[ Posted by Janka
Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:22:44 GMT ]
Some time ago, I volunteered to participate in a QN Podcast's "Voices" episode. These episodes consist of the awesome Sage asking questions about a particular topic from 4-6 people, and then combining the answers (either recorded by the participant themself or read by someone else) to an interesting, beautiful, inspiring glimpse into various human lives.
The below is a modified version of my answers to her questions concerning career choices. If you want to hear what she did with these, see QN: When I grow up (4 Voices). I was absolutely delighted about the reader who did my part; I feel she managed to portray my feelings despite being a complete stranger to me.
This is highly personal and publishing it is pushing my confort limits for this blog. Which is partly why I do it. Enjoy.
What did you want to be when you were twelve? Why?
Sometime between ages 10 and 12 I became aware of the fact that the world in general is a nasty place. Like, I suspect, many idealistic children grown up in relatively safe environments, I was shocked hearing about such things as wars and famines, and quite unable to believe that adults could not stop those things if they wanted to.
I decided to become a doctor, so that I can travel to the places with these problems and help the people. Being a naive and idealistic child, I was convinced that human suffering can and will be solved in my lifetime. I never doubted that. After all, it is just a question of the rich giving food to the hungry, and all the people deciding together that they will not fight the wars anymore. That's all it takes, and since people are inherently good and sensible, we just need to organize things a bit, and it'll be alright.
Part of me still believes that. But like the child, I have no idea where to start from. (Unfortunately, they did not teach that in medical school, after all.)
What did you want to be when you were eighteen? Why?
At 18, I was still planning to become a doctor. To be honest, that was probably more because I had spend the last six years telling everyone that's what I will become, and it would have been to embarrassing (I felt) to change my mind. Appearances were very important to me at that time of my life, though you might not have figured that out if you saw me, as my chosen appearance was to be more than a bit peculiar.
Now that I think about it, so was propably everyone else's at the time - we all wanted to be unique, just like everyone else.
I suppose I was still five years old in one sense: I was still unable to envision myself as an adult with a job, and I picked a career that sounded fancy, without really understanding what it means. Very rarely during my studies did the thought enter my mind that I had better learn the stuff, because I will need it when I am a doctor. When I went to see a doctor myself, I did not really imagine myself on the other side of the desk.
For someone having entered medical school out of the wish to help people I was paying very little attention to the tools that could help me do so. I still had a genuine belief that doctors help people, and I still had the genuine wish that someone would do something. I just could not imagine myself as that someone.
What's your career now?
Telling you about my current career (if you can all it that) would require a longer answer than a podcast episode. I went on to finish medical school, then (partly because I did not find I was ready to be a doctor - unsurprising after not spending all the years preparing that I should have) went on to get another degree in computer science.
Currently, I am doing my PhD on the applications of a certain computational method on certain type of medical research. It is highly specialized and about as far as you can get from concrete helping of people without actually leaving the field of medicine altogether or using your MD title to cheat money out of patients or the public.
I have also recently gotten back to actual work at a clinic, in child psychiatry, but after 1.5 years of working half time in both I decided I need to actually concentrate on one thing at a time, and I decided to try and finish the PhD first. I have now given it a mental deadline, and then I'll be out, one way or another. (I am not sure if I have said this with quite these words to my supervisor, so, if you heart the episode or are reading this: yes, I seriously mean it.)
How do you feel about your current career?
Sometimes I hate it, and sometimes I love it.
There is a lot in science I detest. Or, rather, not in the science itself, but in the culture of science. For one who was very concerned with appearances in her youth, I have come a suprising way and started to feel terrible about the necessity and pressure to keep them up. And there is a lot of that in science. There are days - one day every week, probably - when I think I just cannot take it anymore.
Many things in the culture of science need to change, and will change in the coming decades - but I am not sure if I have enough in me to be part of that revolution, either.
But of course, it is not only that. It is also exciting to be part of the community that spends their time discovering new things and disproving old truths. It is a fairly free job, too, most of the time: I can decide when to come to work, when to leave, I can work late if I want to and no one thinks me weird, I can take a day off to just read at home if I am trying to learn something new... That kind of things.
The practical side of my work, with actual patients... well, I love it and I hate it, too. And for much of the same reasons: I love the work itself, I like patients - yes, in the end, I do like helping people, and I am told I am and I feel reasonably competent at psychiatry for one without that much experience. But I hate and detest the public health care bureaucracy, especially with the panicky reorganizations that the supposed global economical depression causes just when we would need more time to work in peace and more resources because of it.
I suppose there's the 12-year-old me speaking here: I like the work, I want to do it, I see what should be done, and I cannot understand why we cannot just do it the sensible way.
