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ONMUAA NEWSLETTER
Vol (1) No. (2)
October 1996
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Table of Contents
1. Editors' Words........................................Bei Chen
2. News Brief
(1). NMU President's letter......................Qingyi Wei
(2). Survey is ongoing!..........................Benquan Shen
(3). Alumni picnic in San Francisco..............Benquan Shen and
Yongjina Liu
(4). Alumni meeting in Boston....................Liangfeng Tao
(5). Announcements...............................Ning Jin, Fuhu
Wang
3. History of ONMUAA
4. Career Development
(1). Being a medical resident in USA.............Shan Lu
(2). Positions available.........................Youcheng Liu
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1. Editors' Words
Dear Nanyi alumni:
On behalf of editors of Newsletter, we would like to join you to
celebrate the birth of ONMUAA, and express our sincere gratitude to
those who put a lot of efforts, enthusiasm, and wisdom to make ONMUAA
exist. We would like to work with you to facilitate the exchange of
information, expression of opinions and concerns among our members.We
also sincerely welcome your input and suggestion to make our
organization a real help to each of our members.
(Contributed by Bei Chen on behalf of Newsletter editors)
2. News brief
(1). NMU President's letter (Congratulations from NMU President Zhang,
Zheng Shen)
In response to our ONMUAA open letter (8/25/96) to NMU, which announced the
formal establishment of ONMUAA, President Zhang, Zheng Shen sent us an
official letter (9/29/96) to express his warm congratulation to the newly
founded ONMUAA and each of ONMUAA members on behalf of more than 10,000
faculty, students, and staff members.
According to President Zhang, NMU now has 4 schools (Basic Medicine,
Clinical Medicine, Public Health, and Adult Education), which consist of 5
department, 12 specialties, 38 Master programs, and 7 Doctoral programs.
In his letter, President Zhang expressed high enthusiasm to establish a
close relationship with ONMUAA and designated Li, Zhuhua, Director of
Foreign Affairs as the liaison for future communications. He wish that
ONMUAA will do its best to contribute to the future development of NMU in
every possible way.
The ONMUAA Executive Committee is working on further plans for dialog with
NMU to accomplish our goals to serve each of ONMUAA members. Please let us
know your comments and suggestions in this regard. For more details of this
letter in Chinese, Please browse our homepage at
http://www.jax.org/~jlm/.
(Contributed by Qingyi Wei, PH78)
(2). ONMUAA survey is ongoing!
As part of effort to promote ONMUAA work, the Dept.of Public
Relations(PR) of Exective Committee is launching a survey among NMU
Alumni. The survey covers broad topics such as Communication, Alumni
Directory, Donations, Information Exchange and even your old memorys
about NMU. The questioniar has been distributed to Alumni through e-mail
system and also posted in web site: "http://www-personal.umich.edu
/~njin/survey.html". It is also distributed to Alumni on site when local
Chapters hold its Alumni party. During the first two weeks, about 30
Alumni from Australia, Switzerland,Japan and USA have returned their
responses to the survey. PR has sent a thanks message to everyone who
has responded to the survey. The survey results are expected to be
released in next issue of Newsletter.
(contributed by Benquan Shen)
(3). First NMU Alumni Picnic Party in San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco----We are reporting to you that, with great enthusiasism,
last Sunday (Oct. 6), about 30 Nanyi alumni and their family had a
wondeful picnic party in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Most of you
may know that San Francisco is a famous scenic city with numerous
attractions like Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park and a big
Chinatown, but you may know little about that, in Bay area that surround
the city,
there are quite a few prestigious Universities and Biotech Companies
such as UC San Francisco(UCSF), UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Stanford Univ.,
Genetech, Berlex, Xoma, etc. It may surprise you even more that more
than 25 NMU Alumni are working in these institutions. The party
organizers, Wenhui Liu, Yongjian Liu, Benquan Shen and Bei Chen, told
the Newsletter that Alumni were eager to get together but never made it
due to the schedule conflict. After the extensive effort of contacting
each idividual during last few weeks, they reached all the Alumni in
this Area and made this event happened. It is usually foggy and cool in
the SF city during the Summer ("The coldest winter is the summer in San
Francisco" a famous quote by Mark Twin illustrate the image for you)
but this past Sunday was sunny and warm (India Summer here). Around 12:00,
Alumni and their family came to the park. Greetings, self introducting
and laughing filled the area. We even had several special guests at the
party: Prof. Zhi Zhu, the Director of ophthalmology of NMU affliated
hospital, visiting her daughter(NMU Alumna too) in Stanford University
and Ming Fan (MD78) from Chicago, who is attending a meeting here. In
addition, everyone brought their favourite home-made Chinese food to
share with others. The organizers also introduced the lastest
progresses of the newly established ONMUAA and its operation as well as
distributed ONMUAA Directory, NMU President's Letter and Survey to
Alumni on site. The party ended up with a wonderful group picturing and
wishing to have another one soon.
