[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #18453B;”]O[/dropcap]n Wednesday February 13, 2013, Dr. Janet Osuch, breast surgeon and Assistant Dean of Preclinical Curriculum at the College of Human Medicine, spoke to medical students about her experience in academic medicine.

Looking back on her start in the health care field as a lab technician, Dr. Osuch described that she knew it wasn’t enough for her. “I used to pray my machine would break so I could use my brain.” Dr. Osuch decided to start a career in academic medicine, which to her was a triad of treating patients, teaching students, and conducting research. Since the MSRJ is research focused, Dr. Osuch went on to give the students some guidance on how to succeed in the research and publishing world. Her biggest piece of advice was that you need to have a great deal of humility. “If you have an ego, don’t go into academic medicine.”  Through her many experiences publishing her research, she has experienced derogatory reviewer comments and rejection. She has learned to persevere and to be persistent. “You will never receive reviewer comments without some sort of criticism. That is what makes a good reviewer.” The point of the peer-review process is to receive advice from your colleagues on how to improve and how to keep the field of medicine moving forward. As many of the students will become reviewers for MSRJ, this was valuable advice for them to take away from the talk.

[facebook]