What do you plan to change in the next five years?
During the next two years or so, I want to get my PhD (or quit trying), and I want to get my full lisencing as a physician so that I can do private practice, which requires about a year's worth of full-time work in health care still.
I mostly want those, and especially the lisence, because I think they are my current best option to freeing myself to pick and choose my own work.
I still want to change the world, even if I now think that my 10-year-old self's idea that we will see the end of wars and famines in our lifetime simply because people are good and don't want those things was, uh, slightly exaggerated. That if it was likely to work that way, it would have happened already.
I am at a point where predicting where I'll be in five years is pretty much impossible. And I am excited about that: an adventure is starting. Closing 40 years, I've finally realized that I can become an adult, and that it sounds like a lot of fun.
Posted in Plain English | Tags self, työ | 3 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:22:38 GMT ]
Today for the second time inside a week, a person that is not a close friend asked if they can ask me for advice on a personal matter. As this was a person who I do not even know at all, but who had just read my posts and comments here and there on the interwebs, I find this surprising and frankly bizarre, but what the hell, here goes.
Q. Can I ask you for personal advice?
A. Short answer: yes.
Longer answer:
1) I am not currently legally able to give medical advice. If you have a medical problem that concerns you, or a loved one, or another person you are worried about, please contact a fully-lisenced physician, or your local health care center or equivalent, or an appropriate telephone advice service, or other such source. I can answer general questions about medicine, but I will react very crossly to anyone trying to pass soliciting for medical advice as asking for general information.
2) If you are a friend (loosely defined as someone I have invited to my house or one of my special people online) or a relative, ask away, I'll do my best.
3) If I do not know you, you can still ask, but here's the catch: it'll cost you 25 euros an hour, with a minimum charge of 20. Please email the question to me (that will cost you nothing), and I will let you know if I think I can do it, and how long I estimate it will take.
4) You should be aware that about fifty percent of people that I give advice to get upset and think I am a mean and heartless person. I never give advice intending to be mean, but that's still what happens.
Posted in Plain English | Tags faq, työ | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Fri, 15 May 2009 08:37:59 GMT ]
> Dear Ms Jaana Wessman,
> I am pleased to inform you that your paper “Mixture model clustering of phenotype features reveals evidence for association of DTNBP1 to a specific subtype of schizophrenia” has been accepted for publication in Biological Psychiatry. Thank you for submitting this work.
Posted in Plain English | Tags työ | 2 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:39:20 GMT ]
1) Hire a good secretary. This step is essential. Do not proceed without completing it. This person’s job will be to keep bureaucracy off everyone else’s backs, and in the current world they are absolutely crucial. Make sure you hire someone who understands that their job is to pro-actively make bureaucracy invisible for the team—instead of someone who thinks it is their job to wait until the team asks them to handle a particular paperwork tidbit and then meekly do as requested.
2) Advertise that you have a person whose job it is to keep bureaucracy off everyone else’s back. Agree beforehand with people you are recruiting what bureaucracy they are supposed to do and with what tools (bring in receipts of travel expenses, note down times when they arrive and leave work, make lists of participants on their courses and the grades for the secretary, agree on further appointments with customers/patients, report patient/customer meetings they went to) and what they are not required to do (fill in stupid forms about travel expenses, detail times they spend at a particular project, enter grades into database, handle billing details). Try to limit requirements to specialists to giving information to the secretary, without limitations on the format of said information, and especially avoid requirements to use a particular fancy computerized system to deliver the info. Guarantee that if further bureaucracy will become necessary for whatever reason, the secretary will handle it based on necessary information from the rest of the team, with no restrictions on the format of the information.
3) Agree beforehand with people you are recruiting what projects / teams / courses / patient groups / whatever they will work with. Be specific. Agree that they will also have the responsibility for co-ordinating and developing these things with the rest of the team. Guarantee that unless the employee requests it, this will not change before a certain time (of at least two years, preferably more), so that the people will have the chance to think long-term and to commit. Advertise that you think long-term.
4) Agree and insist on team meetings. Separate brainstorming / check-up meetings from a working meeting about a specific problem / case. Guarantee and advertise that you will be available for both, daily if necessary.
Self-evident? I wish.
Posted in Plain English | Tags työ, unsolicited advice | 1 comment
[ Posted by Janka
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:43:29 GMT ]
In a discussion following my rant (in Finnish, sorry—this is in English because the follow-up discussion was) on how schoolbooks are currently being bought (or, rather, not) by Finnish highscools I said something like "well, the book publishers then just have to get their hair cut and get a real job". Of course, someone saw that chat log later and asked later whether I seriously think book publishing is not a real job.
