Colt's Pre-Op

Colt's medical school orientation, or Pre-Op, was this weekend. It started on Thursday with a BBQ at an apartment complex near campus. We went up a little earlier that day so he could get his parking permit, go to the bookstore, talk to financial aid, and all the little stuff he wanted to get done before the first day. It was HOT at the BBQ, so we left after about an hour and a half and went and ate burgers at Jake's! Friday was mainly an organization fair and an opportunity for the students to get their scrubs, anatomy kits and all that ordered and then dinner afterwards.

Saturday started the Pre-Op retreat, and we all went to Riverbend Retreat Center in Glen Rose. We met on campus at 8, and the morning started with a video presentation that the MS2's made for Colt's class. The video was pretty funny!

Then we got on the buses to head to the retreat. Little did we know, the buses represented the six different colleges that they would be grouped in for the next four years of medical school. UT Southwestern has a really neat program where they break the class into six different colleges of about 40 or so. The college has a doctor that serves as a master and then a group of doctors that serve as mentors for the group and meet each week with the students. The colleges compete for a college cup and compete througout the year in athletics, academics, and charity. It seems pretty competitive and it is a pretty big deal what college you're in!

On the bus ride, we played speed dating and it was pretty exhausting! Once we were there, we did three small groups where we played get to know each other games. For the last small group, they seperated all of the couples into a group together, and we did a game where you all try to get each other through a spider web of rope and another game where you walk together on planks of wood.

During one of the first two small groups

A group walking on the planks during small group 3

During activity time, Colt and I went to the lake. They had a slide, swings, zip lines and blobs. They were pretty strict on their blob. They had scales to determine if you could blob the person in front of you. It was broke when we went so Colt got to blob me one time (the time I didn't fall off before he got the chance) and I flew! They fixed the scale not too long after that. Colt played water basketball with some other guys, ping pong and then we headed to get ready for dinner. After dinner was the college ceremony where all the students found out their college. The ceremony was neat. They lined all of them up in two single file lines and had torches, drums, the whole works and walked down to a coliseum type place to announce the colleges. Colt is a Sprague Sprague Spartan! Colt had been told by a random upperclassmen on Friday that he was in Sprague college, but noone was supposed to know their colleges until a special presentation on Saturday night. We weren't sure if he knew what he was talking about, but he was right. He seems to have a really great group of students in his college! After the ceremony, the chants and the competition began! It definitely got a little segregated. We played night capture the flag. It was a really hard game to play with so many people. After the games, they had a concert and by that time we were exhausted and went to the cabins. Colt and I had to sleep in different cabins which was kinda weird, but it was only for a night! We were in the same cabin, but on opposite sides with about 15 other people.

Lining up for the college ceremony

Class of 2014

Dr. Wagner and Dr. Mihalic getting ready to name the colleges

The college masters

Colt waiting to find out which one he's in

and it was Sprague

Signing

The colleges in their different colors

The concert

Sunday morning, we were up early for the college relay competition. In the relay, they had about six stations and each member of the college had to participate in one thing. They had to do things like swim in scrubs, have an eating/drinkiing contest, climb the iceberg in the lake, spin around a baseball bat until they got dizzy and then hit it, run on crutches, hop in a pillowcase, three legged race, and pass an oily watermelon. Colt was chosen to climb the iceberg. His team actually came next to last because they had a mishap in the first station. Evidently, they swam good in the scrubs but then one of the swimmers got a knot in the scrubs and they couldn't get them off for forever! All we knew was that it took forever for the runner in red to get down to the lake! They were really far behind, but they caught up A LOT! They ended up coming back and beating Cary College in the end! After the relay, we had lunch, and then it was time to head back home.

Just a pic outside the cabin we stayed in

Getting ready for the relay race

Trying to come up with strategy

and their group decided they would stretch because they had a couple injuried the night before playing capture the flag!

Down at the iceberg part of the relay

and there finally comes Sprague!

Colt climbing the iceberg

and over

Running to the next station

After the relay

smashing the watermelon

Sprague Spartans Class of 2014

Another group pic session

and a group pic with their MS2 counselors

It was a fun weekend and it was really great getting to meet all his classmates and some of their spouses too! I'm really glad I got to go and participate, because now I'm not going to be lost and not have a clue who he's talking about! We met a lot of great people, and I think he's going to have a really great year!

Colt made a Sprague Class of 2014 facebook page already for his college and you can go to it here!