Hello SGU Term-5 friends,

I recently got an answer from Dr. Clunes. She irritated her previous response without paying attention to the students' and their families' concerns. The other SGU administrators are still unresponsive. Unlike all professional behavior they taught us on T3/T4, they ignored the students' problems "even if the number of signatures on the petition were to continue to grow" !!

FYI, here is the last response I've sent to the administrators (we all continue to send emails and follow up):

Dear SGU administrators,

Regarding the previous discussions, we would like to inform you that we decided to create one email address to avoid sending you more than 200 emails every single day.

If you prefer all 200 students to explain their specific personal issues separately and send it by their SGU emails, that will be possible easily. You can also check the validity of all signatures on the petition site: https://chng.it/w4fM8SZF

You teach us our healthcare system is customer/patient-centric. Our lectures mentioned that we should be careful about our patients, embrace and feel their complaints, and empathize with them. We are your students/customers at SGU, and we just ask you to hear our voices.

Is that professional just saying your issues are understandable and discontinue sending emails?!! No care about the number of signatures when at least ¼ of the students have critical problems.

We all knew our prestigious university was not an online school. Meanwhile, living on a beautiful Caribbean Island like Grenada was one of the reasons that we all decided to start our journey at SGU medical school. Still, unfortunately, the pandemic didn't allow us to have such a fantastic experience.

Our concern is not relevant to returning safely to the island after the pandemic. That is not relevant whether we prefer to live in the US. It is not relevant to a long notice by the school for individual arrangements for the return. Also, that is not relevant to adapting to a new country.

This is a permanent issue. It is just because we have only one more term there, and this short period will cause tremendous hardship for us and our family and kids.

As requested, we strongly need to ask you to kindly consider "the hybrid option" for the reasons mentioned in the petition.

Please imagine this specific situation and consider our concerns on items 1 to 6.

There are many personal reasons, but we don't want to bother you and take your time for personal reasons. We want to highlight a few in-common important issues here. We must highlight that WE are the ONLY SGU term-5 group in this disastrous situation. It's not similar to previous or upcoming term-5 medical students.

The school got optional opportunities for the last term-5 students (January 2022).

After the Fall 2022 semester (OUR TERM-5 semester), the next group of term-5 students (January 2023) are the students who are in in-person term 3 right now on the island. They will settle there for a long time with their families and kids when they start their term-5. 

Making two significant moves to the island and going back in just 16 weeks is almost impossible for many term-5 students "with family and kids." because of these below reasons:

1- As full-time medical students, we are not working; just one family member works to support the family and kids. Unpredicted rising expenses for the cost of living (rentals, flights, and ...) made it impossible for our supporters to be able to secure the family and kids and pay 2 separate costs of living for the family; one in the US and one for us in Grenada at the same time. That is crushing for the family, even with maximum financial aid support. The massive difference in costs for rentals, flights, and other stuff between the last year and now can be found and compared by a quick search on the internet.

2- It will ruin the kids' education and mental health to find and start a school in Grenada, leave it in less than 4 months, and return to another school elsewhere.

3- It's been mentioned that there is always a term-5 when you decide to go back to mandatory in-person at SGU.

Please kindly clarify if there could be ANY similar term-5 students with similar problems to us at SGU. The problem is 16 weeks of mandatory moving there just for some students who are going to start their term 5. As mentioned, it's an unfair, permanent issue for us in this specific situation.

As we mentioned, after the Fall 2022 semester, the next group of term-5 students (January 2023) is the students in term 3 right now on the island. They will settle there for a long time with their families and kids when they start their term-5. 

4- A probable suggestion could be turning up for one or two consequent weeks in person on the island for the hospital sessions at the SGU's best convenient time for the school. In that case, it would be more affordable for the family, and there is no need to bring kids and other family members with us.

5- One of the solutions "to avoid 2 separate costs of living" was for the whole family to move to Grenada. You better understand that in this competitive job environment after the pandemic, our supporters cannot secure their jobs and live outside the US for just four months, and they will lose their jobs. Finding the right positions and working in Grenada for four months is impossible too.

6- Taking a leave of absence from school cannot also resolve mentioned permanent issues due to the short-term 16-week moves. Please suggest some solutions to us. We are not undergrad students. We are studying at a prestigious medical school. So it is obvious that we need our school administrators should be able to resolve the problems, not ignore them.

We are sure that if the SGU administrators care about specific term-5 students' issues and resolve them by giving the online option, it will positively affect thousands of people who are part of the SGU family.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Some SGU Term-5 Medical Students