Tuesday, September 20, 2005

You are a

Social Conservative
(31% permissive)

and an...

Economic Conservative
(76% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Republican




Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

This is advice from someone who does research.

1. What is the question for today?
2. What could be the answers for the questions?
3. What experiment can discriminate among them?
4. What techniques are used in this experiment?
5. What materials: chemicals, solutions are needed?
6. What are the protocols?
7. What results do I expect?
8. Analyze and discuss the results.
9. Is the question answered? What is the next step

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Renal Fellowships

After much thought, I've decided to apply for renal fellowships this year. The main reason is that I've decided to go into academic medicine and it would be nice to get plugged into a research project as soon as possible. Here are the places I'm thinking about applying

University of Washington

Seattle is a beautiful place and I've got good friends in Walla Walla. However their renal program is in disarray after their program director got fined by Medicare for billing compliance

UCSF

Fantastic place if I would like to do clinical research. The main PI that I'm looking into is Glenn Chertow. My sis is also next door at Berkeley

UCLA

Location, location, location. Unfortunately, housing prices are up the wazoo here in Los Angeles. I've also got a bunch of family and friends there.

UCSD

Fantastic weather and another place that has a strong clinical research program in acute renal failure. Ravi Mehta does a lot of work with the PICARD (Program to improve care in acute renal disease) group.

UT Southwestern

Of course the sentimental choice since I'm there right now. If it weren't for the compassionate hemodialysis (ie dialyze me before I die) and the VA it would be a very compelling choice. I'm very excited with what Chris Lu is doing with TLR-4 receptors. My wife also has a lot of roots in Dallas.

University of Colorado

This choice is more of a gamble. Big risks, yet huge rewards. They are creating a medical industrial research complex a few miles in the southern Denver suburbs. The downside is the head of the medicine program James Schrier got fired for opposing the move. I just need to know more about how good they are in promoting their fellows to junior faculty.

University of Michigan

I believe this program and Johns Hopkins has the best balance between basic and clinical research. On the other hand, I hate Detroit sports teams with a passion!

Harvard/Brigham and Women's

This is the primier place in the country for basic research. The Man for acute renal failure (Joe Bonventre) is there. I heard rumors though that you need to apply for grants even before entering the program.

Yale

Yale has been making strides up my rank list. The main downside is its location. However in terms of research, it is the only program to have faculty that I'm super interested in both clinical and basic science research. Lloyd Cantley who is does some nice work on acute renal failure. Recently, he has a well-cited publication about mesenchymal stem cells in ARF. On the clinical research side, there is a junior faculty Chirag Patel who does translational work in developing markers in acute renal failure (my topic in resident's talk)

Johns Hopkins

I'll be interested in working with Hamid Rabb in ARF. He's a peripatetic wanderer, so I'm not sure how long he'll be in the program.
I'm trying to fix my garden (ok bad puns, but I love them)

At first I was horrified that I might have lost all 200 of my previous posts. But luckily I'm able to see it from the edit view. It was fun reminiscing through my journal, and I realize that by not writing in my journal I'm forgetting all the cool stuff I've done or thought. The hard part is putting it back into public circulation.

I may need my sis' help in restoring blogger (If you are reading this in Beijing, let me know if you can fix it by the time you get back to berkeley).
Procrastination

Alas, procrastination has been chief of my 7 deadly sins. Ok, I've sinned a lot more than that but don't tell anyone. I've decided to blog more frequently now that I have the time during my consult months. However, I will need to go back to serious mode in September when I'll lead my Parkland ward team. I just need to brush up on my writing skills as I will apply to nephrology fellowships this year.

Here's a list of what I need to do. In no particular order

1. Clean the house
2. Pay the bills
3. Get my car license renewed
4. Finish book by Burton
5. Finish Nephrology MKSAP
6. Copy Pulmonary MKSAP
7. Buy flowers for wife
8. Plan Austin trip
9. Buy board review books
11. Apply for renal fellowship (Finish ERAS)
Penguin Sex

My, oh my. After such a long time away from blogging why on earth did "J to the Izzay" (my gizoogle nickname) decide to blog on this. Sometimes in life crazy coincidences occur that make you realize that God has a sense of humour.

About a week ago, I had some free time from my nephrology rotation so I decided to go to borders and just chill ... Anyway, on the bookshelf I decided to pick up a book. The inveterate reader that I am started to read the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. This book is primarily about nonspiritual thoughts on Christian spirituality. In the intro of the book, he wrote about how he first fell in love with jazz when he first heard a sidewalk musician play the saxophone. As he played, there seemed like there was no structure, resolution, but he had the pathos to be immersed in the music for what seemed to be an eternity. For him, that was akin to his Christian experience when he couldn't quite predict what riffs God would play in his life. I just chuckled when this strait-laced Christian dude from Texas tried to reach out the pagans at Reed college. Yet in a way they expanded his conception of God beyond petty Republican or Democratic politics.

What does this have to do with penguins? He probably is the first Christian writer to write a chapter to penguin sex. Oh well ... I'm probably the second. To be honest, I don't quite remember what he had to write about sex however the mating habits of penguins are a wonderful analogy of love. Every year emperor penguins walk days and nights to the breeding ground in the harshest winter environment on earth to find love. They march one stubbly webbed foot after another through miles and miles of barren ice to their primordial mating ground. There the females fight over the choicest male to mate. With tender strokes they caress each other, the quiet of the antarctic ice broken by orgastic bleats. After the female delivers the egg, she shuffles the precious egg to the male partner. Soon afterwards, she leaves the male to incubate the egg until she returns to the ocean to feed. After months of waiting by papa penguin, she returns as the eggs hatch to give back regurgitant fish and krill to her baby penguins. Then it is the dad's turn to go back to the ocean to scavenge for food. This cycle repeats until the penguins grow big enough to fend for themselves.

So after my wife finished the bar we decided to go see a random movie. The title was March of the Penguins, but of course it was more about penguin reproduction ;)

Jizzo

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

You Are Romans
You are Romans.

Which book of the Bible are you?