Making Medical Practitioners Biologists and Not Mechanics: Lessons from ISEMPH 2017

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A long-standing concern of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health and its membership is that more than cursory education in the most basic evolutionary theory, or how scientific inquiry is conducted, is lacking from many medical curricula. This is alarming when we consider that medicine is a form of applied biology. As evolutionary theory is the principal principle that unites all biology (much as physics underlies all engineering), learning a form of applied biology should logically begin with an education in evolution. Furthermore, scientific literacy, and the ability to tell well-executed science from poorly executed research, is essential when evaluating a burgeoning literature ranging from experimental therapies to evolving pathogens.

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Conversations About Evolution and Pokémon

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Having spent two summers teaching natural science at Governor’s School West in North Carolina, I’ve absorbed some valuable lessons. These lessons include how to interact with students from a wide cross-section of backgrounds who are united by an interest in science, how to collaborate with instructors who have diverse experiences and herald from various disciplines, and how to spark curiosity in students who mostly have not considered where their interests and passions will lie. To be honest, I’d never even considered teaching high schoolers before I started working at the Governor’s School. As it turns out, there’s a lot of good that comes from teaching evolution to a bunch of budding scientists.

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New Accommodations for Old Obstacles: Thoughts on Being a Young Mother in Academia

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For women in academia, it’s practically a cliché: balancing children and a competitive career is nearly impossible. A quick internet search will pull up hundreds of articles citing the many ways in which starting a family can and will adversely affect a woman’s career. For example, The US News cited in their 2013 article on “The Baby Penalty” that “[m]en with young children are 35 percent more likely than women with young children to secure tenure-track positions after completing their Ph.D.s.,” and mothers of young children are 33 percent less likely to land a tenure-track job than childless women. In addition, mothers who secure a tenure-track position are 20 percent less likely to eventually earn tenure than fathers. American academic culture was largely shaped by men who were either married to stay-at-home wives or remained bachelors, and as such, the expected trajectory of an academic career fails to take young motherhood (and engaged young fatherhood) into account. These issues and their various ramifications have been very much on my mind this last year. 

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