely believe anyone considering this route deserves to understand exactly what they are signing up for, the beautiful parts and the difficult ones.

Caribbean medical school should not be romanticized simply because some of us have had meaningful experiences here.

But it also should not be reduced to a cautionary tale.

And I think that middle ground gets lost surprisingly often.

The internet especially seems to enjoy two versions of this conversation.

One is: Caribbean medical school is exactly the same as every other medical school pathway, and there is absolutely nothing additional to consider!

And the other is: You attended medical school in the Caribbean? Your career is over. Have you considered disappearing into the sea?

There is, thankfully, an enormous amount of space between those two conclusions.

That is where I live.

Literally and metaphorically, apparently.

I am not interested in pretending that where I attend medical school will never matter.

It may.

There may be moments in my career when I need to work harder to make myself a competitive applicant. There may be programs that evaluate my application differently because I am an international medical graduate. There are things I will need to be strategic about, questions I will need to ask, and decisions I will need to make carefully as I move toward residency.

I know that.

But acknowledging those realities feels very different now than it did when I first started.

Before, every challenge sounded like a verdict.

Now, it sounds more like information.

And information is useful.

If I know a path has additional hurdles, I can prepare for them.

If I know something matters for residency, I can learn about it.

If I know I need to strengthen a particular part of my application, I can work on it.

If I do not know something?

I can ask.

Groundbreaking concept.

Because there is a massive difference between someone telling you: “Your path may require additional planning.”

and hearing: “You are incapable of reaching the destination.”

For a long time, I think my anxiety translated the first sentence into the second one automatically.

Very helpful of her.

But they are not the same statement.

And this distinction has become especially important as I have gotten closer to the point where my future career is not just some abstract thing happening someday.

I know what I want.

I want pathology.

More specifically, I want forensic pathology.

So when I think about the challenges associated with being a Caribbean medical student now, I try to think about them in relation to that goal.

What do I need to know?

What do I need to do well?

Where can I gain experience?

Who can I learn from?

How can I continue building a genuine relationship with pathology and forensic medicine instead of spending all of my energy worrying about whether someone will eventually tell me I am not allowed to be there?

Those questions actually give me something to do.

Fear does not.

And perhaps that is one of the biggest lessons this path has taught me: being realistic does not require being pessimistic.

I can acknowledge that my route into medicine may look different without treating “different” as a synonym for “worse.”

I can tell a future Caribbean medical student that they need to research their school carefully, understand outcomes, know what will be expected of them, think seriously about the financial commitment, and enter this process with their eyes open.

And I can also tell them that some of the most capable, hardworking, compassionate people I know are sitting in classrooms on this island with me.

Those statements can coexist.

Just like I can be grateful for my medical school while still acknowledging the moments when this path has been incredibly difficult.

Gratitude does not require dishonesty.

Neither does pride.

I do not need to pretend my journey has been flawless in order to be proud of how far I have come.

And I do not need to convince myself that every stereotype is completely fabricated in order to recognize when a legitimate concern has been stretched into an unfair assumption about an individual student.

That distinction matters.

Because a pathway can have challenges without every person walking it being defined by them.

I am not a statistic someone read online.

I am not a Reddit thread.

I am not the success story someone uses to prove Caribbean medical school is perfect, and I am not the cautionary tale someone uses to prove it is not.

I am a medical student.

A very tired one, depending on what week you catch me.

I am learning.

I am making mistakes.

I am doing well sometimes and struggling sometimes.

I am figuring out how to build the career I want with the path I actually have in front of me.

And I think that is ultimately what I wish more conversations about Caribbean medical school sounded like.

Not: Is it good or bad?

But: What does this path require, and is it the right path for you?

Because I cannot tell someone else what their answer should be.

I can only tell you mine.

This path has challenged me in ways I did not expect.

It has humbled me.

It has forced me to confront parts of myself I probably would have preferred to leave comfortably unexamined.

Rude.

But it has also given me the opportunity to study medicine, to grow into a version of myself I am incredibly proud of, and to keep moving toward the career that made me fall in love with this field in the first place.

So yes.

Some of the warnings are worth listening to.

Some of the challenges are real.

Do your research.

Ask uncomfortable questions.

Know what you are walking into.

But do not confuse “this path may be harder” with “this path cannot take you somewhere extraordinary.”

Because those are two very different things.

So…Can a Caribbean Med Student Become a Forensic Pathologist?

Underneath a lot of my early anxiety about Caribbean medical school was one question I did not always say out loud: "Can I still become the kind of doctor I actually want to be?"

And for me, that question has never been hypothetical.

I know what I want.

