I suppose that technically we're M2's now, though it feels somewhat presumptuous to say that, since we haven't yet started second-year coursework. It's our last real summer! We have a few months "off" (though most people do research) between the first and second year of med school, then all the subsequent years are continuous.

The first week of summer I took as a true vacation. The day after my last final, I ran the Dexter-Ann Arbor half marathon with a group of med students…and we all finished! It was a gorgeous course along the river between the two towns and it was great fun to cross the finish line right in my own neighborhood. Since I hadn't trained particularly intensely this spring, I decided in advance not to "race" but just to enjoy the day. Lucky for us, the run was the same day as the Ann Arbor food festival, so downtown streets were closed and overflowing with delicious samples. It was hot for June, and thirteen miles is a long run, but we were all still happy and talkative at the finish line together.

As an MD/PhD student, I spend this summer doing something relevant to the "PhD" part of the dual degree. For most of my cohort, that means doing lab rotations to identify potential mentors for their future research. For a few of us, though, who are not doing our degrees in a basic science field, it is more useful to take classes or do other types of non-bench research. Because I will be doing my PhD through the School of Public Health in biostatistics, I'm spending most of my summer getting up to speed on math. Through a combination of independent study, classes, and workshops, I'm using these months to start getting my feet wet in the numerical and quantitative side of things. Next fall, after finishing the second year of medical school, I will officially start at the School of Public Health, so it's been exciting to begin feeling more connected to the work I'll do there. In a couple weeks, I start a few more statistics and programming workshops though the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research, so stay tuned for updates on how those are! Until then, Happy Summer to all!