Of course I do not.
For me, a real job is not about what you do, it is why you do it, and what does it accomplish. Book-publishing can be a real job, if it is about publishing quality editions of good books and getting them for people to read, or about publishing textbooks cheap and getting them to those who cannot afford extra, or about trying to reduce the use of dead trees by publishing more ebooks, or whatever else that is actually useful to and needed by someone other than yourself needing the money they pay you for it. It is not a real job if what you do is publish new editions of textbooks where the subject matter has not changed every two years and make your living out of cheating people into believing they need those new editions.
Science is not a real job if you do it for your career or as a nice way to get a salary while allowed to idle around and read about and play around with interesting things. It is a real job if you do it out of a genuine interest to further our shared understanding or because some specific problem needs a solution that does not exist yet (idling and playing around might be a good tool for finding that solution, of course). Marketing is a real job if it is about informing people about advances or opportunities in things they feel they need; it is not a real job if it is about inventing needs that people do not yet have and doing propaganda to make people believe they have them. Living alone as a hermit in the forest and growing your own food is not a real job, though it probably is a whole lot of work; keeping a farm to raise your family on is a real job. It is easier to have a real job being a doctor or a teacher or an artist or indeed a farmer—but it is also possible to be any of those without it being a real job, because real jobs are not about your job description, they are about whether you contribute.
Some people do not want a real job. That is fine, as long as they are happy and someone wants to pay to them for the unreal ones, or they can grow their own food, or are rich enough.
Some people cannot get a real job even if they want to, but need to finance their food and housing and clothes by wage-slavery to imaginary purposes. That is not fine.
(No, I do not really have anything against long hair, either. That part is a joke, or rather, a lyrics quotation.)
Posted in Plain English | Tags I dont want to play anymore, työ, yhteiskunta | 2 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:55:48 GMT ]
For the first time I think ever I have arrived to a situation where I think I have a genuine research interest. Oh, I have filled out gazillion forms asking for research interests in my life, but so far, I have filled them as if they said, instead ,”some quite interesting stuff these other guys invited me to do with them” or “stuff I think is inherently cool”. Which are very nice things both, but not quite the same. Lately, for the first time, I have had this “I want to understand this even if it takes me my whole life” thing going on in my head.
So, Janka’s Log proudly presents, my research interests:
- medical genetics, specifically
- the analysis of complex phenotypes, specifically
- the genetic and environmental etiology of temperament and mental health, specifically
- the classification, origin, genetic predisposition, and co-phenotypes of psychoses.
Yes, I totally made up the word “co-phenotype”.
Posted in Plain English | Tags research, työ | 3 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Sat, 09 Feb 2008 13:17:39 GMT ]
Olen piinallisen tietoinen blogin päivittymisvälien pitenemisestä. Erityisesti Merteniltä saatujen kukkasten jälkeen tämä tuntuu tietysti yleisön pettämiseltä ja muutenkin huonon ihmisen kategoriaan joutumiselta.
Totuus on kuitenkin se, että minun on ollut viime viikkoina vähän vaikea päättää, mistä ja miten voin uuden työn alettua kirjoittaa. Nykyäänhän on ihan päivänselvää, että ihmiset Googlaavat lääkäreitään ja lastensa lääkäreitä, ja kun en ole koskaan halunnut enkä vieläkään halua kirjoittaa täysin anonyyminä, on siis päivänselvää, että se mitä täällä kirjoitan vaikuttaa suhteisiini ammattia harjoittaessa.
Tietysti päivänselvää on, että kenenkään potilaan asioista en voi mitään mainita, eikä mahdollinen anonyymiys tähän millään lailla vaikuttaisi. Mutta tämän tervejärkisen rajanvedon jälkeen jää vielä paljon harmaata aluetta. Ensinnäkin on asioita, jotka eivät suoraan koske ketään tiettyä potilasta, mutta koskevat systeemiä tai yhteiskuntaa tai sairauksia yleensä sellaisella tavalla, että potilaiden ja vanhempien kanssa keskustelisin niistä mieluummin henkilökohtaisesti kuin julkisella forumilla. Toiseksi on asioita, jotka eivät koske suoraan ketään tiettyä potilasta, mutta jotka olisi helppo tulkita koskemaan, ihan vain siksi, että ne ovat tietyllä tavalla yleisinhimillisiä. Esimerkiksi jotkut viime vuoden runoni ovat sellaisia, että jos ne nyt julkaisisin, olisi ihan mahdollista, että joku Googlaamalla tänne päätynyt lukija kokisi, että mitä hittoa, sehän kirjoittaa meidän pojasta!
