I had my latest thesis meeting last month and my committee gave me the green light to graduate from my PhD in March of 2010. This was great news because it means that I will be able to return to 3rd year medical school at the same time as the now 2nd year class will be entering 3rd year. This is strategically good for me because we will all be starting at the same level theoretically, so they won’t have more experience than I do.
In order to schedule my return, there were quite a few people I needed to talk to. For starters, I needed to inform the coordinator of the MD-PhD program of my return, so she can switch my payroll from graduate, back to MSTP (medical scientist training program) funding, which is a different source. Then I needed to speak to my graduate program coordinator to see what was required of me before I finish (which is quite a lot- I’m sure it will be its own post) and what paperwork is necessary to be done. I also needed to talk to my “College” advisor (the medical school is broken up into different “colleges”- sort of like the houses in Harry Potter) to help me understand and maneuver the new curriculum (I’ll post on that next- ) and to help me schedule the next two years of my life. In addition to him, I had to meet with the student liaison and residency coordinator for dermatology to help me schedule my next two years assuming an interest in eventually applying to dermatology residencies. Needless to say, my last three weeks have been filled with meetings. While I am excited to complete my PhD and return to the MD, I find myself a bit overwhelmed by the amount of sheer bureaucracy to do so.
I’ll try to keep you posted on how things are going.
Look out blogfans, Mrs. Link has figured out how to post…
As my first post, let me echo Jed’s sentiments about a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and happy new year to all of our friends and family. We would not be where we are today without all of you, and as you can see, we’re in a pretty cool place.
Christmas Cards are out the door. Actually, they went out the door on Saturday, meaning they might be hitting mailboxes today. And if you’re checking this site for our Holiday Message, you’ll have to come back soon. It’s not done yet!
Anyway, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah (sending cards taught me we have more Jewish friends than I ever realized)! And check back soon.
After an active spring, summer and fall, we decided to try skiing to keep us off the couch in the winter. Which is to say, I decided we should try skiing and Mrs. Link was a good sport about it. As she always is.
Tiffany went skiing once before, earlier this year. She had fun, but she also had a very scary experience where she was out of control and didn’t know how to stop or turn. So she was apprehensive. Even so, we shot the moon and bought Season Passes to Ski Liberty, Ski Roundtop and Ski Whitetail (one pass gets you into all 3).
We bought some discount gear at Ski Baltimore, and a ski rack for the ol’ Thule at REI, and then we waited for it to snow.
Opening Day finally came on December 12, about a week after the first snow of the year, and a week’s worth of snowmaking on the mountain.
Off we go!
Mrs. Link got a private lesson, and it helped a lot. The Ski Liberty ski school has a very good reputation for their technique, which includes not starting skiers with the snowplow or “wedge”. Given shaped skis that edge differently, and the fact that learning to snowplow requires you to relearn how to ski normally bodes well. Mrs. Link advanced dramatically, and quickly mastered the bunny slope, so we moved on to more difficult slopes.
I’d hesitate to post this if I thought Dad was following us on the interwebs, but considering I just showed him how to email a few weeks ago, I doubt he’s subscribed to our RSS feed yet. We just got this in the mail yesterday, and it turned our really cool!
After the last several posts have become rather picture heavy, I promise that we’ll include text content on here as well. However, I think we’ll be mixing it up between photos (which, as you probably know) I do a lot of, videos and text.
There’s been a lot of work this weekend getting everything integrated and working. We’re using a newer version of the blog platform and a totally new gallery program that’s designed for WordPress, so it’s a learning process all around. Bear with us!
Who knows.. maybe Mrs. Link will even make an appearance.
) and to help me schedule the next two years of my life. In addition to him, I had to meet with the student liaison and residency coordinator for dermatology to help me schedule my next two years assuming an interest in eventually applying to dermatology residencies. Needless to say, my last three weeks have been filled with meetings. While I am excited to complete my PhD and return to the MD, I find myself a bit overwhelmed by the amount of sheer bureaucracy to do so.
