Considering how much lament the challenges with being a woman in Science, it's always nice to read an article that reminds me that I'm not alone in this "fight":
Here's yet another article which speaks on what I talk about pretty regularly, the difficulty of being a Woman, especially a Black woman , in Science. And as much as I'd like to say that the "kum-ba-ya" moments in scientific research are increasing, I think the reverse is true, that's there's never been a more difficult time to be a woman AND a minority in Science. And I point to ONE very important politically INcorrect reason for this disturbing trend and that is the large influx of people from misogynic cultures into research positions in the US. There I said it (again), Doc201X keeps it real!!!!!!
Moving on, I'm working on some Youtube vidoes in Biochem in support of my tutoring business and to help myself and others prepare for the MCAT, and lemme tell ya', this is NOT an easy thing to do! But I figured since I have some time on my hands, I may as well do something productive. Plus, this would be a great way for me to draw in more business so I don't have to work with little egotistical men in tiny Family Dollar suits in the near future, LOL!!! I also purchased my first EK book (Biology 1) and will get to work on an MCAT study plan over the next few weeks. I say weeks because I have NO IDEA how I'm going to approach preparing for the exam this time, I'm looking into what others are doing and trying to get an honest assessment of where my weaknesses are (cough, genetics/physics, cough). Here's a screen shot of my using the Khan Academy videos (with me in the background shadows, lol) to play catch up in the biological sciences:
And in the spirit of keeping it real, here's my girl, Cheryl Lynn with a classic hit about doing just that!
It turns out that over the past year or so, a recurring message keeps popping up over and over again, more than at ANY time in my life and that is:
GET YOUR BOOTY TO MED SCHOOL ASAP!!!!
Starting this Fall semester, getting into med school will be my PRIMARY objective. Not research gigs, or even clinical research gigs, just getting into med school. So my first step was to resign from my clinical research gig because while I was only being paid for 40 hours, I was expected to work 50+ hours on an inflexible 8-5:30 when you MUST be here, strict schedule. Of course, I knew this gig would be "problematic" from the jump because my too small Kmartsuit wearing, 2 feet shorter than me from a highly misogynistic, foreign culture supervisor turned out to be the epitome of the phrase "how da' heck did you get YOUR job?!?!?!!?". His "soft major" aside, I mean he asked me in an email why I used the "@"sign in a database dictionary I created and what the symbol meant. Yes you read that right, he asked me what the "@"sign meant, in an email and he was dead serious. Less than a week later, I resigned. Adding the fact that I out educated him by 3 STEM degrees, and it was clear that from a "working for a short man from a misogynistic culture perspective", this was never going to work in the long run, not that it was supposed to. Along these same lines, research environments have over the past 5 or so years, become filled to the brim with middle aged people from cultures where women are less than second class citizens. And this is a huge problem that no one seems to want to talk about or address.
Now I know I said before I wouldn't speak negativity on my blog, but this just couldn't be helped this time, LOL!!! And it's well with me because I NEVER resigned from my teaching gig which should have in itself, been a "sign". Having the "Fly Doc" (who warned me about this gig and my little dude supv in particular) be replaced with "Mr. soft major in a too small Kmart suit" should have been a second sign, and it was. And that's why I hung onto my teaching gig, so when the kids return to school in August, I will too!! I'm also looking at an Adjunct teaching gig at the university level as well as tutoring over the next school year, a couple premed students too. Truth be told, I really missed having a flexible schedule at this point in my life, and working overtime for a micromanaging incompetent wasn't going to get me to my goal.
However, the two most important things I'm going to do this fall is volunteer at a hospital (the one I just resigned from, haha) and study for the MCAT. There's also a couple 5 year premed/med programs in the state that I have my eye on, and with the 3 additional med schools opening in Texas, moving here was by far a super great idea for my family and me! The fact that we love living here (minus the devil's anus heat) and are around the nicest people I've ever met, I couldn't be any happier than I am now about the future! Except if I were also IN Med school! ;)
So I'm now regularly studying for the MCAT, though I've yet to develop a formal plan to do so. And I started with taking practice tests and scored an impressive 27 (All 9's based on the old scoring) and considering I hadn't taken an exam in over a year, I thought that score was fantastic!!! Honestly, I'm just kinda bored studying for the exam this time around because between the last time I took the exam in 2011 (I think), and the fact that for almost 2 years, Ive tutored students (in the science sections only) taking the exam, I'm just soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo "OVER"this freakin' exam!! URGH!!! Double URGH!!!!!!!!!
