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The Egyptian goddess Isis was celebrated as the ideal wife and mother. The blogger known as Dr. Isis has some fancy-sounding degrees and is a physiologist at a major research university working on some terribly impressive stuff. She blogs about balancing her research career with the demands of raising small children, how to succeed as a woman in academia, and anything else she finds interesting. Also, she blogs about shoes. In fact, she blogs a lot about shoes.
...And behold, he raised the motherfucking Jameson on high as Isis bedecked her feet in glory, and the masses were sated. -- The Holy Gospel According to PhysioProf
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My blogroll has gotten too big for the regular sidebar! So, check out all of the delightful blogs that Dr. Isis reads regularly by clicking
here. If you'd like to be added to the blogroll, shoot an email to isisthescientist at gmail dot com.
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February 8, 2010
Category:
I know that Mama has been mildly absent, little muffins. Things here have just been so scientifically busy. Now I am convinced that the science universe is screwing with me. Allow me to explain how...
Dr. Isis is a smoking hot cardiovascular physiologist. I recently submitted a protocol to our animal use and care committee for review. In this protocol, I have outlined how the animals in question will be placed under heavy anesthesia and how we will then perform a thoracotomy and remove the heart. I described this very clearly in the protocol. However, there is an additional question asking you to check a box for the method of euthanasia and provide additional comment. I checked "exsanguination with anesthesia." Today I received the questions from the committee, including this one:
Please include a more detailed description of euthanasia here, and explain exactly when the heart stops and death occurs.
I assumed holding the heart in the palm of my hand was sufficient to confirm death, but this question seems a bit meta for even me.
I am having a hard time answering this question in a way that does not convey smartassitude.
Posted by Isis the Scientist at 8:27 PM • 30 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category:
I am sorry, men. I am so, so very sorry.
Posted by Isis the Scientist at 1:58 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 6, 2010
Category: Classic Isis • Physiology • Science-y Sounding Meanderings
Dr. Isis has been working on some invasive human studies lately. As I promised, I will take pictures of our construction exploits on Monday. I think we've finally got things right and I think you will be very impressed by our use of PVC, rock salt, buckets, and velcro. This week has been incredibly busy for us and we have spent our days and nights putting catheters into all sorts of places. Thinking about this tonight reminded me of the time I received an arterial catheter and blogged about it.
There is a new study I want to do and I am looking into equipment for it. If it works, it will be ferosh. Still, I need to figure out how to do it without having to swallow an esophageal temperature probe...
Pre-Figure 1: Because they have to go up your nose before they go down your throat, and that's no fun for anyone. When I figure it out, I'll blog it. No doubt.Anyway, here's the story of my arterial catheter...
Some of you have been clamoring for an update on Dr. Isis's Seven Days of Sexcapades with Mr. Isis. Here's the truth -- Dr. Isis only made it 4 days in before her own female physiology imposed a 5 to 7 day hiatus on the hijinx. Once Dr. Isis's condition clears up, however, she'll be back in the saddle and back with regular reports for all her loyal pervs readers.
Still, some of you may remember discussions had by DrugMonkey and the domestic and laboratory goddess about the importance of studying sex effects in biomedicine. The elimination of sex disparity in research is something that Dr. Isis feels quite strongly about. And so, when Dr. Isis's foray into the estrogen-deprived phase of her cycle gave her the opportunity to participate in a colleague's experiment and contribute to the current knowledge of the effect of estrogen state on vascular function, how could she refuse?. Thus, Dr. Isis offered up her non-birth-control-taking body in the name of science and took a brachial catheter for the team in order to test the hypothesis that a particular group of drugs infused into the arterial vasculature alters vessel function in a way that is cycle dependent. Because Dr. Isis is a good little Science Blogger, she decided to document the event. Besides, she had nothing else to do but lie there and have drugs infused into her.
Figure 1: The menstrual cycle. The arrow indicates Dr. Isis's current position. The image is from Wikipedia, but note that Dr. Isis has corrected the inappropriate use of the word "females" where the authors probably meant to say "women." Female is a adjective. Woman is a noun. Don't confuse the two or I may totally lose my junk.
Because Dr. Isis's entry contains pictures of the event, she's going to try to do something she almost never does -- put the rest of the entry behind a cut. I don't think any of it is especially gory (then again, I didn't think child birth was especially gory), but consider yourself warned.
Read on »
Posted by Isis the Scientist at 11:08 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category:
I am a fairly chatty, and incredibly hot, person and I find that often people tell things. Just random things. Sometimes I am really baffled by the things people tell me when they think I just like them. Last week I was driving a particularly güero student and we had the following conversation as we entered their neighborhood:
Student: This is my street.
Dr. Isis: Oh, do a lot of students live here?
Student: Yeah, there are a lot of students here and then a few blocks down is the bad part
of town.
