an academic medicine weblog
So I just had another residency interview yesterday. Not too bad, mostly conversational in nature. Unfortunately, there were many interviews packed into a relatively short period of time so the scheduling made for short exchanges. One interviewer asked me, “what are three things that you are proud of?”
I never know quite how to answer that question. Note that [...]
DT40s are a cell culture line of chicken lymphocyte B cells. They exhibit a high rate of targeted (and random) integration of transfected DNA constructs and are ideal for stable transfection. They can, however, be a royal pain to culture. Anyone who has worked with DT40s can attest to the fact that it is probably [...]
So I’m writing this entry sitting in a train, going back home after one of my residency interviews, staring out the window. It’s 8:22 am on a Sunday morning (…to be posted once I get home…), the sun is shining bright and we are traveling through some beautiful country (I wish I had a picture of [...]
You are starting in a lab and deciding on a project to work on. If you will be in the lab for an extended period of time, say >1 year, or if you are a graduate student, sometimes there is a temptation to work on something really interesting related to the field in which the [...]
A meeting with one of my clinical mentors yesterday got me thinking about the importance of mentorship in general and, in particular, the importance of mentorship in medical school, which now has me thinking about good mentorship in graduate school.
Graduate school (PhD training) is unique amongst other doctoral training in that the mentor (thesis advisor) plays a central [...]
My last post got me thinking about how one’s needs out of a mentor depend on the situation. In medical school, mentorship usually impacts:
1) choice of medical specialty
2) research experience
3) clinical know-how and insight
4) your introduction to others
Believe it or not–and others who have gone through this can attest to it as well–who you interact [...]
Just came back from an hour-long coffee break with one of my mentors in my medical field of choice, in which I am currently applying for residency positions. When I think about the factors that lead me to head down the various paths that I have traveled, so much of it has been due to [...]
If you are interested in pursuing training or a career in academic medicine in Europe, here is some information I recently received:
Are you interested in the European job market? Do you want to pursue a PhD, a post-doc, an academic or a professional career on the other side of the ocean? We invite you to join [...]
It’s happened to me and it’s probably happened to you. I was talking to a buddy of mine today who has been having a heck of a time with a manuscript review. The unreasonable manuscript review. Yes, it can be a very touchy subject and a bad review can cut you deep. But have you ever [...]
There are now over 100 grants, scholarships, fellowships for research (or just for you!) for medical students, graduate students, postdocs, residents, clinical fellows and investigators now on my funding opportunities page. On the way to two hundred!
Today is the 20th World AIDS Day and it is astounding how much and how quickly our clinical knowledge of HIV management has increased since 20 years ago. Treatment guidelines and recommendations are continuously updated as we learn more–this impacts clinical patient care from both the physicians’ side as well as the patients’. Below, I have listed some useful, clinically [...]