I want to become a forensic pathologist.

Which, objectively, makes some of my anxiety a little funny.

Because let us be very clear about something before we continue: I did not choose one of the specialties medical students are notoriously fighting each other in the parking lot to get into.

Pathology is not exactly known for producing a Hunger Games-style Match season.

And forensic pathology?

Girl.

The United States is quite literally experiencing a shortage of forensic pathologists.

Estimates have put the number of practicing forensic pathologists in the United States at around 500, while the country needs roughly twice that number to adequately meet the demand for medicolegal death investigation.

So no.

I am not currently pursuing the most fiercely competitive specialty in medicine.

Forensic pathology is essentially standing in the corner waving at medical students like: "Hello??? Anyone interested??? We have microscopes???"

And I am across the room like: I AM.

I have BEEN interested.

Please save me a seat.

Which means, logically, you would think this particular fear would have packed its bags and left my brain years ago.

Unfortunately, anxiety has never been especially interested in statistics.

Because even knowing all of that, the fear still exists.

Not necessarily because I think there are thousands of other medical students fighting me for one forensic pathology fellowship spot.

They are not.

The fear is much simpler than that.

What if being an international medical graduate closes a door before I ever get the chance to walk through it?

What if a pathology residency program sees where I attended medical school and makes an assumption before they see everything else I have done?

What if I do not perform well enough on an exam?

What if there is some requirement I did not understand early enough?

What if I spend years building toward this career and discover that one part of my path made getting there harder than I expected?

And yes, I can recognize the irony.

There is a national shortage of people who want to do the exact job I have wanted to do for years, and somehow my brain can still manufacture a scenario where they are all gathered around a table going: "Everyone except her."

Anxiety is creative like that.

But I also think that is an important part of this conversation.

Fear does not always disappear just because the numbers are on your side.

Sometimes you can understand something intellectually and still struggle to believe it emotionally.

I know pathology is not among the specialties people typically point to when discussing the most competitive residency pathways.

I know forensic pathology desperately needs physicians.

I know my years of experience in forensic medicine before medical school give me a genuine connection to this field that did not appear yesterday because I thought autopsies sounded cool.

And still, occasionally, there is that tiny voice: "But what if?"

The difference now is that I do not automatically believe her.

Because this dream existed long before I ever stepped onto this island.

Before medical school, I had already spent years finding my way toward forensic medicine. I studied forensic science. I volunteered and worked in a medical examiner's office. I had the opportunity to see the reality of death investigation beyond the television shows that originally fascinated me as a kid.

I learned very quickly that real forensic pathology was not dramatic music, perfectly timed evidence, and someone solving an entire case before the commercial break.

Rude.

It was medicine.

It was anatomy and disease and injury and toxicology and investigation.

It was careful observation.

It was asking why.

It was treating a person with dignity even when they could no longer advocate for themselves.

And somewhere in that environment, I realized: This is where I want to come back to as a physician.

So when I started hearing all of the warnings about Caribbean medical school and residency, I was not only worried about whether I would become a doctor.

I was worried about whether I would become that doctor.

And maybe that is why the fear has been so stubborn.

It is not really about competitiveness.

It is about how badly I want it.

When you care about a future this much, even a small possibility that something could interfere with it can suddenly feel enormous.

But I have had to remind myself that worrying about every possible barrier does absolutely nothing to move me closer to the autopsy suite.

Very rude discovery.

So instead, I am trying to focus on what actually can.

I can learn as much medicine as possible while I am here.

I can work hard.

I can prepare for my board exams.

I can seek out pathology experiences.

I can stay connected to the forensic medicine community that made me fall in love with this career in the first place.

I can find mentors.

I can ask questions.

I can continue building an application that reflects not only that I say I am interested in forensic pathology, but that I have spent years showing up for that interest.

And perhaps most importantly, I can become someone who is actually prepared to do the work when the opportunity comes.

Because I do not want forensic pathology simply because I like the idea of it.

I have been in the room.

I have seen parts of the work that are not glamorous, exciting, or television-worthy.

I have stood in an autopsy suite.

I have worked with decedents.

I have seen the care and attention that goes into doing this work properly.

And I still walked away thinking: Yep. This one.

My path to forensic pathology is not beginning someday when I finally reach residency.

It is already happening.

It is happening when I sit through a pathology lecture and finally understand why a disease produces the findings it does.

It is happening when I study pharmacology and complain about memorizing another drug while knowing that toxicology may eventually become part of the work I love.

It is happening when I learn anatomy, microbiology, physiology, and all the pieces of medicine that someday need to exist together in my brain.

It is happening every time I become a little more capable of answering the question that has followed me through so much of my life:

Why?

