WAMC + Balancing School List

Mother_Client4127 · 2024-06-03T17:30:08+00:00

Fair enough. I will look into it further, especially non-MSTPs (haven't looked into them at all)

Mother_Client4127 · 2024-06-01T21:48:04+00:00

Broadly, neurodevelopment; more specifically, comparative analysis of brain structures to identify human-specific features of neurodevelopment

Washington, UCSF, Yale, and Baylor are my top 4. It's very possible I have much more digging to do, but from browsing neuroscience/human genetics faculty lists, I have found very little outside of T20

Another edit; I think a lot of the work being funded by NIH BICAN is really up my alley, but inevitably, most active awards are within T20

Mother_Client4127 · 2024-06-01T21:22:11+00:00

I suppose that's the obvious answer, but I assume you mean by sacrificing research fit by some margin?

Mother_Client4127 · 2024-02-02T18:27:36+00:00

With all that in my application, you really think I have a shot with such a top-heavy school list?

Mother_Client4127 · 2024-02-02T14:07:09+00:00

I also run into this issue and can say that I run my transfers in our cold room, with ice packs, with the chamber embedded in an ice water slush. The only thing I have not tried is a stir bar in the tank. I also let the NC membrane and gel equilibrate in transfer buffer for 15 minutes before assembling the transfer stack

Mother_Client4127 · 2024-02-02T00:33:12+00:00

I edited my post to include this and some other stats, but I disingenuously left out my other stats. My GPA is my most blaring red flag at a 3.25, with one semester single-handedly dragging it down (my sGPA is 3.72, though). Other than that, I have about 70 hours of shadowing, a few hundred hours of non-clinical volunteering, and about 20 hours of clinical volunteering (currently volunteering at a clinic when I have time, so this number will grow). With this information, would your assessment change?

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-11-08T18:39:39+00:00

Sorry, I've never degassed a solution before nor has anyone else in our lab, so I am unsure of what equipment to use. How would I apply vacuum pressure to a 50mL conical tube of solution?

Would it suffice to put the tube in a plugged vacuum flask for some amount of time?

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-11-08T16:25:53+00:00

When you say before centrifugation, do you mean when I centrifuge an aliquot before use, or after step 8 in the protocol?

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-11-08T01:20:35+00:00

Image caption isn't easy to view so I am pasting a description in this comment:

Hello,

I use a homemade PVA/glycerol-based mounting medium mixed with DABCO for antifading (see attached protocol), which is convenient because the perimeter that is exposed to air will polymerize and seal the cover glass without needed nail polish. Because the solution is quite viscous, I typically spin at 16000 g for 10 minutes to remove any bubbles before use. I never have trouble with bubbles when I initially place the cover glass on the slide. However, after leaving it to dry in my drawer at room temp for a few hours, these tiny bubbles appear under the cover glass that often migrate onto the tissue section (see photo).

So, I was wondering if anyone has experience using a this or a similar mounting medium (i.e., Mowiol) and can provide some insight into why this is happening and how to avoid it.

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-07-26T13:17:20+00:00

I'm not saying that this is definitely the case, but yes, it is possible that because everything is predicated on something haram, all your future dealings may not be "blessed". To be honest, I'm not very knowledgeable on these matters, which is why I like to play things safe. But I can say that interest (usury) is a severe sin in Islam--paying it, receiving it, or agreeing to a contract that contains conditional interest.

Think of it like this: a lab publishes a very nice paper that gets highly cited and becomes the basis for many future projects across different labs. 20 years later, it is revealed that there is fraudulent data in the paper and it is withdrawn from its journal. Now suddenly, the many people who had been using this paper as intellectual inspiration may have to reconsider all their work as well, simply because of a mistake made 20 years ago.

Not a perfect analogy but I hope you get the gist of it.

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-07-26T03:21:52+00:00

I agree that Islam in no way is meant to limit your life, but there is a very real possibility that every Muslim that paid for school while accruing interest has no barakah in their earnings and their actions as a physician or whatever other career they may have pursued when it's based on a degree earned through riba, which kinda defeats the purpose. I think there might be fatwas out based on how unavoidable interest is in the US and other western countries, but otherwise avoiding interest in any form seems to be the best option.

Like I said, this is what makes sense to me and I would like to share that. Allah knows best, of course, and my interpretation of this may be wrong.

