my neurology clerkship was at assaf harofe hospital, in the south tel aviv suburb of zeriffin. five of us got to commute every day from beer sheva, and it was a long one. one hour on a train each way, along with a 30 minute taxi ride with an angry chain smoker that usually had to be waited for. oh well, it was just two weeks, and it was the only clerkship of the year that didn’t involve an exam at the end, so it was a nice change. there were israeli students from tel aviv university who were there with us as well so that was fun. the hospital compound was a former british military base. it is a huge campus of a hospital. and the cafeteria food was unparalleled!
a few days i made a detour through jerusalem part of my commute. even ran into some old friends there which was great!
one day as we were leaving the hospital someone yelled out that they had found an abandoned box at the bus stop, which everyone immediately suspected might be a bomb. very quickly the highway was shut down and a robot was called in, as is standard in israel. everyone stood back a couple hundred meters. a non-descriptly dressed guy drove up in an unmarked car and casually loaded the machine gun on top of the robot with ammunition. the robot then made its way over to the item of interest – probably just a package someone had forgotten at the bus stop. a protective cover unfolded over the suspicious item, and the robot shot it to hell. everyone cheered. nothing exploded. we then went on with our commute.
