Saturday, October 23, 2004

Research?

My research month is almost up. No overnight call for 2 months; it'll be hard to start calls again.
Been thinking of late. My advisor's trying to interest me in his field of expertise when I begin my fellowship next year; pancreatic islet transplantation for type 1 diabetes.

Digression: The people who thought this up must have been geniuses. I mean, take cadaveric pancreas. Isolate the islets. Infuse the islets into the hepatic system. Let the cells colonize the liver to allow endogenous insulin production. Low-dose steroid-free immunosuppression. I mean, how more far out can you be?

Problem is, while this is interesting... there is no islet transplant program in ALL of Malaysia. Will I be able to apply my training back there at all? Will I be wasting my time with this instead of something more applicable to home? Or will I be able to carve my niche in this area in Malaysia? If I do go into this field, undoubtedly, I would end up being the only person in a country of 20 million qualified to talk about this subject.

Decisions decisions.