Qualifying exam - DONE!

Today I just turned in my qualifying exam.  It feels pretty darn good.  My preparation over the last few months, despite turning me into a hermit, really paid off.  Technically my "readers" have until the end of the summer to grade it (pass/fail/honors), so it might be a few weeks before I find out if I pass.  But I feel pretty good about it.  I am really fortunate that my friend, Emily, let me stay at her place to take the 3-day exam. It really helped me to focus to not have to worry about the dog or the laundry or cleaning my house and I am so thankful to her for it! 

My area of expertise is in Medical Sociology, so it was really timely that the Supreme Court ruling on the individual mandate of the health reform bill came out while I was taking the exam so I could comment on that.  So you want my take on it as a PhD-level medical sociologist?  Well, it's complicated for sure.

It's no surprise that the individual mandate was the part that received so much media attention, because Americans really value their independence, freedom, and personal liberties to do as they please with their hard earned money.  Americans like having choices.  But the healthcare reform bill (PPACA) puts the squeeze on insurance companies by requiring them to accept everyone regardless of preexisting medical conditions, and to provide unlimited lifetime spending on health care services.  So requiring healthy people who otherwise wouldn't rationally pay for health insurance to now purchase it helps to subsidize the more expensive, more sickly people.  If there's not some kind of subsidizing or "redistribution," insurance doesn't work.

Insurance companies have historically enjoyed substantial profits from their cut of transactions in health care services, and PPACA limits those, to some extent.  So shoveling in more money from coverage of healthy people (under age 26, plus anyone who wouldn't otherwise choose to purchase health insurance) really helps to keep insurance companies profitable (albeit, limited to 20% under the act, with some exemptions).

For a great read on health reform, check out Howard Watizkin's Medicine and Public Health at the End of Empire.  Really the only last chapter is where he digs into PPACA, but the rest of it kind of sets up the argument.  What I loved about this book is that despite how much of the book focused on overthrows of capitalism as an evil beast, the final chapter presents a liberal criticism of PPACA.  You can get conservative criticisms by the truckload, but it's really unique to see something written from the left that is not supportive of the act.  Essentially, he argues that PPACA will continue to serve the interests of the "transnational ruling class" (read - the 1% but on a global scale), and the whole system will implode from continually expanding costs that focus on expensive technology.  So that view may be extreme, but it's really interesting to see an analysis of PPACA that doesn't focus on individual liberties.

So personally I'm not going to argue that PPACA is good or bad.  It's got a mix of good and bad.  You've got more people covered (but still not everyone - Waitzkin argues it'll only cover half of the currently uninsured at best), but not much of a cap on escalating costs of high tech medicine that has a poor return on quality of life.  I'm also not sure if it's going in the right direction, because that all depends on what the desired outcome is - cost, quality, access, coverage.  Pretty much all PPACA addresses is coverage (and to some extent, quality, but that's a whole can of worms in itself).  But we'll see where it goes from there.

Done with Classes FOREVER! What now?

This semester is my first semester as a PhD student with no more classes to take. When I tell people that, they ask a seemingly straightforward question - "so now you just have your dissertation and that's it, right?" Nope. This is academia, so things that should be straightforward need to go through nine levels of hell more hurdles before starting the dissertation.  I'm fortunate to have funding as a Research Assistant this semester so I don't have to teach a class to have funding.

Here's what I have left:

1. Qualifying Exam.  This is an essay assignment where you are given a list of questions and have 72 hours to write up to 30 pages answering those questions using a personalized list of academic research material.  The reading list consists of roughly 100 journal articles and 30 books that are the basis for your specialty in Sociology.  Since I'm specializing in medical sociology, it tends to tip towards more articles and fewer books, so my list is about 120 articles and 20 books. 

PhD students usually take about a semester to make the list (it involves multiple iterations with two advisors) and 3-6 months to do the reading, depending on their other workload (teaching, research, taking classes).

One would think that after roughly 6 semesters of graduate-level coursework and obtaining a master's degree in the process that there wouldn't be much reading left to do.  Not true.  This exam is supposed to show that you understand your area of expertise broadly and in depth, so you can't just focus on the few topics you find most interesting. For example, I think that structural changes in the social organization of medicine in the past 100 years is fascinating.  I'm less interested in figuring out one more way you can show how life is unfair and that there are systematic patterns in who gets sick (also known as epidemiology).  But I have to know all that literature because it is important in my field.


After passing the Qualifying Exam, and it is possible to get an "honors" distinction in this, the student is officially a "doctoral candidate" AKA "all but dissertation" or ABD.  It also means you have to finish the dissertation within 7 years of that date, which is a challenge for some people.