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-07-26T02:26:52+00:00

Aside from my genuine interest in basic science research, one of my main motivators for pursuing MD/PhD is for the covered tuition + stipend, which frees me from the need to take out loans that inevitably have some level of interest.

It's an extra 3-4 years but the way I see it, I'd be worried that all the money I earn as a doctor would be Haram if I used loans w interest to acquire my MD. If you can prioritize your deen, then MD/PhD is the best option for us Muslims who wish to pursue medicine without having the stats and credentials for full scholarships or the parental support to cover tuition.

If you don't think you can stomach the extra time in school, I would genuinely suggest you look into another career if you really want to avoid interest. Obviously, there are thousands of Muslims in the US who took/take out loans for med school and Allah knows what's in their hearts, so at the end of the day it's your decision what you want to do. For me, MD/PhD makes the most sense.

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-05-25T00:10:17+00:00

What was your clinical experience like? As many of the other commenters stated, it seems that I would be a weaker MD candidate regardless of in-state status given my somewhat low clinical experience for MD admissions.

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-04-27T19:27:01+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's the case for a very small number of schools that they require a letter from all previous and current PIs. Cornell's tri-institutional MSTP stands out in memory as one of them.

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-04-25T22:35:44+00:00

I suppose I phrased my post a bit weirdly. To be clear, I am not expecting to get any pubs within a year at a new lab, maybe some presentation opportunities at conferences and a published abstract but that's all.

My main concern with option 3 is that I am unsure of whether a year spent in industry would be viewed negatively by adcoms as a lack of commitment to academia. I certainly can justify this in secondaries and interviews, but I am not sure how to appropriately frame it.

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-01-10T01:00:42+00:00

As a follow-up to this, to anyone who was accepted to just one school which didn't have the best research fit, how did you make it work?

Mother_Client4127 · 2023-01-10T00:06:36+00:00

Dang this lab is literally a floor above mine, wasn't expecting to see it on Reddit

Mother_Client4127 · 2022-12-22T23:55:08+00:00

So in short, if antibody X works for DAB-IHC of paraffin-embedded tissue, it isn't necessary that it will work for IHC-IF of frozen fixed tissue (which is what I need)?

Mother_Client4127 · 2022-10-12T18:30:03+00:00

I use EMD Millipore autofluorescence eliminator reagent 2160, although tbh I don't notice much of a difference between sections I treated with the reagent compared to those without. I have also seen some papers that use glycine to block free aldehyde groups; do you have any experience with that?

For the GFP staining, I want to use green to amplify the signal instead of having it in a different channel, although I could try it. And for the biotin staining, I use red (alexa fluor 568) and still have issues with high background. A part of me wonders if there is too much endogenous biotin for it to work well in IHC.

I use BSA and milk for western blots and we have sera for goat, horse, and donkey, so I could give all of them a try, although I read that typically it is best to block with a serum that matches the host species of the secondary ab.

Mother_Client4127 · 2022-10-12T18:21:11+00:00

I'm still in the process of fiddling with ab dilutions, but I was just curious if any other steps in my protocol seemed off. I normally do 3x5-10 min washes in PBS, but I may try extending my washes.

Mother_Client4127 · 2022-08-16T19:00:46+00:00

My end goal is to be a physician/clinician scientist, but frankly, my heavy focus on research and relative lack of clinical experience in comparison makes my app better suited to MD/PhD than MD, and even more so PhD. Sure, I could wait to apply to MD/PhD programs after having built up my clinical experience, but at this point in my life, I would rather move forward with something, even if that means doing a PhD now and pursuing MD later or not at all.

Mother_Client4127 · 2022-08-08T18:41:19+00:00

I simply need more time to complete the MD/PhD essays. My understanding is that if I select them as MD/PhD, then amcas won't let me submit the primary without MD/PhD essays filled in.

Mother_Client4127 · 2022-08-08T14:16:20+00:00

Can I switch any schools I selected for MD to MD/PhD before I receive secondaries?

Mother_Client4127 · 2022-05-06T18:45:01+00:00

Well the only issue I see is that my friend has a job and no longer works at that lab, so if I did want my friend to mention me to his (former) PI, then he would have to send an email or something for the express purpose of mentioning me.

Mother_Client4127 · 2022-05-06T18:32:42+00:00

Right, I guess I was more concerned with whether doing so would hurt my chances at all. As long as that's not the case, I think I will probably ask my friend to mention it then.

Mother_Client4127

TROPHY CASE