Matter, Energy, and Life of Michaela A. Castello.

Tag: med.school

  • Scheduled (Dis)Appointment

    There’s no easy way to say this: No matter the Match outcome, a lot of people I love and care about are going to be disappointed. Chances are that if you’re reading this, you have a place in mind you’re hoping I’ll end up. Because my economic class dictates that I can only live in…

  • A Match Made to Profession

    You finished medical school. Time to get a job, right? Wrong! Finishing allopathic med school gets one an MD but does not allow one to actually practice medicine. For that you have to complete what is more or less a paid apprenticeship, termed a “residency” because it involves essentially living at the hospital for the…

  • Beginning of the Beginning of the End

    When last I wrote, I had successfully presented my PhD thesis proposal and was celebrating that the progress bar of my ridiculously ill-conceived plan for post-graduate education had reached the neighborhood of 25%. Now, a short while a long while over five years later, readers may be surprised to find out that several events have transpired in the…

  • Why Two Degrees?

    Looking over the long road ahead of me, one might consider asking, incredulously, why somebody would want to do an MD/PhD program at all. It’s certainly a justified question, to which the short answer is that I think receiving training in both clinical medicine and research science will be especially valuable in my future career.…

  • How I’m Spending the Next Decade

    I am still somewhat dumbfounded and incredibly grateful that I got into the MD/PhD program at Loma Linda University. Now that classes have actually started, I’ve noticed the people around me becoming increasingly confused about what MD/PhD actually means in terms of my daily activities. Indeed, the overall plan for how I’ll be spending the…

  • Welcome to California

    Rachel and I arrived in Loma Linda on Sunday having traveled around 3000 miles, averaged 46 miles per gallon, crossed ten states, and had zero fights. Pause for a moment to appreciate that. Now, this: Thursday we emptied most of the trailer by ourselves, because we’re just that incredible. Okay, enough aggrandizement. In between the…

  • From the Road

    We were originally planning on leaving last week, but it turns out that packing boxes of stuff into a truck is like trying to move a slinky dog by pulling on its head. Instead of moving the hindquarters, the body keeps expanding until what should have been “only a few things” fills half of your…

  • Saying Goodbye

    Yesterday we closed the door our on Baltimore apartment for the last time. 107 J was the first place we got together and our home for two years. It’s kind of weird to realize that we will never open that particular door again. We’re currently visiting our friends in Ooltewah, Tennessee, and have knocked ten…