My Lifelong Childhood

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."                         Herbert George Wells (1866-1946)       How do I compress eight years of my life, living in Belgium, into a few posts without straining the attention of my readers?  My goal is to share experiences that you might find of interest without making my writing into an exercise of egocentricity.  I will attempt my best efforts here and break it down a bit into a few postings.      I have already written of my early days in Belgium but I want to share with you what a medical education was like and how it changed over the years I was there. The Free University of Brussels (L'Universite' Libre de Bruxelles)       The "Free" above, does not indicate the cost but, rather, the principle behind its founding.  Founded in 1834, the Faculty of Medicine, as part of the larger university, was based in secularism and free thought as a balance against the tradition

There was a sound of revelry by night,       And Belgium's capital had gather'd then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright       The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;                               George Gordon Byron,  Lord Byron  (1788-1824) BELGIUM! ...So, I enjoy most things Belgian:  The chocolates, the beer, the food, the people, the countryside, etc.  When I decided to take a big chance and study Medicine in a foreign country and in a foreign language,  I must have been either foolishly hopeful or mentally deluded.  We hear so much today of the credo, "failure is impossible".  Little did I know that I would live there for eight years.  Why so long, you ask?  Well, failure was  possible and probable.  It took me a couple of years to adjust to a totally alien environment and culture, but once I did, it was smooth sailing.  Why, in 1966, I had never been out of the country before, not even Canada!      I remember that day well, when m