(contributed by Benquan Shen and Yongjian Liu in San Francisco)
(4) The Program for the First ONMUAA Board Meeting
1. Official meeting and voting date:
OCTOBER 12, 1996, SATURDAY. Time: 1:00PM--4:00PM(EDT)
1:00PM, Meeting start. Board secretory will report by email to all board
members the number and name of board members who are on line for the meeting,
and number/name of alumni at New England/Boston area gathering. The Board
Chair will deliver a brief opening address to each board member.
1:00-2:00PM. Welcome all board members or alumni over the world to send in
their vote and messages. The messages will be forwarded to all board members
, and filed on our home page later.
2:00-3:00PM. The board members at Boston gathering will count the voting
result and report to all board members. The final count will be summarized
and sent to all alumni by the secretory on Oct.14, 1996.
3:00-4:00PM. The alumni at Boston gathering will write a few brief
sentences on one email which will be sent out at 3:00PM to alumni all over
the world. Alumni continue to communicate by email with Boston gathering.
4:00PM. Meeting adjourn.
NOTE: Two board chiars and secretory will be at Boston gathering. The email
address for them and the gathering on Oct.12 will be yliu@hsph.harvard.edu
Please use this address to email your vote/comment and communicate with
alumni at Boston gathering on that day only.
2. Pre-discussion, document revision and preliminary voting:
OCTOBER 6-11, 1996.
Oct.6: 2nd announcement for the first Board Meeting. Each board member is
asked to respond by Oct.9 whether s/he will be able to attend the meeting.
Oct.7: Send out documents for discussion, revision and voting, each by a
separate email and with a final summary list of what need to be voted
and what need to be discussed/commented.
Oct.8: Send out a message to all ONMUAA alumni regarding our meeting and
welcome their comment/suggestion/discussion.
Since Oct.7 to Oct.11, The board secretory(taol@woods.uml.edu) will accept
comment/suggestion/voting from board members, and forward the discussion
msg he has received in the previous 24 hr back to all board members. The
board secretory will also accept any bills sponsored by two or more board
members and will put in the meeting for free discussion/voting.
Oct.11: The board secretory will send out a summary of discussion/preliminary
voting.
3. Major topics and voting:
Board agenda and work plan; EC Bills for work proposal; Bylaw modification
draft; Others.
When you vote, please just "reply" to each document and fill in the YES or NO
choice in the bollot. Please also put your name,date and any comment.
Dear Board Members, Your participation in discussion and voting is very
important for this meeting as well as our association's mission. The board
chairs office look forward to hearing from you and taking your opinions to
make ONMUAA stronger and healthier. Thank you very much.
(Contributed by Liang-feng Tao, Board Secretory
(5) Announcements
1) About webpage
More than two months ago, we were given the responsibility to design and
maintain a webpage by the Board of NMU overseas alumni. Our initial
efforts of webpage construction achieved our wish that we have our own
presence on the web.
However, as a sign of our collective wisdom and resources, the current
webpage is far from satisfactory. To weave a virtual web that can enrich
the fabrics binding our otherwise scattered alumni and to enhance our
identity as a prosperous group, I would like to invite your participation
in our joint construction and perfection of the webpage.
Your contribution in graphics and text that represent our past and present
will be greatly appreciated. Your comments and critique are always
cardinally solicited.
Thank you all very much!
(Contributed by Fuhu Wang, MD79)
VP, Executive committee.
2) The ONMUAA History Museum Is Open to Your Visits
As the first administration's efforts to remember those who made
our Alumni Association possible, the ONMUAA History Museum is now ready
for your visits. The Museum contains a short draft of ONMUAA history, early
alumni activists' communication, early alumni gathering party pictures,
and milestone documents of ONMUAA. The short draft of history was
written mainly according to correspondence letters. Please forgive me if
anyone's contribution is missed.
The address is "http://www-personal.umich.edu/~njin/museum.html"
(Contributed by Ning Jin, EC Secretory)
3) Survey needs your participation:
In order to serve our Alumni more efficiently, we, the first
Administration of Oversea Nanjing Medical University Alumni Association
(ONMUAA), are launching this survey. Your voice and participation are
very important to ONMUAA because we'll make decisions based on your
suggestions. Please take a few minutes to read all the questions in the
survey form and return your answers either through e-mail, fax, regular
mail at your earliest convenience to:
Ning Jin, ONMUAA Exective Committee Secretary
E-mail: njin@umich.edu
Fax: (313) 668-7006
Web site: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~njin/nmuaa.html
Or Benquan shen, Public Relations, ONMUAA Exective Committee
2055 32nd Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94116, U.S.A.
E-mail: bqshen@gene.com
Home phone: (415) 566-5605
Fax: (415) 566-5605
If you have not received the survey form by email, please contact
with above mentioned persons or visit web site at:
"http://www-personal.umich.edu /~njin/survey.html".
All the information submitted will be taken as confidential and used by
ONMUAA Administration ONLY.
Help us, help youself! Thank you for your time and effort!
