Selling Out
I’ve been accused of selling out more than a few times. When I decided not to pursue a PhD in primatology, my professor at first thought I was selling out for money before I finished my whole spiel. Being something of a psych skeptic and in general possessed of a low opinion of medicine, I’ve been called a sellout for deciding to become a psychiatrist. The above allegations simply aren’t true. I’m a fighter, so I went where the action was. There’s no point in studying monkeys if no one ever applies what you study to their own lives. And there’s no point in being a dissident of mainstream psych if no one will listen to you because you have the wrong letters after your name. And if it means I have to jump through their hoops for a couple years, so be it. I will have it known that I didn’t disguise who I was or my intent in my personal statement. Which probably bit me in the ass.
And when it comes to clinical rotations I don the button-downs and slacks required of us to ‘maintain a professional atmosphere’ despite my belief that those clothes aren’t designed to fit men that aren’t either skinny or fat and that they only serve to perpetrate elitism.
But I have sunk to new lows. I just grabbed two jobs. One at the Oklahoma State Department of Health, making me a gubbermint employee. Not only that but a functionary, the worst kind.
But even worse, I’ve just been hired by Kaplan Test Centers to tutor in MCAT and GRE. Which, I didn’t know this when I applied, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Washington Post. In fact, my paychecks will come from WaPo’s central office. Making me an employee of the second most-read lefty paper, a paper that is probably even more slanted than NYT.
I am a freaking sell out. But I’m also a poor med student, who will continue to be poor until he’s 30. I’ll take what I can get.
Why not the hybrid route? An MD/PhD would seem ideal at bridging the gap between esoteric scientific research and practical applications to human society. What is two or three more years in the grand scheme of things?
Comment by Mark — May 16, 2006 @ 5:57 pm
problem being primatology isn’t a ‘biomedical science’ so no MD/PhD. There’s only one place in the country that does non-biomedical MD/PhD’s and they don’t have a good primatology program. *shrug*
Fortunately, not having a PhD isn’t much of an impediment to publishing if you have a master’s, just makes getting grant money darn near impossible.
Since I do mainly theoretical number crunching, the lack of grant money hurts, but not too much. Mathematica’s a bitch but I spent less on that than I do on either my car or firearms, so meh. And travel sucks too. But you do what you got to.
Comment by Administrator — May 16, 2006 @ 6:28 pm
Holy crap! I used to teach the MCAT and GRE for Kaplan, right here in little old Utopia, NY (where it is currently raining, of course). Weird again, how certain connections keep happening…but, since Kaplan pays the BIG bucks (just like Cornell), it’s not all that surprising.
Read your top ten list, and agreed with every single one (and pretty much would have put them in the same order). ‘cept you left out Lynn Margulis (everybody always does)…
I know, I know, I should have answered your emails, but I’m too busy. Just landed a gig doing a 36-lecture audio/video course on Ev Psych for the Teaching Company, and I’m still writing that intro evolution textbook I was working on. And I’ve got a blog…and I’ve got that notorious “intelligent design” course to prepare for this summer.
Good to know you’ve been keeping the shiny side up and the dirty side down…
–Doc Savage
Comment by Allen MacNeill — May 19, 2006 @ 7:48 am
it’s alright about the emails. I’m too busy to be writing them. Well, at least I woudl be if I did what I was supposed to do.
Comment by Administrator — May 19, 2006 @ 2:01 pm
insurabce
insurance
Trackback by iinsurance — May 7, 2007 @ 12:57 pm