My Introduction To France And Locating My Medical School

It was August or so of 1973 when I traveled first to Amiens.

I had known I would never go to medical school in Paris. It seemed to me tradesmen striking was a sort of French National Pastime.

I decided to visit as many as needed of the official government medical schools and register. The cost was minimal and I had to pick the best, because my school’s heritage would be associated with me for the rest of my life.

I was temporarily lodging at the Ritz in Paris. I had written them from Boston by “snail mail,” telling them I was only a young girl alone (20) and needed their most humble room.

I had dumped my two oversized suitcases of “American clothes” (which I had been told later by several it was a travesty to even bring into France) on the floor of a “chambre mansarde” — a room with a ceiling that matched the slant of the roof.

Outside the window I could see the top part of Napoleon’s column that marked the Place Vendome. I remember at that moment I cried, and clutched my passport, because the books had all been real and this place really existed.

I remember the diminutive maid who had escorted me to my room, talk an amazing quality of nearly accent-free English.

I told her in French that because we are in France, I expected her to address me in French.

“We want to make you feel at home.”

I told her that I wanted France to become my home, and for my French to become perfect.

She did comply, and I was grateful.

I took day trips to about a half-dozen of the cities on my map. I chose, in the absence of a more compelling reason, my medical schools and my cities — alphabetically.

I didn’t realize (or care) that most of France was closed in August (and July). I knew from the consulate of France in Boston that the medical school registration offices would be open and that would be just fine.

One registration packet at a time was in the tan carry-on airplane bag — passport and travelers’ checks in a large red purse (which I had been told, later, marked me for a foreigner for sure).

And I was off to Amiens, because it started with an “A.”

The old medical school where I registered said 1568 on the cornerstone. I supposed it had been a monastery doling out healthcare of something back then.

I did not realize until much later that the secretary to the registrar who processed my papers was an archetypal French bureaucrat, with ultra-correct clothes and lots of rubber stamps, ceremoniously inked and thoroughly pounded on documents.

Years later I was trying to register for a licensure examination to return to the states. The very same little man was sitting in the same little window.

The French medical system had been through several name-changes and incarnations. I needed a new set of papers in order to prove to the World Health Organization that the medical school at Amiens still existed.

“No problem Mademoiselle.”

He took a pristine piece of government-issued blank paper and took out of its special box the seal of the medical school, stamped it on the paper, and signed and dated that paper.

“Here, Mademoiselle. You may assure anyone in the world that we exist.”

TO BE CONTINUED