And yes, being a Caribbean medical student is part of that story.

It may influence how I have to navigate the next few years.

There may be doors I have to knock on a little harder.

There may be moments when I have to advocate for myself.

There may be times when I have to prove that I am prepared for an opportunity before someone is willing to give it to me.

Okay.

Then I will knock.

Because I have realized something that younger me desperately needed to hear: My route may influence how I have to get there. It does not get to decide whether the destination belongs to me.

I cannot write the ending of my own story before I have lived it.

But I can tell you this: I am certainly going to find out.

And when I picture the future version of myself standing in an autopsy suite, doing the work that first made medicine feel like it had a place specifically for me, I do not picture an asterisk beside her degree.

I do not picture the people who once made assumptions about where she went to medical school.

I do not picture the Reddit threads, the statistics I once spiraled over, or every moment she wondered whether she was good enough.

I picture the physician she became.

And somewhere underneath the PPE?

Probably pink scrubs.

Obviously.

I Stopped Apologizing for Where I Go to Medical School

For a long time, I think I treated being a Caribbean medical student like it needed an explanation.

Not necessarily an apology in the literal sense.

I was not walking around saying, “Hi, I'm a medical student, so sorry about the palm trees.”

Although after writing this post, I am realizing that would have saved us all a considerable amount of time.

It was more subtle than that.

It was the invisible but I kept attaching to something I had worked incredibly hard for.

I am a medical student, but I go to school in the Caribbean.

I want to become a forensic pathologist, but I am an international medical student.

I am doing well, but…

There was always a but.

Always some qualification I felt like I needed to offer before anyone else had the opportunity to question me.

And somewhere along the way, I got tired of hearing myself say it.

Because the truth is: I go to medical school in the Caribbean.

That is it.

That is the sentence.

It does not need an asterisk.

It does not mean I think this pathway is perfect. It does not mean I have suddenly forgotten every legitimate challenge we just spent an entire section discussing. It certainly does not mean I think where you attend medical school has absolutely no impact on the path ahead.

It simply means I have stopped treating those realities like something I need to apologize for.

This is where I am becoming a doctor.

On this island, I have learned anatomy and physiology and pathology and pharmacology. I have taken exams that made me feel incredibly proud of myself and others that made me question whether I had accidentally enrolled in the wrong degree program.

I have walked into clinical skills sessions nervous and walked out a little more confident.

I have gotten things right.

I have gotten things very, very wrong.

I have learned.

I have struggled.

I have grown.

I have called home because I missed my family.

I have laughed until my stomach hurt with people who were strangers when I first arrived here.

I have watched sunsets that made me stop whatever I was doing just to stare at them.

I have studied while rain absolutely assaulted my windows.

I have celebrated passing exams.

I have cried over exams.

I have probably consumed enough caffeine to warrant its own subsection in my medical record.

And through all of it, I have kept becoming a physician.

Not a Caribbean version of one.

Not an almost version.

Not a physician with an invisible asterisk beside the title.

A physician.

Or, technically, a medical student who is becoming one.

We do still have a few steps before anyone lets me loose with the MD.

Probably for the best.

And now, being in my last term of medical school on the island, I think I have started looking at this place differently.

For so long, Grenada felt like the place I had arrived at.

Now I am realizing it is becoming a place I am going to have to leave.

Which feels incredibly strange.

There was a time when everything here felt unfamiliar.

The roads.

The grocery stores.

The routines.

The heat.

The distance from home.

The fact that I had somehow moved my entire life to a tiny island to learn medicine, which still sounds mildly unhinged when I phrase it that way.

And slowly, without me really noticing it happening, the unfamiliar became normal.

I built routines.

I found people.

I found favorite places.

I figured out which things from home absolutely deserved precious suitcase space and which things I could survive without.

I learned how to build a life somewhere completely different from the one I had always known.

And now I am approaching the point where I will have to pack that life back into suitcases and move forward.

Medical school is weird like that.

You spend so much time trying to survive the chapter you are in that sometimes you do not realize it is becoming a chapter you will eventually miss.

I am sure there will be things about island life I will be perfectly happy to leave behind.

Let us not become overly sentimental.

There are inconveniences I do not need to romanticize for character development.

Growth has occurred.

The lesson has been learned.

Thank you.

But I also know there are things I will miss more than I can probably understand while they are still part of my everyday life.

I will miss looking outside and seeing my seagull friends and the ocean.

I will miss the sunsets.

I will miss being able to say, “Do you want to go to the beach?” and have that be a completely reasonable suggestion for an ordinary afternoon.

