Sunday, April 8, 2012

Nod your head and say okay


I don't normally have alot of time to watch TV and when I do, I rarely watch Grey's Anatomy. But a couple weeks ago, I watched the episode where one of the surgical residents removed a benign brain tumor and the patient was left with serious speech deficits. And when Dr. McDreamy found out about it (I forget his character's real name) he pulled the resident aside and proceeded to chew her a new anal orifice, LOL!! But just before the resident received her new orifice, a fellow resident warned her to just "nod your head and say ok", and I immediately thought to myself I don't do that very well at all. And I don't know if my inability to just stand silently while a superior goes off the deep end comes from growing up in a family where a child's opinion didn't matter, that I feel so compelled as an adult to have my say. Or if it comes from how I think many people in society perceive Black professional females, as having a LOT of mouth and NO substance. What I do know is that this is something I've NEVER been good at, especially when my integrity is being questioned.

And this is part of what the 3rd year I mentioned in a previous post was talking about when discussing med school and it's something I've heard other URM students talk about too. How to not take too personal the personality types you're going to come across in 3rd year rotations and Internship year (yeah, I'm still getting geeked up with the thought of an internship year, LOL!!). So okay, I'll practice NOW leaning to nod my head and say okay, but it's going to take a LOT more effort to do that when the truth isn't being told or my integrity is being called into question. It's just odd to me looking over my career at how much integrity, honesty ect are things I've never really had to concern myself, working primarily in Academia or with the Feds. Of course I've always known that with private companies anything goes when it comes to integrity and being honest, and I'm really kinda sad about that. But it is what it is so for now, I'll have to keep my "survivors" gear on until I find something else, preferably with the Feds or in Academia.

Moving on to other things, I've put in a few apps for some entry level Bioinformatics positions (primarily with the Feds of course) and also a couple part-time teaching positions too. Where teaching/tutoring is concerned, I've decided that I want to focus on those institutions which serve primarily minorities since for some strange reason, there are far fewer URM's pursing the STEM fields today. But I also know from personal experience that it's hard to see yourself in a particular position when you've never seen anyone that looks like you in that position. So hopefully, I'll soon have something more meaningful going on in my professional life until I matriculate in med school.

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