Friday, August 29, 2014

When the mentor needs to be mentored.



It's very odd these days to be both sharing knowledge with other students and needing advice from my own mentors, but that's about where I am these days. And I'm extremely lucky to have people in my life available at a moments notice to lend me their ear.

Class wise, I decided to drop my genetics/human disease course and replace it with a genomics/bioinformatics course and the reason is because: 1) The genetics course is during the day and if I get a "real" gig I'd likely have to drop it and 2) my main "gig" goal right now is to get bioinformatics job and I need as many experiences with it as I can get. So this class is perfect, from PLINK for Genome Wide Association Studies(GWAS) to gene expression analysis by RNA-seq, it's exactly what  need to get back to in order to have a decent shot at a "real" bioinformatics flavored gig.

Movin' on, the image for this post is my view from the medical school library where I've decided to hang out in between classes instead of the library at my kid's school, LOL!!! I also realized that I like studying here (around med students) more than there (around PhD students) for a number of reasons not the least of which is that I realize I need to be around "people people" who I have at least some thing in common with. And in this case, I mean being American born. As a multicultural person I dig that diversity is a good thing, but in this situation where I'm trying to establish myself research wise (again), I need to be in as supportive and encouraging environment as possible. So med school it is. In retrospect, I should have known that a field that is so directly tied to computer science such as bioinformatics would be filled with lots of foreigners, but I obviously underestimated the degree to which American born folks would be displaced. And I use the term displace VERY deliberately because that's exactly the way it seems to be.

Speaking of that, my mentor suggested that because a significant proportion of foreign MDs, PhDs, ect are willing to not only work for far less compensation but also for free in research settings while trying for a post doc or residency, that I would very likely need to do the same thing (again) until I can make that MD/PhD program happen. She also suggested that when I reach out to prospective PIs that I submit a 5-10 presentation of a potential project based on their work. And as a post Doc at the NIH, she would know how to smooze a PI, ROTFL!!! Again generally speaking, I have nothing against foreigners working in research settings but I do have a problem that they seem to be favored by both foreign and American born PIs. Especially, knowing that I could NEVER go to China or India and be "favored" over them. Okay, imma slow my roll on this venting about how I think this practice is ruining research in America as we know it, this wasn't supposed to be a "I know why the caged bird sings" type post. URGH!!

Anyhoo, I remain undeterred in my work/study in this field not just because I thoroughly enjoy it and have some skills, but because I think this field is key to the concept of "bench to bedside". And that's where I plan to make an impact in an underserved setting!

The song for this post has one of my favorite career inspiritng lyrics:

"You're the one that was tryna keep me way down
But like the sun, know you know I found my way back 'round"






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