I will miss the people who understood this particular chapter because they were living it beside me.

I will probably even miss some of the chaos.

Some.

Let us not get carried away.

And I think, more than anything, I will miss the version of myself who existed here.

Because she went through it.

She arrived with enormous dreams and an equally enormous amount of self-doubt.

She worried about whether she belonged.

She worried about whether she was smart enough.

She worried about whether the path she had chosen would eventually prevent her from becoming the forensic pathologist she wanted to be.

She let other people's opinions live in her head rent-free for far too long.

Terrible financial decision.

But she kept going.

And somewhere between all of those lectures, exams, difficult days, beautiful days, mistakes, little victories, and moments when she genuinely was not sure whether she could do it anymore, something changed.

She stopped needing every hard moment to mean something about her worth.

She stopped treating struggle like evidence that she did not belong.

She stopped looking at every future opportunity and immediately searching for the reason she might not be allowed to have it.

And she stopped apologizing for the path that was actively teaching her how strong she could become.

I do not know exactly what the next few years will look like.

There are still so many unknowns between this version of me and the forensic pathologist I hope to become.

There will be board exams.

Clinical rotations.

Residency applications.

Match.

Pathology training.

Eventually, hopefully, forensic pathology.

And I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities along the way for my brain to resurrect an entirely new collection of things to worry about.

She is nothing if not creative.

But I do not want to meet those next chapters already apologizing for the ones that came before them.

I want to walk into them carrying everything this place taught me.

The medicine, obviously.

That seems important.

But also the adaptability.

The independence.

The ability to start over somewhere unfamiliar.

The willingness to ask for help.

The confidence that comes from discovering that I can struggle deeply and still come back from it.

And the understanding that there is no single perfect route to becoming the physician I want to be.

Mine happens to include palm trees.

And honestly?

I am finally pretty proud of that.

So if you are another Caribbean medical student reading this while wondering whether you need to explain yourself every time someone asks where you go to school, I hope you know that you do not owe everyone a defense of your existence.

Be informed about your path.

Understand the challenges.

Work hard.

Ask questions.

Prepare for the future you want.

But do not spend so much time worrying about whether someone else thinks you belong in medicine that you forget you are already here doing the work.

And if you are considering Caribbean medical school, I hope this post does not convince you that it is wonderful or terrible.

I hope it convinces you to look deeper than either stereotype.

Research the school.

Understand the pathway.

Ask about outcomes.

Know the risks.

Think seriously about what you want.

And then make the decision that makes sense for your life, not the version of it strangers on the internet have already written for you.

As for me?

One day soon, I will leave this island.

I will pack up the life I have built here, fold up my pink scrubs, and attempt to zip another suitcase that somehow weighs more than the laws of physics should reasonably allow.

I will say goodbye to the places that became familiar.

I will look at the ocean one last time as a medical student who lives beside it instead of someone who came to visit.

And then I will get on a plane and move toward whatever comes next.

The palm trees will not come with me.

But the person I became beneath them will.

And someday, when I am standing in an autopsy suite as a forensic pathologist, I hope I remember her.

The medical student studying pathology on a tiny Caribbean island.

The girl who worried that the route she took might make her dream smaller.

The one who eventually realized it did not have to.

Because Grenada was never the limit of where medicine could take me.

It was simply one of the places that taught me how to get there. 

And with that, I think we have officially unpacked enough of my Caribbean medical school emotional baggage for one week.

If you have ever felt like the path you are taking needs an explanation, or like where you started somehow determines how far you are allowed to go, I hope you leave this post remembering that your journey does not have to look like anyone else's to be worth being proud of.

You are allowed to acknowledge the hard parts without letting them define the entire story.

You are allowed to be unsure of what comes next and still be excited about where you are going.

And you are absolutely allowed to build a life that looks a little different from the one you originally imagined.

Thank you, as always, for spending a little piece of your week here with me. Whether you are another medical student figuring it out alongside me, someone dreaming about medicine from a completely different path, a fellow forensic pathology lover, or you are simply here because you somehow got emotionally invested in the girl studying pathology under the palm trees, I am so happy you are here.

I hope you have the most beautiful week ahead.

Be gentle with yourself. Celebrate how far you have already come. And please remember that one difficult chapter does not get to write the ending of your story.

As for me, I will be over here continuing to become a doctor one lecture, one exam, one minor existential crisis, and one pathology slide at a time.

Still dreaming about forensic pathology.

Still wearing pink.

And, for just a little while longer, still doing it beneath the palm trees.

Until next week, babes. 💗

XOXO,

Kenzie

The Forensic Fashionista

my little beachside/oceanside campus :,)