As a second-year Tulane medical student, Andrew Schutzbank had been looking forward to his girlfriend of three years, Whitney Stern, joining him in New Orleans to begin her first year of medical school at Tulane. Then, when Hurricane Katrina closed the Tulane University School of Medicine in downtown New Orleans, the pair found themselves--along with the rest of their classmates--at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
Schutzbank and Stern, both MD/MPH candidates, hail from New Jersey. When Katrina threatened New Orleans, the couple evacuated to Houston, where they stayed for a month with Schutzbank's sister, husband and new baby. That move proved fortuitous, placing Schutzbank in a position to help the medical school reorganize in its out-of-state home for the academic year.
"Over Labor Day weekend, I called the AAMC (American Association of Medical Colleges) and spoke to a vice president," says Schutzbank, who was then connected with Marc Kahn, associate dean for student affairs of the Tulane medical school, who also was in Houston.
Schutzbank joined a small group of medical students, along with Kahn and Kevin Krane, vice dean for academic affairs, who met daily with administrators at the Baylor College of Medicine. Core faculty began arriving as the medical school-in-exile jelled. The team was able to put together a Tulane program, with Tulane faculty and curricula, thanks to the generosity of Baylor sharing space and resources.
"My class started a Web forum, which became the backbone of communications before the Tulane website and e-mail resumed," Schutzbank says. As medical students got in touch through the online forum, they registered on a database with current contact information. Within a couple of weeks, about 300 medical students--half the medical student body--had logged in.
"I felt good about my contribution to get the school up and running," says Schutzbank, who was able to provide class handouts to the professors and students who did not have them. "There was no sense of title or position, whether you were a student, a secretary or a dean. We all worked together to get the job done."
A group of students from Baylor, the University of Texas-Houston and Tulane worked to coordinate housing, transportation and other issues, reaching out to the medical community in the Houston area to donate extra bedrooms, garage apartments and other housing for the medical students.
Now, some of the clubs are getting organized, says Schutzbank, who serves as president of the Internal Medicine Society. Students Against Right-Brain Atrophy organized an open-mike night at a Houston pub, where students told jokes, played music and read poetry. After each set of tests, the first-year students get together for a party.
"We were somewhat disheartened when the rest of the university went back to school in New Orleans this month," says Stern, noting that most of the first-year class has adjusted to Tulane medical school staying at Baylor this year. Yet Stern and Schutzbank agree that the Tulane medical students anxiously look forward to returning to New Orleans.
"We have a break at Mardi Gras, and I'm sure a lot of us will come to New Orleans to celebrate, to rebuild and to work with the sick," Schutzbank says.
