Early Shabbat

This time of year it gets really hard to explain shabbat to people. I have to get out of lab by four to make it home in time - and this is with no cooking or shabbat prep happening on friday. I do all my cooking and preparing on Thursday, which has led to some pretty late Thursday nights. My typical plan is to get up early on friday and head off to work so that I can still accomplish something. Luckily, in Science you don't need to have regular hours. So long as you are doing your work, no one cares when you do it. I am also lucky my lab does not have journal club or lab meeting on Friday. My PI is also really supportive so I think he'd move it to another day.

My friends in medicine have also been working out their plans for these short days. Whether or not you will work on shabbat as a medical student is a personal halachik question and I am not here to make that decision for you. It is best done by contacting your local halachik authority. Several of my friends and colleagues have come to the conclusion that they will not. The ones at Albert einstein have no problem. The ones elsewhere have found this a stickier issue. Most have decided to contact the directors of the rotations that they are currently on. For the most part these directors are helpful and willing to work with them. Occasionally there is one that isn't, however I have yet to hear of someone being penalized for not working on shabbat in my institution. There has just been some frowning upon it. But if you are firm in your convictions you can withstand the pressure. In addition even when the clerkship director is unhelpful the residents are usually nice and will work something out for you. You may have to sacrifice all your sundays, but its worth it.

These early days are not easy. One of the best things to do is ask senior students how the different clerkships handled their requests so you can schedule yours accordingly. It can be tough to hold firm when someone is telling you "your education will suffer" if you skip a Friday afternoon session but remember your priorities and hold firm! Do not get into ridiculous negotiations. Present your situation with clarity and respect, you might just be surprised to see that respect returned to you.

Learning Not To Think

Sometimes you need to learn how to stop thinking. When you go home from the lab you need to unwind and leave your work at the bench. There's no reason to stay up at night and worry about it. This is possibly the toughest lesson I've had to learn yet.

Remaining calm

Sometimes I have a tendency to hysterics. Wondering, have I made the right lab choice? WIll I ever publish? graduate? However, I find in those moments it is comforting to remember that everyone has these doubts. Some are just better at hiding it than others.

This evening I spoke to a group of girls interested in science careers. At the end of the event one of them commented on how amazed she was that I could be so calm and collected. I had to turn around and make sure they she wasn't referring to someone else. I was calm and collected? impossible. Yet, apparently I had a zen like aura of tranquility. This made me wonder how many other seemingly calm people sometimes wonder if they have made the right choices. In the decided that most of us have our moments, both calm and frazzled. Surrounding yourself with supportive people is key.

It also doesn't hurt when your program will pay for you to go to a conference in Europe and thus you get a two week free vacation. Wondering why I don't post that often? Well, sometimes I'm on these interesting little trips. Sometimes I am just lazy. But I'll try harder. Thanks for being patient.

Retreats

There is a tradition among MD-PhD and PhD programs of having an annual retreat. On these events the students and sometimes postdocs and faculty of a program are whisked off to some nice resort or hotel location to sit in a large conference room and present their research to one another, eat giant meals and sometimes get to explore the beautiful location. So how does this work for the religious Jewish student (in my case one of two in the entire program)?

Well, the locations are always nice and a little two day vacation is good for everyone but sometimes the event is held on a weekend. Getting out of it is a little complicated and so sometimes you are spending shabbat in a hotel far from family. The first hurdle is making sure you can get a room with a manual key. Mention this as early as possible to your retreat organizer. Otherwise you may end up locked in your room, with a roommate who is entirely confused about the situation. Sometimes the retreat is held on friday and you need to duck out early to get home in time. Faculty members who often drive t the retreat are good people to hit up for rides. Sometimes it's a monday/tuesday etc. and you are sitting pretty.

Food is your next big issue. Most of these places have some sort of kosher option that you should mention to your retreat organizer they should order for you. I would reccomend dbringing some food anyway until you have been to the location at least once and know the food. Often you must hunt down a waiter and ask him to find your food. Everyone else is eating a giant meal and you are waiting 30 minutes for yours to heat up. You don't really mind but everyone else at the table is concerned for you. Reassure them at the first meal, make light of it and then hopefully they will forget it for the rest of the meals and the waiters will know to look out for you. You can even ask them to start the heating ten minutes before you are supposed to arrive.

Portion sizes vary widely. You may still be hungry at some places - seek out the fruit. There is usually a giant bowl of apples, oranges and bananas that will become your best friend. At other places there may be too much food. Place after saran wrapped arrive at your table and you grow embarrassed at your bounty. Share. For some reason everyone at the table wants to try the kosher food. Let them. Sometimes they heat the food incorrectly - removing it from the packaging or placing it after heating onto a china plate. This is usually some well meaning, but newly hired waiter who wanted things to look nicer. Tell him what the problem is so that you don't have to deal with it again at the next meal. Sometimes there is a cold part of the meal that is still OK. Other times you have just lost your meal. That's why I usually bring a little food with and horde snacks like granola bars and oreos when they are offered.