Anyhoo, I also decided to pick up a class this summer (advanced stats in R) because I simply don't have enough to do, LOL!! More importantly, I don't want to forget everything I learned last semester and programming isn't like riding a bicycle, at least not for me. Too many weeks away and I forget every damn thing I learned!!
Outside of that, nothing much is going on, my kid starts her first job next week and has joined a few engineering clubs for women and minorities at her school. My FIL is still by some miracle hanging on in what looks like the most dysfunctional family situation I've EVER seen as far as what should be his end of life care. Having been down this road myself with my own father (and with a remaining parent in denial about her own cancer Dx), I totally "get" some of the dysfunction I see as it's incredibly hard to let people you love "go". So in an effort to keep from being judgmental, I try to stay supportive but it's incredibly hard to see someone suffering to no end and for a poor quality of life to boot. Just very sad...............................................
Just found your blog (I'm sitting for the summer exams and was having a crisis of faith so was google searching for non-trads) and wanted to say that I felt really inspired by your posts! I'm kinda in the same boat (but a bit farther behind on the river, LOL). Best of luck on your path!!!
It absolutely never EVER ceases to amaze me that when I'm in my darkest hour for whatever reason (and I've got a multitude of them going on now), one of my readers drops a few lines at just the right time to remind me to stay on course. And this was the case with the message quoted above from one of my readers.
So in the interest of "keeping it real" I have to admit that I've more than a few moments in the past few months where I considered nursing school, yep I said it, nursing school. Or maybe I should specify the DNP program. But between the fact that I'm not interested in the slightest in the nursing model of medicine and I work better in environments dominated by men (a lesson I'm reminded of now as I type this), I'm certain that a clinical career as a Physician is in my future.
And I don't have words for how laser focused I am on this goal, I understand with great clarity more than ever that there's a reason why my current clinical research work with Physicians is so enjoyable and fulfilling! I want to someday answer the questions they're asking, helping patients in the same capacity they are. And I obviously want to ask/address the same types of research questions too. Plus there's a TON of work to do in my new favorite area of medicine, GI or gastrointestinal. No, I never quite imagined performing a colonoscopy on someone one day, but there are many questions to be answered in this field. Not to mention that work in this area could include Peds, I think this may be a good premedical student/health disparities match! :) Lastly, I want to publicly thank the reader who sent me the message, I hope you don't mind me publishing it!
I mean really, dude? And this kinda brings to my mind my suit for a boss, but so far I'm doing a great job making of it work. But then I'm so stoked about all "Internal Medicine" things I'm learning, that there isn't too much I'm going to let ruin my experiences while I'm here! ;)
Moving on,there are two very distinct things I notice as an "implant" to my new home state of Texas, one is how freakin' nice EVERYONE is and two, how freakin' large almost everyone is! Yeah, everything is bigger in Texas but I didn't expect the people to be bigger too despite a very large (no pun intended) immigrant population. Now before some of you get in a huffy about the many "well nourished" people I see/meet/know in Texas and mention in this post, understand I'm looking at this situation strictly from a future Physician/Scientist perspective, and NOTHING else. In my mind, anyone at ANY age that wants to train to become a Doc for the state of Texas should be given an opportunity because the need is great and getting greater everyday! So with my IM focus (combined with Peds, lets not forget that), I think I'll have a very friendly and nice population of people in desperate need of future Docs/Researchers like me!
Other news on an extremely sad note is that my father-in-law is terminally ill with cancer so there's an extra amount of stress to what I've been dealing with regarding my family that has been in the background of my expereinces here since we relocated to Texas back in 2013. I also have 2 Aunts with breast cancer so to say the least, life is pretty sad from a family perspective. And those things which I obviously didn't mention until just now have set me back mentally in a BIG way. But it's also been a strong source of motivation to stick with my plans to address health disparities in my career as a Physician/Scientist. Sure, I totally get that in the time since I started this blog, I could have finished my training by now, but the fact is that I'm on MY life timeline NOT ANYONE ELSE'S!! And the fact of the matter is that I wouldn't change a damn thing about my path to this point. Everytime I learn something new particularly as it relates to working with other folks in healthcare, I'm reminded that these lessons before med school are for a purpose, and that one purpose is to one day make me the best damn Clinican/Researcher around!!!
