My Medical Grand Tour, Part 3 of 4

While undertaking residency interviews, I collected photographic mementoes. Click here for Part 1, Part 2, and Part 4.


The farthest I traveled was to Aurora, CO. I stayed at a hotel near the Denver airport  and the Anschutz medical campus. The hotel was decorated for the winter holidays with a Christmas tree and garlands decked out in blue, white, and silver baubles. The lobby led into a large open hall with the restaurant on one side and the bar on the other. In the middle was an elevated platform with a grand piano and this large stone formation (decked with gauze and lights) with a noisy, cascading fountain. I guess it brought the mountains a little closer. You had to walk up a ramp on the side to access the hallway with the elevators hidden behind it.

Here are the actual mountains, visible on the other side of downtown Denver from an upper floor of University Hospital.






The newest building at the Nemours/Alfred DuPont Children's Hospital in Wilmington, DE, looks like an enormous fish tank, what with its curving blue-glass walls. Inside the vaulted lobby stood an impressive Christmas tree.

In Philadelphia, PA, I visited the Reading Terminal Market to buy ice cream for me and edible Christmas presents for my family. The stalls--most local, some Amish--selling candy, sausages, local produce, and souvenirs were busy for a weekday afternoon. The last time I was at the RTM would have been in 2004, when I treated myself to an early dinner after a medical school interview before hopping a train home.

Good morning, Bromo-Seltzer Tower!

Despite its long history of German culture, Baltimore, MD, didn't have a Christmas market until 2013. A couple of applicants and I walked over to the Inner Harbor pavilions after our interviews wrapped up. We stopped by The Fudgery and then the temporary stalls to buy delicious flavored popcorn by a local vendor. I was appalled at the exorbitant prices on the "Saxon" Christmas ornaments that were probably made in China. Outside was an Advent calendar on which the organizers posted a fact about German Christmas every day. Peaking over the top, you can see Baltimore's World Trade Center.