my life, my pace

Don’t threaten me with lack of funding when you never told me that my file was “incomplete” to begin with.  You don’t scare me because I’m in the MD/PhD program, which means I will get my money regardless of what you say or do.  Oh, and if you make trouble for me, it’ll be your ass on the line, not mine (God forbid anyone give one of our most precious investments MD/PhD students any trouble).  And most certainly don’t tell me that you have a heavy load when that onerous load consists of 500 students at most split between at least five of you.  Cry me a river when you’re working for the undergrad financial aid office once I get your ass fired for behaving like a bitch to me.

Sincerely,

mylifemypace

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2. an open letter to the director of the md/phd programDear Mr. Head Honcho Who Has No Clue What His MD/PhD Students Are Suffering Because He's Too Kooky Himself: Before it comes to your attention that I am not making satisfactory progress in your program and thereby hurting your chance of receiving NIH funding for it, I would like to make clear the failures in your program that have led to the waste of my valuable potential, which five years ago, you thought would blossom through your program. First off, we need more guidance. Even those of us who were very much involved in research before coming to medical school do not know how graduate school works. We assume that someone will tell us and guide us through the process since it is in your best interest that we finish in a reasonable amount of time. I waited and waited for this guidance and it never materialized. I even tried seeking it out through your required semiannual meetings with my appointed advisor. The last time I met with my advisor, I told him of my concerns with my major professor's mood swings and unwillingness to be open to my ideas and outright unprofessional behavior towards me. I also told him that I was not making the progress I would have liked to make by that time and that I feared that I would not finish my PhD any time soon because of my major professor's failure to be a good mentor to me. He sent you a report of my...
3. in response to my dear reader post…Ages ago, I noticed an onslaught of new user registrations without much in the way of comment-posting, so I wrote a post requesting that readers give me some input about what they want to see on this blog. I am now finally getting around to responding to loyal (I hope so still...) reader 314's questions listed below. 1. Did you ever have any dream careers as a child? When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a scientist. I even went so far as to draw a picture of myself in a labcoat working with chemicals at a lab bench when I was in second grade or so. So I've always been interested in the sciences. In high school, I wanted to be an astronomer until my mom told me that I'd never find a job (she was probably right). Not very interesting, huh? 2. What did you think being a doctor meant when you first decided to go to med school? I lived a pretty sheltered life until my mom passed away when I was in high school. Even afterwards, I remained pretty sheltered (thanks to a psycho possessive ex-boyfriend). I had never really been exposed to what it is that doctors actually do except for what I saw whenever I went to my own doctor, who was invariably either a family practician or a pediatrician. So I thought that being a doctor meant having my own general practice and that was what I wanted to do....

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