Starting afresh
Oct. 7th, 2009 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livI'm going to like this job, if it doesn't kill me!
So I turned up on Thursday, and for the first time in my career, the department were actually expecting me. They had planned a full induction programme over several days, and my computer (at a big desk in an open plan office) was already set up so that the welcome screen greeted me by name. I spoke to a lot of people, but consistently, they were friendly and dedicated, people I'm more than happy to work with. It's almost amusing how even when informally explaining to a new colleague how the system works, they are carefully aware of good pedagogic practice! But I shouldn't mock, cos it's also really admirable: these are people who take their teaching seriously, who see themselves as professional educators in a way that I've very rarely seen in academia, and never seen as a pervasive ethos rather than a few individuals who happen to care. Also, the person who will be my immediate boss is personable but also clearly someone who cares about being a good manager.
The actual teaching is a little daunting; they did warn me about this at interview but now I have seen it from the inside: they don't teach by conventional subjects, but rather assign the students a "case" to work on for a week (hypothetical at the start, real patients as they progress through the system). And they have to teach themselves and eachother all the physiology, pharmacology and health policy relevant to that case. The department provides lectures and practicals to cover some of the material, but most of the teaching is done in small seminars, groups of 12 students who have to appoint a chairman, a recorder, and any other roles they feel they need, while the tutor acts as a facilitator and knowledge resource. It's not only that we're not supposed to spoonfeed them with medical information, we're not even supposed to intervene to keep the discussion on track or make sure everybody participates: managing the group dynamics is largely up to the students. It's a lot to ask of a group who are mostly still teenagers! But it's also a lot to ask of the tutors, because we have to be able to field questions on literally any aspect of the case, yet not set ourselves up as experts or get into a situation of merely imparting information.
They're easing me into the system gently: this semester, I am mainly just shadowing various classes, occasionally taking one to cover for absence, helping out with demonstrating at practicals, giving one lecture on a molecular biology of cancer topic. I won't be personally responsible for a group of 12 for a full semester until January, or for actually designing a curriculum unit (4 to 8 weeks of teaching on a broad topic like "infection" or "movement") until next year. But I'm already finding myself learning more than I ever thought I'd need to know about the gorier side of medicine, the bit I thought I'd escaped by specializing in molecular science! Next few days include the prospect of cadaver dissection (yes, they use real human bodies) and a practical on stool analysis...
Monday I went over to the hospital site for induction into the research side of the job. This bit was more typical of academia style organization; they were expecting me for a preliminary chat about starting work next month, not me turning up as a new employee. Never mind, they were very helpful and welcoming. The research part involves jumping through some hoops to get myself an initial grant of £10K, and just getting stuck in doing research, setting up collaborations and applying for grants. Apparently that's enough money to work for a year or so, if you're frugal and allowing for the fact that most expensive equipment is available as common facilities, so you only have to buy consumables. But yes, they made it very clear that the department will provide friendly advice, but no more than that, I no longer have a supervisor as such but I'm on my own with three years to turn that little bit of seed money into a working lab.
Living situation is bearable: the flat is functional and warm and well situated, sharing it with a urologist when she's on call is a minor nuisance, and the only major problem is no internet access. (I am writing this in a Wetherspoons pub with free wifi, I got desperate!) I've more or less got the buses figured out; public transport here is not of London standard but quite livable. Progress is happening towards a place of my own.
Oh, and I have found the Jewish community, including the tiny Staffordshire community which is nominally Orthodox but would rather be lax than die out altogether, the contingent who commute to South Manchester for Reform services, the university Jewish society, and an old acquaintance from Limmud who is my age, grew up in the area and is still here. So that's gone a long way to making the first week here less lonely, and I think will continue to provide me with an out of work social life. I still very much appreciate texts and phonecalls from you guys to keep me from datastarve in the evenings!
So, life is good, though in a steep learning curve kind of way!
