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Karishma Kaushik, MBBS, MD, PhD, Mom
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Karishma Kaushik, MBBS, MD, PhD, Mom
@_KarishmaK
Physician | Scientist | Microbiologist | Hockey | Sarees | Coffee | @TTASIndia 🇮🇳
📘: The Real Deal: Lessons, Learnings, and Laughter for Girl Scientists
- I have a microbiology 🧫 joke, but not sure if it is ‘cultured’. 😂This Post is from an account that no longer exists. Learn more
- I did not work weekends during my PhD. That’s it. This is the tweet.
- In 2011, I walked into a faculty’s office and said ‘I really want to do a PhD with you, but I want you to know that I am going to have a baby in 6 months’. She smiled ‘Thats awesome, that makes the two of us’. 😍 My PhD advisor and I delivered our babies a week or so apart ♥️🙏.
- The first money I earned? Possibly! 💵 Cash prize after winning a science elocution competition at Nehru Centre, Mumbai (1995). My parents preserved the INR 100 note and found it a few days ago! 😍
- PhD convocation, The University of Texas at Austin. Saree, bindi, baby. Who says you can't do it your way? ❤️🙃 Happy Mothers Day! 🤱
- I did not get into Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCSF. I did get into Baylor, but Houston wouldn't work for hubby's career. University of Texas at Austin was middle of my list, but it ticked many boxes (funding, dual careers). PhD aspirants: The right choice is what works for you!
- In a recent interview, a young candidate politely asked half-way through: could I explain this in Hindi? The three of us on the committee responded unanimously: Sure/Absolutely/Why not? This takes guts and spunk from a young researcher. Hats off! 🙌
- Virtual meeting on developing COVID norms for residential area. Male doctor is referred to as 'Dr. ABC' and I am called Karishma😅(several times). Did not call it out - vacillated between 'its just a slip of the tongue' and 'is this what hidden bias looks like'. Thoughts? 🙏
- My mother (a physician for 40 years) has been round the clock taking phone calls related to oxygen, ventilators, fevers, co-morbidities. Her every phone call is distress management. Her ability to handle crisis with calm is phenomenal. I want to grow up to be her.
- Return to India is much more that a professional decision. It was also about choosing a life based on what I consider 'fullest'. For me it means a Dassera holiday, poori-bhaji for lunch, and enjoying a khadi treasure! 🙏 Also, who says khadi doesn't make stylish wear? ☺️
- Received the very first invitation in my career for a keynote address. 🙏😲😍
- Time off gives you time to go down memory lane. ☕️ PhD defense. It was an unconventional PhD. I started at 29, chose a biophysics group, had a baby 👶 , and thanked our beloved nanny 👩🍼 in my defense for taking her work seriously, so that I could take my work seriously. 🙏
- A PhD basically means you have the ability to sustainably tackle a really difficult problem, and get the job done. To me, this inherently implies that there are options beyond and above academia 👍. @jenheemstra @xiaofei_lin @AcademicChatter