The handbook says "The Qualifying Exam is designed to serve as a bridge between graduate course work and preparation of a dissertation proposal," which brings us to the next obstacle before the dissertation. 


2. Dissertation Proposal.  This is an oral "defense" of your research proposal for your dissertation.  I'm still not sure exactly what the parameters are for this, but it takes some people a year or longer to put it together. In the "Real world" something like this should probably take about a month.

3. Dissertation research.   Actually doing the work for the dissertation.  Data cleaning, statistical analysis, text analysis or whatever else was proposed.  All of this analysis needs to get done before you can write much of anything up.  This could take anywhere from a week to several years if you are collecting your own data.

4. Writing the dissertation. 'nuff said.

5. Oral defense of dissertation.  This is done in front of your committee, who you hope will ask nice easy questions!

So I just have 5 things left, I guess!  Of course, this doesn't include any of the other research I'm working on nor publications I'm trying to put out nor grant proposals, fellowship applications, etc, all of which require lots of time-consuming writing and data analysis.

Grad School E-mails

It looks like I've been officially added to the IU Sociology grad student e-mail list, since I've started receiving e-mails from people I don't know with "SOCGRAD" as the TO e-mail address. To some extent, that makes me feel pretty important, but on the other hand, I wish I could start using my IU e-mail rather than g-mail (I probably won't have access to my IU e-mail until I start classes in August). I think a lot of us feel that way about "work" e-mail and "personal" e-mail - keep them separate! I guess I should be happy that my g-mail address is just my name and not something like "HotBabeXOXO".

It will be interesting over the next couple of months before I start my program to see what kinds of things people think are appropriate to send to all of the grad students. So far there's been a YouTube video and a couple of guest lecturer announcements. The Social Sciences tend to attract a colorful crowd, so I expect to get a lot of things in my inbox that I might not find as funny as the sender intended. But that's why there's a delete button!

Now I just need to get back on track reading Sociology related books rather than puppy training books!

Academia and Opposing Views

Lately I've been reading a graduate message board on the internet where applicants and current graduate school students can discuss the admissions process, funding and other issues. Today I read something that made me want to comment on my blog.

One person posted a question about whether they should go to a school if they have severe differences in political opinions from the faculty there. The overwhelming majority of responses were that it's better to be around people like yourself to discuss ideas you agree on.

That kind of attitude is definitely NOT what I'm looking for in a PhD program, especially in the social sciences. I remember once in an undergrad course on globalization when the topic of global warming came up. I mentioned that some scientists contested the global warming theory in favor of a theory that the world naturally goes through temperature cycles, like the ice ages. The class quickly dismissed those scientists as "ignorant" and erupted into shouts and anger, so I declined to contribute further to that discussion, but it made me realize that conflicting ideas can be squashed out of higher education. Is that really academic discourse?

Anyway, that's one of the reasons I wanted to go to a larger program. It's still only 12-15 students per year, but some programs take 1 or 2 students every couple of years. I know that I will have strong disagreements with some of the faculty (and students, for that matter), but that can only make me better informed about issues I care about. The problem comes when people take it personally and start name-calling or crying or whatever. It's great to have ideas batted around, and I enjoy that part.

Hopefully I won't have to deal with too many whiners, name-callers or holier-than-thou types. Unfortunately for those types, they're going to have to deal with me calling them out and making sure they really know what they're talking about. I most certainly don't want my cohort to be anything less than the best they can be.

FINALLY some BIG NEWS!

After months of pretty dismal job hunting, we just found out today that I've been accepted to Indiana University, Bloomington to do a PhD in Sociology! We are just thrilled to have this opportunity, and even more thrilled that I'm getting funding to do it! Now Paul just needs to find a job out there, so if you know of anywhere around Bloomington, Indiana that's hiring MBA's, let us know!

My focus is going to be in medical sociology, which probably a lot of you who follow our blog aren't all that familiar with. Some examples of the kinds of topics I want to research include issues surrounding how people access medical care (what makes someone decide to visit a doctor? would national health care change that?), what happens once someone is diagnosed with a disease or condition, and how policies affect access to medical care and treatment decisions - and probably lots of other topics. More specifically, I've been concerned about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on treatment, especially with regard to mental health. After living in the UK for a year, where direct-to-consumer marketing of pharmaceuticals is prohibited, and moving back to the US, where every other commercial is for some drug, I was reminded of the great extent to which pharmaceutical marketing is a part of everyday life for Americans.

I am so excited and thankful to be given this opportunity, and I know it sounds trite, but I honestly do hope to make a difference in the world with my work and I think that will be possible with this experience.