Ongelma on se, että mieleeni on viime aikoina tullut aika vähän kirjoitettavia asioita, jotka eivät olisi tuolla harmaalla alueella jollain tavalla.
Mutta sillä uhallakin.
Sovittelussa
Tällähän on pitkä historia
Se sanoo
Ei ihmisten voi olettaa
noin vain antavan anteeksi
Ei voi
Siitä olen samaa mieltä
Mutta itse sanoisin historiaksi
vain asioita jotka ovat ohi
(Runotorstai, haaste 78)
Posted in Sama suomeksi | Tags blogaaminen, runot, työ | 5 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:10:23 GMT ]
Palatakseni jälleen kerran elämänvalinta-asiaan, se mitä luullakseni yritin jossain vaiheessa sanoa ja epäonnistuin on se, että valinnoissa on kyse lyhyellä tähtäimellä valikoinnista ja pitkällä tähtäimellä vaihtoehtojen hylkäämisestä.
Lyhyellä tähtäimellä asioita voi jollaisellakin todennäköisyydellä ennustaa. Tietysti voi tapahtua vaikka mikä onnettomuus, mutta silti kuitenkin päättämällä olla tekemättä asialle mitään valitsemme joka päivä tähän päivään ja suurella todennäköisyydellä huomiseenkin tietyt realiteetit niiden joukosta, joita elämässämme eilenkin oli: työn, puolison, harrastuksen. Jos en sano tänään siipalle, että suksikoon kuuseen, niin olen tehnyt valinnan olla ainakin seuraavan minuutin ja suurella todennäköisyydellä seuraavan päivänkin hänen kanssaan. Ihan itse, minä. Eikä se ole itsestäänselvää, vaikka joskus siltä tuntuukin.
Pitkällä tähtäimellä kyse on siitä, että tietyt tekemiset ja tekemättä jättämiset eivät niinkään tee asioita mahdollisiksi, vaan joitain toisia asioita mahdottomiksi. Se, että päätän lukea pääsykokeisiin, ei millään lailla takaa haluaamani opiskelupaikkaa tänä vuonna. Se, että päätän olla edes ilmoittautumatta valintaan, takuulla takaa, että opinnot eivät ala ensi syksynä. Siitä, että hakeudun tiettyyn työpaikkaan ei millään varmuudella seuraa, että olen alalla viiden vuoden päästä – mutta siitä seuraa kyllä, että en ole ensi kuussa jossain aivan toisessa toisessa työssä. Jos laiskottelen tänään, en välttämättä ole yhtään pirteämpi huomenna, mutta vessa on edelleen pesemättä. Toisaalta jos ryhdyn siivoamaan, niin en takuulla ole levännyt… mutta vessa saattaa silti jäädä sotkuiseksi, jos sattuu jotain ja työ jää huonosti tehdyksi.
Toinen tieteellisen työni ohjaajista neuvoo aina tekemään uravalinnat niin, että mahdollisimman monta ovea pysyy avoimena, ja silloin kun se ei ole mahdollista, miettimään huolellisesti sitä mitkä ovet menevät lopullisesti kiinni. Tämä ei tarkoittane, etteikö ovia koskaan pidä sulkea – mutta olisi hyvä tehdä se tietoisesti.
Muutos ei ainakaan vielä harmita.
Posted in Sama suomeksi | Tags työ | 5 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:33:38 GMT ]
Tiedoksi kaikille, joita asia jollain lailla koskee, että olen vuoden alusta ottanut vastaan lastenpsykiatrian sairaalalääkärin osa-aikaisen toimen Lastenlinnan lastenpsykiatrian vastaanotolla. Olen potilastyössä 20 h viikossa ja jatkan väitöskirjatyötäni sen toiset 20. Periaatteessa aikatauluni on se, että olen ma ja pe Kumpulassa, ti ja to Lastenlinnassa, ja keskiviikon puoliksi Lastenlinnassa ja Biomedicumissa, mutta koska kaikki “toimipisteeni” ovat työaikojen suhteen joustavia ja suhtautuvat toisiinsa peruspositiivisesti, poikkeuksia voidaan ajoittain tehdä.
Arvioni on, ettei tämä tule itse asiassa suuremmin vaikuttamaan väitöskirjatyöni tai niiden projektien, joissa jo olen mukana, etenemiseen, mutta selvää lienee, että uusille sivuprojekteille on tässä vaiheessa vähänlaisesti tilaa.
Viestiä saa kaikinmokomin lähettää eteenpäin kaikille, jotka eivät vielä ole kuulleet.
Hyvää alkanutta vuotta,
JW
Posted in Sama suomeksi | Tags työ | 4 comments
