MIND & BODY
FOOD
IN THIS ISSUE
Messages of love from classmates and colleagues » PAGE 4
Make this simple and elegant Italian liqueur at home » PAGE 6
Happy Valentine’s Day DIY Lemoncello
News Briefs » PAGE 3 Journal Club » PAGE 5 Puzzles » PAGE 7
Synapse The UCSF Student Newspaper
Thursday, Feburary 13, 2014
synapse.ucsf.edu
NEWS
OPINION
Grad Life: Entering Class of 2010
San Francisco Should Embrace Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Policy
By Angela Castanieto Associate Editor
Student 1 Female Parnassus
By Madeline Ragan Staff Writer On New Year’s Eve, six-year-old girl Sophia Liu was killed while walking in a crosswalk at Polk and Ellis streets in San Francisco. That same night, 86-year-old Zhen Guang Ng was also killed at the intersection of Rolph and Naples streets. Both were struck by cars. In 2013, San Francisco saw a spike in traffic-related deaths, including 21 pedestrians and four bicyclists. These recent deaths highlight the need for a better understanding of road safety and better adherence to the laws of the road, for drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists. Several leaders in other major U.S. cities have made statements of commitment to Vision Zero, which is a policy to reduce traffic deaths to zero in 10 years. Until San Francisco embraces such a vision, people, regardless of their mode of transportation, should educate themselves
T
Photo by Madeline Ragan/PT2 Vision Zero is a policy to reduce traffic deaths to zero in 10 years.
on the laws and practice safe road etiquette in order to make the roads safer until greater city changes emerge. If you have ever biked, driven, walked or bused around San Francisco, you have probably seen an accident, near collision or elements of road rage. Oftentimes, these accidents and aggression are a result of mis-
BICYCLE SAFETY » PAGE 5
ell me about your experience at UCSF so far. I’m in my fourth year of the nursing PhD program and it’s been an interesting trip. I came in with a specific question or area, and now it is still the same area but with different questions. The coursework is good, but that’s just for the first two years. The second two years you’re sort of on your own, and that’s been a little lonely. We’re a little bit less connected as a cohort, things are a little bit harder, and it’s harder to find support — but that’s just part of the PhD process. You’re figuring things out as you go.
Partner Up: Discuss your long-term goals with a trusted friend regularly By Akshay Govind Associate Editor n last week’s issue of Synapse (February 6), Winnie Chan described a struggle many professional students experience: the effort to maintain the qualities they have always valued in themselves while working to keep up with the furious pace of their education. Adding to this problem is the self-doubt that naturally occurs from being in an environment where no matter what they do, someone around them has done more and nothing seems like nothing is ever enough. Ms. Chan beautifully described the discord between tirelessly splashing away without ever feeling like it pushes one far enough forward and the disappointment that comes from several months or years gone by while proverbially treading water. By the end of her piece, Ms. Chan decided she wanted to keep dreaming, setting goals, challenging herself to help the world around her and to lead others in these efforts. Over the past ten years, I have felt many of the same emotions Ms. Chan described as I went through the process of being top dog in my undergraduate institution to not even knowing if I was above or below average throughout my professional training. Just as I seemed to
taught to you or fed to you, and then you’ll know what to do and you’ll be clear. It’s not really like that. The last two years of the program have been a lot more self-taught, but I think that’s because when you come into a PhD program it isn’t always clear what that really entails. We come frequently to nursing from clinical backgrounds; the clinical Masters degrees that we get are very structured,
From your first year to your fourth, have there been any changes in your attitude towards the program? Sure. I think you come in assuming that you’re going to get everything you need
OPINION
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Volume 58, Number 19
figure out one set of challenges, two more seemed to pop up. About three years ago, a friend and I decided we needed to set aside protected time to check in about our longer term goals that were previously falling by the wayside. Since then, during the first week of almost every month, we talk for between 30 and 60 minutes, going through how the past month has affected our visions and helping each other think through next steps to tangible goals. Some months are humbling – realizations of missed opportunities, recognition of weeks of stagnancy. But others are uplifting – evidence of progress, each other’s perspectives on previously internal thought processes. At the very least, it’s kind of a comforting ritual. There are still feelings of having fallen short of my goals. For instance, if I love learning and writing, why don’t I have more than one professional publication (of which I am the eighth author)? Why does closing a simple wound still take me so long? But I have also come to take a bit of pride in the progress I have made, and I suspect so has Ms. Chan and most other people who have been shaken up by their professional training. Do keep dreaming, but when you wake up, write the dreams down and work on what you can do to move toward them.
Akshay Govind is a third-year resident in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.
and the PhD process isn’t structured — and it shouldn’t be. You’re developing, you’re learning, you’re creating and they can’t make that structured because everybody needs different things. So I feel that my view has changed because in the first two years I expected to be taught everything I needed, the third year I realized I didn’t have everything I needed, and the fourth year I realized that’s probably okay, because it was part of my job to figure out what I needed and to learn it myself. Are you in a lab? No, our research is not lab based. Something we have found at UCSF is that nursing PhDs a lot of times will talk to people (about their program) and they will ask “what is that?” with a blank look on their face — and that’s fine! Nursing research is different because it is both clinical and it’s social — it’s always combining those two. So we have the social sciences program (at UCSF) — medical social sciences — but they’re looking at things from a very sociologic perspective. We aim for those perspectives at times but we need to be able to look at it with a clinical outcome — useful in some general way to the nursing knowledge body. But nursing’s incredibly broad. We have peo-
GRAD LIFE » PAGE 3