Dr. Isis: I didn't realize there was a bad part of town. What makes it bad?
Student: Oh, you know. It's where all the Mexicans live.
All the Mexicans, indeed.
Posted by Isis the Scientist at 6:22 PM • 33 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 5, 2010
February 3, 2010
Category: Blogrolling
I am told that today is Blogroll Amnesty Day. In the spirit of things, this a relatively new blog, but it's caught my eye.
Post Immigrant is a professor in San Jose, CA. He writes about his identity:
I am not an immigrant; but the immigrant experience has informed my identity to such an extent that other more politicized terms like "Chicano," "Hispanic," or "Mexican American," seem to me like foreign impositions. If anything, I would say that I am a "second generation immigrant," whose roots are intricately tied to those of my parents--folks that, no matter how hard they try, will always be immigrants. Hence, the post-immigrant experience, one which sees us, second generation immigrants, furthering the projects of our forebearers, transgressing on new borders, occupying new territories, settling in new realms--still wary of deportation, but only symbolically (unless we are physically deported, which is still possible!). The borders which we'd like to cross are not the physical borders separating countries, but the borders of the immigrant imaginary, i.e., the dreams of those who dared to uproot some generations, decades, years, days ago.
And about the night his parents brought him back to the United States:
At night, the San Ysidro sky became noisy and bright. Helicopters circled above and they shinned lights on the hotel windows. I couldn't sleep. I was 9 years old. This is the first time I remember feeling that sense of loss that I've come to familiarize myself with over the years. It was as if waiting for nothing, which is worse than waiting for something. I felt alone, nervous, afraid, but most of all criminal. Without fully understanding what that meant, I knew I was hiding from the lights and noises outside, that I was an accomplice to something, that all those people there with me were implicated--that I was guilty by association. I fell asleep on the woman's lap.
I am going to keep watching this one, queridos. I think he has a lot of promise...
Posted by Isis the Scientist at 9:52 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 2, 2010
Category:
I have my snap curlers in, a bowl of ice cream, my comfy pants on, and my dog cuddled up by my side. I am now ready for some hot Sawyer action.
Posted by Isis the Scientist at 9:30 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ask Dr. Isis • Diva-Like Fashion
I received this letter about two weeks ago...
Oh Awesome, Sartorially-More-Aware-Than-I-Am Some-Digestive-Organ-Studying Physiologist of Cool,
I have a problem.
Though I have not gotten an acceptance to the NIH's summer intern program yet (call it Really Big Grant-Granting All Powerful Biomedical Sciences Institution or something else if you want to anonymize it), it seems likely that I probably will be accepted to it for this
summer, so I just want to make sure I take care of this first.
So I do not look like a total moron when I show up, what attire is proper for work in a lab in a building where I may possibly run into non-employees such as patients and visitors, especially the NIH, which is, of course, a Really Big and Powerful Institution so one has to
look good, and such but work on a daily basis with Chemicals and Interesting Furry Animals?
[Name Redacted]
First thing's first, little muffins. You're getting a little light on your praise and worship. I realize I've been around for a while now, but that doesn't mean Mama doesn't like a little bit of sweet-talking before you hit her up for some hot advice.
Figure 1: I mean, it's not like we're some couple that's been married for 15 years and you can just tap me in the back with it at 6am and expect that I'm going to service you. I still need a little sugar first.
And, although I don't study digestive organs (unless you all know something about the heart that I don't), I still dug this question.
I'll be honest, I've never worked on the NIH campus. Maybe some of my readers who have can offer more specific advice, but my work at MRU takes me all around campus, including to their medical facilities. For non-hospital-based work, the dress code (or lack there of) is pretty simple. If you don't smell (that's my rule) and have your important parts covered (that's safety's rule), it's considered appropriate. I won't lie that students in their pajama pants in the lab kind of skeeves me out, but to each their own and I have had a few students who chose this option. It's almost as bad as capri pants on a boy, but I digress...
Regardless of what non-hospital lab wear might be, it is explicitly clear that when I go over to the medical center and wear my medical center name badge, I not only represent the medical school, but the health care business of the hospital. That means being polite and helpful to patients and their families and, at the very minimum, business casual attire or scrubs. So, on days when I am working over there in any capacity, that is what I wear. It's a much more formal environment and the department chair I interact always wears impeccably tailored suits. Everyday. No exceptions.
So, I wish you nothing but the best of luck with this summer program and, while some of my commenters may leave you some advice, the best option might be to send this email to the program director if you are accepted.
Good luck!
Posted by Isis the Scientist at 8:38 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ass Shaking Jams
This song is cracking me up this morning. I don't want to be nodding my head but...
...you know any boy that told me "Call me Mr. Flintstone. I can make your bed rock" would be in like Flynn. Heh.
Posted by Isis the Scientist at 11:14 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
