It has been a year since I started writing my Graduate Journal (A) ______ for Nature jobs. The past 12 months have been marked with fundamental changes and fundamental (B) ______ , both of which I’m glad to have experienced. When I enrolled in my master’s course at Oxford last year, I had come straight from medical school with the decision to leave clinical science for good. Thinking back, I realize that I didn’t put weight very much on this decision at the time. But today, I more clearly understand the (C)______ of leaving my original profession. When I meet old friends who are now physicians and surgeons, I sense how our views on medical problems have diverged. They scrutinize the effects of disease and try to eliminate or alleviate them; I try to understand how they come about in the first place. I feel happier working on this side of the problem, although I do (D) _______ miss clinical work and seeing patients. However, when I think about the rate at which my medical skills and knowledge have dissipated, the years spent reading weighty medical textbooks, the hours spent at the bedside, I sometimes wonder if these years were partly a waste of time now that I am pursuing a research career. Nonetheless, I know the value of my medical education. It is easy to forget the importance of the biosciences when working with model organisms in basic research that seem to have nothing to do with a sick child or a (E)_______ elderly person. Yet, I still have vivid memories of the cruel kaleidoscope of severe diseases and of how they can strike a human being. I hope to retain these memories as a guide in my current occupation.

constants            literature             consequences             column             objects             occasional           occasionally             suffering

(A) ________ , reality is what we think it is; reality is revealed to us by our experiences. To one extent or another, this view of reality is one many of us hold, if only implicitly. I certainly find myself thinking this way in day-to-day life; it’s easy to be (B)________ by the face nature reveals directly to our senses. Yet, in the decades since first (C) ________ Camus’ text, I’ve learned that modem science tells a very different story. The overarching lesson that has emerged from scientific inquiry over the last century is that human experience is often a (D) ________ guide to the true nature of reality.

seduced           reduced           encountering         surely           misleading          overarching         overhead             mistakenly