Lastly, I've decided not to take ANY classes toward my doctorate until Spring 2016 so that I can focus on learning the mountain of things I'm learning on this gig and to prepare for the new MCAT. I still havent't set a schedul for the MCAT yet because I'm busy with the clinical gig, but I realized that the time is getting close to where I need to have something in place. Yeah, I'm still doing the random verbal questions here and there but I haven't looked at any other subject beyond what I do to prepare for tutoring students (yeah, I'm still doing that too, LOL!!). I also need to think about a volunteer gig for next year after learning that I can't volunteer at my current hospital (conflict of interest?). So it's never that I don't have anything going on when I'm not regularly blogging au contraire, I probably have too much going on. And I wouldn't change a thing about it! :)
Yep, this is a "man's world" especially when it comes to the medical profession and scientific research, but as JB said, "It wouldn't be NUTHIN without a woman"!!!
Whirlwind would be the best description for my life right now, inner city life is absolutely fabulous and I'm quite busy in my new gig too obviously, LOL!!!! And that's not to say that there haven't been any glitches (I'd honestly poke my eyes out if I had to keep my current Supv for more than 2 years) but again, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it's a train called medical school!!!
I'm going to give myself another month or so to focus on getting my new gig down pat as there's a TON to learn and I'm enjoying every minute of it!! I'm thinking around August 1 is when I'll start putting together a doable plan for matriculating into med school by Fall 2017 and I really hope I can "last" that long, sitting in tumor board as a graduate student versus a medical student is getting kinda painful for me. But with all the things Internal Medicine I'm learning, what keeps me going is the fact that it will ALL pay off sooner then later!
Speaking of Internal Medicine, it's almost a given that I'll specialize in this field, I've gotten over my disease/Path interest almost 100%, and that's been replaced by my disease/IM interest BIG TIME!!!!
Right now, I'm hoping that time continues to fly by ( can't believe I've been here almost a month) until I matriculate into med school!!
My new gig is going very well primarily because I've chosen to focus on all the nice and caring caregivers (pun intended) I work with and the great work in patient care I observe while ignoring as much as I can, the less pleasant parts of it. Like the fact that the fly Surgeon I thought I would be working with primarily, has been replaced by a "suit". And it's not like the fly Doc and I won't be working together at all, just that the "suit" will have some say in what I do. And while it may seem on the outside a bad thing (because he's neither a Scientist nor a Doc), it's actually a GREAT thing because it means that there's no way in hell I won't attempt to "bust a move" to med school in the VERY near future. Plus the fact that I spent tumor board sitting in between med students from 2 Texas schools, I'll be constantly reminded that there's something else I'm going to do in my life. All that said, the main purpose of this "meantime" gig will be to learn to manage my current Supv situation with the utmost of finesse since those skills will come in handy in med school. The other really wonderful part is all that I'm learning soooooooooooo much working with Clinicians!!! Yeah, it's an understatement to say that I'm blessed that I get to do this important work at a hospital that serves the less fortunate at this time in my wonderful life!! WOW!!!! The other really meaningful revelation I've had relates to the THREE, count em', THREE promises for a gig a PI made to me between last Fall, to as recently as March of this year. Turns out that all the research I did preparing for that gig is directly related to my current position, as in the Fly Doc and Dr. Empty Job Promise have worked together in the past. But the Fly Doc is considered a national leader in the field so once again I'm reminded that very little in life happens for no reason at all, we just have to be patient and more importantly, not give up hope that all things will truly work together for the greater good. Not only that, my personal goal of health disparities work fits like a glove due to our patient population and the organ system we're focused in. Double WOW!!!!!
Movin' on, I don't have words for how much I'm LOVIN' living in the city and we've spent the past few days (in between all the rain/flooding) exploring the neighborhood. I should clarify that, we've been exploring all the fine eating establishments within walking distance of our new home. Yum!!! We've also spent a good amount of time enjoying the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen in my life and I'll post some amazing pics I've recently taken soon.
Well, this is another quickie since we're having issues getting our Internet set up and hanging out the the clubhouse (where there's wifi for residents ) with all the partying 20 somethings is a bit of "been there, done that, got the hat, teeshirt, and matching shoes", type of situation, LOL!!!"
Yeah, it's the understatement that I'm basking in God's blessing for my life these days, it's truly MY season!!!!