Other than these issues you tend to have a nice time. Meet some new people, hear some interesting work, see a beautiful hotel. In fact I am currently from just such a retreat, and this time of year rooms here go for 500-600 dollars a night. There are some social hours but you will not be the only person not drinking. There's usually one mormon or teetotaler besides for you. People get over that pretty quickly.

Have a retreat in NY coming up? Chances are I may have been to your location. If your curious, shoot me an e-mail an I'll let you know.

Developing A Spine

One of the great things about working in a big lab is the technicians. One of the worst things about working in a big lab is the technicians. Well, OK probably just for me. Our lab has three fabulous techs. These ladies do all sorts of things for you to help you get moving quicker and eliminate busy work. The problem? I feel so guilty every time I ask them for something. They always respond pleasantly and are happy to do it. The problem is largely with me. I feel like, if I don't what to do this, why in the world should they? Who am I to ask them to do things? Only the postdocs should ask for things etc.

This morning with trepidation in my heart I approached one to ask for some solutions to be made. "Sure, what day do you need them for?" she chirped back. Lesson learned: sto psyching yourself out. Graduate students are worth something too.

Choosing a Thesis Lab

I've just chosen my thesis lab and the decision wasn't easy. You're basically committing three to four years of your life to this place and your mentor can make or break your career. in my case, I had two great options and it came down to which lab I felt would advance my career more.

While loving the science is important, it is not the only factor that goes into picking a lab. You need to be happy with the lab environment or you will end up hating the science you initially loved so much.

Your mentor is one of the most important components to the decision. You want a mentor who will support you no matter what. Every mentor has a different style. Some will let you wander and experiment for weeks until you ask to see them. Others will stop by your lab bench several times a day to micromanage you. You need to find the style that suits you best. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. The best way to do this is on rotations. If you are lurking around the lab trying to avoid your mentor, this is not the place for you. You should also use the rotation to ask lab members about what happened to former graduate students and postdocs in the lab. Did the students graduate in a timely manner? What sort of publications did they have? Did the postdocs head on to good jobs? Were there any fights or incidents? These are things you need to know. Make sure you are comfortable talking to this person and that they will set you up with good projects and help you graduate.

Lab environment is also a key component. While lab members come and go you want to make sure there is no person in the lab that irks you so much you will hate going to work. Are lab members overly competitive with each other or do they support each other?

Another factor i slab set-up. Some labs have lab managers and technicians who organize things and take care of a lot of busy work. Other labs do not. While this is not a huge deal, have an organized work environment helps you get your work done. When people are fighting over supplies and things are in disarray it is tough to work. If this is an animal lab - who does the gennnotyping? Who takes care of the animal cages and deals with the animal facility staff?

How flexible will your project be? Will you be allowed to follow your own interests or will you be forced to do what the PI/lab wants done most? Are there financial or spacial constraints in the lab that will prevent you from following your own ideas?

I had two excellent PI's, one young and starting, one more established and experienced. Both lab environments were friendly and organized. Since the MD-PhD is long process I chose the more established PI. He can help me graduate faster, his technicians are wonderful and the science in his lab is more clinical and thus I can relate to the research more. It was a very difficult decision and not one I took lightly. I spoke to program administration for advice as well as more senior students and friends. I weighed all this advice and the pros and cons of each, and finally I went with my gut. Let's hope the next four years proves it's the right decision.

MSTP vs. MD-PhD (and other useful acronyms)

In a previous post I used the term MSTProgram without fully explaining what it meant. I would like to use this post to explain the difference between and MSTP and other MD-PhD programs.

MSTP stands for Medical Scientist Training Program and it is the designation given to programs that receive funding from the NIH. While most of these programs have an operating budget that comes from several sources besides the NIH they must follow the guidelines the NIH sends out. They also receive on site inspections by a panel selected by the NIH when they submit their competitive grant renewals. MSTP's are generally considered more prestigous than non MSTP programs that offer the dual degree. They also usually have more competitive financial packages and stipends for students.

There are many quality MD-PhD programs that do not receive NIH funding and are therefore not given the MSTP designation. With these schools, as with all schools, you must do your research to make sure it is the right program for you and will offer the right support, mentoring and carer advancement. In a future post I will include a list of common issues you should inquire about when looking into MD-PhD programs.

WHile I am on the subject of acronyms there re a few I wouldlike to define now. Almost everyone in the science field uses them or knows what they mean, and so should you! While I try not to use anything without defining it, I often slip. Sometimes it seems like science has a whole different language, the sooner you learn it the better.

PI: Primary Investigator. This is the head of a lab, essentially your "boss"
MCAT: Medical College Admissions Test What you must take to gain admittance to a medical school
MD: Medical Doctor
DO: DOctor of steopathy. A graduate of an osteopathic medical college. They can do pretty much what a regular MD does but they have also taken courses is manual manipulation and are supposed to be more "hollistic" physicians.
USMLE: United States Medical Licensing Exam. The exam all MD's take to be licensed. It is divided into into three "steps" that you take at different points in your career
COMLEX: The DO version of the USMLE
MS1: Medical Student Year 1. The way you tell people what year of medical school you are in.

There are millions of acronyms related to your particular scientific field or writing a note in a medical chart. I'll deal with those when I have to use them.