Table of contents

1. Preface

2. Main Article

3. OMFS World

4. Stuff (App, Gear)

Preface

I would like to kick off this week’s newsletter with a big thank you for all the great feedback on last week’s newsletter. It was nice to see how game-changing it was for so many people to see the “Shay up-to-date OS” system at work. 💻

Please use this link to access the guide, as I continue to update it.

I’ll take this opportunity to answer repeating questions I got this week:

1. Yes, it’s totally free. 💰

2. Yes, I plan on creating a guide with pictures and screenshots, but I need to find time to do that. ⏰

3. Yes, you can share it with your friends and colleagues. See it as my humble contribution so you can concentrate more on staying up-to-date, and less on technicalities. Enjoy!

This week I reflected on the things that make our lives easy here:

1. Amazon - we use it for almost everything: a. It’s the cheapest option. b. Buyers׳ feedback allows us to pick the best products. c. Easy returns and instant money back.

2. Gas price⛽️- is 60% less. For my Israeli readers - that’s 2.89 Israeli Shekel per liter.

3. Postal service ✉️ - is extremely efficient. It takes 3-4 days for mail to be delivered.

4. 2-day weekends - compared to the 1.5 days back home. Personally, I’m a strong believer in a 4-days workweek wherever possible, but right now I would settle for 5 days.

5. Outside work-hours communication 📞- almost never happens here. Aside from urgent cases, your free time is respected.

However, there’s no place like home… 🇮🇱

Today we’ll discuss whether dentists and physicians should pursue research degrees. I started my research journey 15 years ago with an MSc and graduated with a PhD. I traveled half the globe to become a research fellow, and nowadays I’m a mentor.

Today I’ll share what I’ve learned.

Number 24! Let’s go.

"Taking the easy way out or telling the truth - those are not merely two different choices. They are different pathways through life. They are utterly different ways of existing."
— Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life.

Main Article

Storytime!

🍼 At 27, I thought my future plans were all laid out.

As a 3rd year dental student, I was almost done with my preclinical studies, and about to embark on the clinical part of dental school.

I was 3 and a half years from becoming a dentist 🦷, saying bye-bye to my student status for good.

And then everything changed.

It was no less than a butterfly effect 🦋, change-your-life moment kind of thing.

The head of the research program gave us a talk on the importance of double-credentialed investigators (DMD-PhD), and invited us to apply.

At that moment I KNEW that this is what I want to do.

Back then, double-credentialed dentists weren’t common, so the reaction I got from my surroundings wasn’t supportive 🤪. It’s quite understandable since none of them knew what it meant. But I trusted my gut feeling.

I took three years off from dental school. 🌅

My first year was challenging. I had many time-consuming graduate courses, and I had to squeeze them all while developing basic lab skills. Throughout my first year, I was heavily dependent on my labmates, and experiments took me forever. ♾️

In my second year, I became less dependent, and by its end, I completed my Masters's degree. 🎓

I could have stopped my research training there, as most of my classmates did.

I already knew how to run experiments, write abstracts, and prepare manuscripts. But if I ran into problems (in research, you ALWAYS run into problems), I didn’t know how to troubleshoot them.

I was an excellent lab worker, but not an investigator.

And then came the third year.

🤽‍♂️I became completely independent, designed my own experiments, and managed to troubleshoot my problems. The discussions I had with my mentor related to the essence of experiments and less to technicalities.

This year energized me so much that I spent long hours in the lab, and it was worth it.

I felt like a true investigator. 🕵️‍♀️

Fast forward, I’m 37.

By that time I completed dental school and earned my PhD, and I'm halfway through OMFS residency.

🧑‍🔧I’m sitting in a keynote talk about head and neck cancer immunotherapy at the international conference of oral and maxillofacial surgeons.

I was mind-blown. Seeing the (very preliminary) results was more than enough for me to know that this is my destiny.

Shortly after, I found my department chief and told him that Portland, Oregon is where I should be. As always, he supported me and paved the way.

🇺🇸 Fast forward, I’m 39, and I’m a research fellow at Providence Cancer Institute in Portland, Oregon, USA.

This lab was love at first sight, and my mentors were a pleasure to work with. 🍻

As for my scientific experience, that time had an enormous impact on the investigator I am today. And I couldn’t have accomplished it all without having years of experience as a PhD.

Looking back at that 27-year-old, naively sitting in an introductory talk about the DMD-PhD track, makes me smile.

That 27-year-old, hoping that someday his PhD journey will get him somewhere. Not knowing that this decision will allow him to embark on his life calling a decade later.

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”
— Oscar Wilde

So let’s discuss it.

First of all, there’s a huge difference between a Master’s and PhD.

Second of all, you need to decide if you need it.

