career

Stepping Into the Medical Field and Out of Your Comfort Zone

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Are you ready to become a doctor? Making the transition from undergraduate to medical school student, and on to being a full time doctor can be exciting and intimidating at the same time. There are many challenges and obstacles you may face along your journey, but what is most important is that you face them with confidence. Read on for tips on how to make stepping outside your comfort zone a little more comfortable.
Build Strong Relationships With Your Professors
Start out in the classroom. When you are still studying, whether you are an undergraduate or already in medical school, classes should be much more than simply showing up and doing the work. Take time to get to know your professors, if the size of your university/class allows. They have vast amounts of knowledge and experience, and most likely they are more than happy to share that with you!

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Doing Small Things Great: A practical guide to contributing to your team as an MS3

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“Go forth and do great things.”
– Anonymous
No one gets into medical school without a considerable dose of ambition. We want to be involved, to make a difference, to save lives. In short, we want to do great things. We spend years waiting in the wings, our enthusiasm funneled into pre-med activities, o chem exams, and countless hours of studying in the first two years of medical school. Like a horse that has been held tightly in the starting gate that suddenly swings up at the sound of the starter’s bell, we spring forward with unbridled enthusiasm into third year, dirt flying. Having spent nearly a decade in prep (if you start counting in undergrad), we are eager to actually do something and start making a difference. And yet, so much of third year can be sitting around, waiting for the action, and, when the action happens, standing in the back of the room.

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How International Experiences Can Enrich Your Studies as a Pre-Health Student

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You’ve volunteered. You get good grades. You’ve shadowed doctors. You’ve done everything you can to be a great student and ideal candidate for professional schooling. What more can you do to make yourself stand out from the crowd? For starters, you can participate in an international internship and shadow doctors in another country! Here are a few ways in which adding an international component adds value to what you are already doing:
Obtain Transferrable Medical Experience
Whether or not a program offers credit, participating in a pre-health internship abroad will be a unique experience that will give you plenty of subject matter to talk about in interviews. You will be able to see what life is like for a foreign doctor, and sometimes you may be able to observe more than you may see shadowing doctors back in your home country, such as observing a number of surgeries firsthand. Having this opportunity is a great way to get more direct observation experience outside of the classroom.

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20 Questions: Deborah Elaine Linder, DVM, Veterinary Nutritionist

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Deborah Elaine Linder, DVM, is a board certified veterinary nutritionist and a research assistant professor at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. She received her bachelor’s degree in biological anthropology and anatomy from Duke University (2005), and her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) from Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (2009). Dr. Linder completed a one-year veterinary medicine internship at VCA South Shore Animal Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., followed by a two-year veterinary clinical nutrition residency at Tufts.
Dr. Linder is a member of the Massachusetts Veterinary Medical Association, American Academy of Veterinary Nutrition, Boston Nutrition Obesity Research Center, American Association of Human-Animal Bond Veterinarians, and International Society for Anthrozoology, and she is a steering committee member of the Pet Therapy Group Tufts Paws for People. She has been published in the Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association, Veterinary Nursing, BMC Veterinary Research, American Journal of Veterinary Research, Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care, Veterinary Quarterly, Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, and Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
When did you first decide to become a veterinarian? Why?

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20 Questions: Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, Medical Oncologist

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Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, is a professor of medicine in the department of medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School, as well as a biomedical researcher focused on translational studies with potential clinical impact regarding human breast cancer. Dr. Polyak has been a member of the Harvard Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) graduate program since 1999, and as a BBS faculty member, she has participated in teaching several graduate courses and giving talks at departmental retreats and minisymposia. She has also participated in new student recruiting events by interviewing prospective students, attending dinners/receptions, and welcoming new students. Dr. Polyak received her MD summa cum laude from Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Medical University in Szeged, Hungary (1991), and her PhD in cell biology and genetics from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences (1995). She was a research associate in cancer genetics at Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1995-1998).

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