Dept. of Public Relations
3. The History of the ONMUAA
Dear alumni:
On August 18th, this one thousand nine hundred ninety
sixth year, at the midnight of the eastern time, our baby
Overseas Nanjing Medical University Alumni Association (ONMUAA)
was delivered smoothly! Do not be afraid she will
go away when you wake up in the morning like before. You
can feel her warm body. Her temperature is the same as ours;
Do not be afraid that she will go away when you wake up in
the morning like before. You can hear her heart beating. The
rhythm is the same as ours; Do not be afraid it is a dream like
before. It is true, really true. It is our dreams that come true!
Nanjing and Nanjing Medical University always sound so
sweet to us because our dreams originated from there, our
future, our career started from there, and our golden time
was spent over there.
Many of us have been far away from there for many years.
Many of us have made great achievements in our careers.
Many of us have also had many exciting moments on the
strange and totally new land. However, have we ever
stopped missing our root, our origin, and our fellows? Have
we ever forgotten contributing to our mother university, our
motherland, and our culture as a whole? No, not even a day
or a moment. We can say with tears in our eyes: NanYi, we
miss you!
United, and only united, can we make a difference! United,
our intelligence and our wisdom will nourish our mother
university. United, springs make a brook, brooks make a
river, rivers make a sea, seas make an ocean. So we can be
all in one to reward our mother university.
A glorious history has been made by you, by me, by all of
us!
A group of peerless heroes should be specially honored.
Their contributions should be remembered forever!
(Contributed by Ning Jin)
4. Career Development
(1). BEING A MEDICAL RESIDENT IN USA (by Lu, Shan, NMU-MD77-6)
With time there are more and more alumni re-entering medical profession in
the United States. I was
asked quite a few times by alumni regarding how to apply and how to prepare
us for the medical
residency training. Here I would like to share some of my experience with
our alumni and I hope other
alumni who have entered the resident programs will also write something to
let us know how to succeed in
this new challenge in our life.
ONE KEY PROBLEM
The most serious disadvantage to us is that we have not practiced medicine
for quite a few years, worse
than low USMLE score or foreign accent. According to most residency
program directors I have talked
to, they really do not want to take people who have been away from clinical
work for more than 3-5
years and who do not have any clinical experience in this country.
Unfortunately, most of us (NMU
73-76, 77, 78, 79) are in this group. Therefore it is extremely important
if we can find a sub-intern,
extern or even an observor opportunity in an inpatient clinical setting for
2-3 months. It will greatly
enhence our CV and may even have a few additional supporting letters for
us. But remember, work hard
during these 2-3 months even you are considered a volunteer. Catch any
opportunity and learn fast.
This is also very helpful for our later real residency work.
ONE MYTH
For clinicians, they are only concerned about patient care. It does not
matter how much research
experience you have. For those who do not have US PhD or Master, it is not
necessary to worry about
your background. Actually, I have heard clinicians in the interview for
residents saying that they would
not want people too deep in research because they are afraid that
researcher's mind-set is not good for
clinical work anymore. Be confident, be approachable and be prepared are
the important elements in
convincing your interviewers that you can take the hard job. Too much
emphasis on research background
may not help, if not hurting.
THREE MAJOR COMPONENTS
One of our alumni, Liu Ya-ning (MD77-5) told me three key components for
being a good resident in
internal medicine. Ya-ning is now PGY-3 and will start her cardiology
fellow very soon. I thank her for
telling me these great advice and would like to share them with more alumni.
First, routine procedures. As a result of the culture and administrative
structure differences, we may
not know or forget how to write an order for a chest X-ray or a patient
progress note, how to do a
telephone dictation etc. This usually takes 2-4 weeks to know most of
them. It will be much easier if
there is a volunteer experience before entering the residency program.
Second, communicating skills (with patients, nurses, fellow residents,
senior residents, attendings,
consultants from other services.....). Here the English is definitely
important, but it is also important to
learn how to compose our conversation, to have the flexibility and to
improve our interpersonal skills.
This is probably the most difficult barrier. I do not know any easy trick.
We all need to learn by
observing the other well-liked residents, being objective, modest and
sincere as well as working hard to
improve ourselves.
Third, knowledge. Clinical medicine, especially in a new country, requires
us to do very extensive
reading. There will never be a big piece of time for study. We need many
good pocket books which can
be learned from other med. students or residents. But surprisingly reading
is not the key requirement
for the first year. It is critical to let people to believe that you are
competent in daily operation. But by
the 2nd and 3rd years, knowledge really becomes critical.
There is no question that we do not expect too much sleep and there will be
no weekends or holidays
except those pre-determined. But I personally agree with Yaning that the
above three things are critical
for us to survive in a residency program.
(2). Postdoctoral Position/Transcriptional Regulation
DESCRIPTION
Identify genes whose expression is regulated by a family of transcription
factors know to be important in human development, inherited disorder, and
cancer. Develop methods to clone transcription factor binding sites within
the genome, rapidly assay them for promoter and enhancer activity, and to
identify genes associated with novel promoters and enhancers.
REQUIREMENTS
Ph.D. with 0-2 years postdoctoral experience.
Experience with
Expression cloning
DNA/Protein interactions
Transfection of mammalian cells
Transcriptional assays in cell culture
DESIRABLE
Experience with high throughout cell culture assays
Contact John Carulli at carulli@cric.com
(Contributed by Youcheng Liu)