During my training, I pursued both degrees. In recent years, I started to mentor students in both the MSc and PhD tracks. So let’s put this experience into practice and discuss four main factors:

1. Your long-term goals. 🧓

2. How to use it to improve your CV. 📄

3. The amount of time you have. 📅

4. The skillset you want to develop. 👷‍♀️

Let’s start:

• 🧓What is your long-term goal? (pick one)
  A. You know that research is something you want to pursue long-term.
  B. You’re not very interested in research, but you need it to achieve another goal you have.
  C. You’re not certain if research is for you.
  
  If you're in group A, either a Master's or a PhD may be appropriate.
  
  If you’re in group B, a Master’s is for you. It will give you an excellent picture of the research world, but without the obligations, time constraints, and expectations inherent to a PhD program.
  
  If you’re in group C, you have two options: The first option is to find a lab that offers a short-term research project, such as a pay-by-the-hour job. The second option is to take 1 year off for a Master’s degree. Of the two, I recommend the Master’s degree. Pay-by-the-hour lab workers are considered “guests”, and guests are not exposed to the full spectrum of the research world.
  
  

• 📄CV
  If you plan on embarking on a research path just for having it on your CV - a Master's is the way to go. Having a PhD on your CV without ongoing research goals and activities will not serve you well. In some cases, it will even require you to explain why you haven't continued with research. It is unlikely to be an issue if you have a Master’s degree.
  
  

• 📅How many years do you want to invest?
  My advice - invest at least 1 year as a full-time Master’s student. If you’re a dental or medical student, take one year off. If you’re a dentist or physician, invest at least 4 days a week as a Master’s student for 1 year. Only this will expose you to the real world of research.
  
  Anything less than that will be appropriate only if you want the degree “on paper” (an approach that I don’t endorse, but may seem reasonable to others).
  
  For PhD, taking 2 years off from dental/med school is the bare minimum, and I highly recommend taking 3 years.
  
  Reasons: your skills will improve considerably after 1 year, and you’ll become completely independent after 2 years. What you accomplish during your third year will be an excellent representation of how research really is.
  
  In most cases, after 3 years of being a full-time research student, you can continue doing it part-time. I recommend 3 full work days and 2 half days.
  
  

• 👷‍♀️What skillset do you want? I’ll make it short and simple:
  
  If you want a taste of the research world, or to hone a very specific skill, a Master's is more than enough.
  
  If you want to develop a deep understanding of how research actually works, learn new skills independently, and troubleshoot problems on your own, PhD is for you.
  
  Remember, real research is about designing studies, writing grant proposals, handling failures, and seeing large projects through, from start to finish.

"Persistence matters more than talent. The student with straight As is irrelevant if the student sitting next to them with Bs has more passion."
— Timothy Ferriss, Tribe of Mentors

OMFS World

👩‍🎓For the student - Once you decided that you want to go for a Master's or PhD, the most important thing to do is to go “shopping”. Shopping is the process of going from lab to lab until you find the right one for you.
I suggest you do it as follows:
a. Read online about the labs and mentors.
b. Send emails to all the mentors who seem relevant to you. The email should be short and include your goals, the time you intend to invest, and your CV.
c. Meet with the mentors, and choose the mentor with whom you felt a “click”, and excitement.

🩺For the non-MD medical professional - Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) rule is a tool designed to help guide clinical decision-making for a pediatric head injury. It is a widely used evidence-based practice tool for evaluating children with an acute head injury and deciding on the need for computed tomography (CT) or observation.

For ages less than 2 years, CT is indicated if there is altered mental status, GCS<15, and palpable skull fracture. Observation or CT are indicated in severe mechanism of injury, non-frontal hematoma, and loss of consciousness for more than 5 seconds. For children older than 2 years and for more details, read here.

Stuff

📱Application I use - Inoreader is an innovative and powerful application designed to help you stay up-to-date with the latest news, trends, and topics. It is a great tool to help you curate content from multiple sources, customize your feeds, and organize your information in one convenient location. I use it solely for research. It automatically pulls head and neck cancer manuscripts from PubMed, so with a press of a button I can read them on my phone. Refer to Issue number 23 where I describe step-by-step how I do it.

💡Gear I use - Fisher Space Pen developed by Paul Fisher was designed to be used in zero gravity conditions and has been tested and approved by NASA for use in every manned mission since Apollo 7 in 1968. I really like the Telescoping Space Pen version, and I've used the same pen for the last 4 years. It's extremely robust and its telescoping design guarantees it won't open in your pocket. Regarding its price - I bought it for 23$, and its current price (38$) looks a bit too much to me. However, if you can find it for under 30$, I think it's totally worth it.

Epilogue

That’s it for this issue.

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Have a great weekend!

Shay