So I turned up on Thursday, and for the first time in my career, the department were actually expecting me. They had planned a full induction programme over several days, and my computer (at a big desk in an open plan office) was already set up so that the welcome screen greeted me by name. I spoke to a lot of people, but consistently, they were friendly and dedicated, people I'm more than happy to work with. It's almost amusing how even when informally explaining to a new colleague how the system works, they are carefully aware of good pedagogic practice! But I shouldn't mock, cos it's also really admirable: these are people who take their teaching seriously, who see themselves as professional educators in a way that I've very rarely seen in academia, and never seen as a pervasive ethos rather than a few individuals who happen to care. Also, the person who will be my immediate boss is personable but also clearly someone who cares about being a good manager.
The actual teaching is a little daunting; they did warn me about this at interview but now I have seen it from the inside: they don't teach by conventional subjects, but rather assign the students a "case" to work on for a week (hypothetical at the start, real patients as they progress through the system). And they have to teach themselves and eachother all the physiology, pharmacology and health policy relevant to that case. The department provides lectures and practicals to cover some of the material, but most of the teaching is done in small seminars, groups of 12 students who have to appoint a chairman, a recorder, and any other roles they feel they need, while the tutor acts as a facilitator and knowledge resource. It's not only that we're not supposed to spoonfeed them with medical information, we're not even supposed to intervene to keep the discussion on track or make sure everybody participates: managing the group dynamics is largely up to the students. It's a lot to ask of a group who are mostly still teenagers! But it's also a lot to ask of the tutors, because we have to be able to field questions on literally any aspect of the case, yet not set ourselves up as experts or get into a situation of merely imparting information.
They're easing me into the system gently: this semester, I am mainly just shadowing various classes, occasionally taking one to cover for absence, helping out with demonstrating at practicals, giving one lecture on a molecular biology of cancer topic. I won't be personally responsible for a group of 12 for a full semester until January, or for actually designing a curriculum unit (4 to 8 weeks of teaching on a broad topic like "infection" or "movement") until next year. But I'm already finding myself learning more than I ever thought I'd need to know about the gorier side of medicine, the bit I thought I'd escaped by specializing in molecular science! Next few days include the prospect of cadaver dissection (yes, they use real human bodies) and a practical on stool analysis...
Monday I went over to the hospital site for induction into the research side of the job. This bit was more typical of academia style organization; they were expecting me for a preliminary chat about starting work next month, not me turning up as a new employee. Never mind, they were very helpful and welcoming. The research part involves jumping through some hoops to get myself an initial grant of £10K, and just getting stuck in doing research, setting up collaborations and applying for grants. Apparently that's enough money to work for a year or so, if you're frugal and allowing for the fact that most expensive equipment is available as common facilities, so you only have to buy consumables. But yes, they made it very clear that the department will provide friendly advice, but no more than that, I no longer have a supervisor as such but I'm on my own with three years to turn that little bit of seed money into a working lab.
Living situation is bearable: the flat is functional and warm and well situated, sharing it with a urologist when she's on call is a minor nuisance, and the only major problem is no internet access. (I am writing this in a Wetherspoons pub with free wifi, I got desperate!) I've more or less got the buses figured out; public transport here is not of London standard but quite livable. Progress is happening towards a place of my own.
Oh, and I have found the Jewish community, including the tiny Staffordshire community which is nominally Orthodox but would rather be lax than die out altogether, the contingent who commute to South Manchester for Reform services, the university Jewish society, and an old acquaintance from Limmud who is my age, grew up in the area and is still here. So that's gone a long way to making the first week here less lonely, and I think will continue to provide me with an out of work social life. I still very much appreciate texts and phonecalls from you guys to keep me from datastarve in the evenings!
So, life is good, though in a steep learning curve kind of way!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-07 06:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-07 11:25 pm (UTC)What are good hours to call you? (I pay about 3 cents a minute for calls to the UK, so the expense is not an issue, but the time difference between New York and England is.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-10 07:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-12 03:33 pm (UTC)Do you work regular hours or is it all shifts?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-14 03:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-15 04:37 pm (UTC)The problem is that my limited internet access means I don't have much opportunity for arranging things by blog comments. Could you email me (livredor@lj) so I can get back to you to make a plan? It would be completely lovely to meet up!