Challenging Postdoctoral Mentor

[Marissa4usa]

tldr; Postdoc mentor has too much on her plate to provide adequate mentorship.

I am about to start my third year as a postdoctoral research fellow at an academic health center, and I am mostly regretting that I have agreed to stay for a third year. I get along very well with my postdoctoral advisor and I believe they think highly of me as well. However, although I like the projects I'm working on, the quality of mentorship has been lacking consistently. I don't think this can be ascribed to ill intent. I mostly attribute this problem to them simply having too much on their plate. They have about 10-15 IRB protocols open, and that's simply more than any human can handle. I initially thought that I needed to be more proactive as a postdoc, but at this point I don't believe that this is the case. It's also never been an issue before in numerous other settings.

I've been at this position for 2 years and barely have anything to show for it. I do finally have two first-author pubs under review, but one of them we ended up submitting to the lowest IF journal we could find in this research area and still seemed reputable (miraculously, the journal is reviewing the manuscript and didn't issue a desk rejection). There so many things that have happened, but here the highlights:

• Completed analyses for the first manuscript. Went back and forth with them about the best statistical approach which consisted of us reviewing each approach and the results. Finally, we settled on a approach, and I wrote up the manuscript. They reviewed the manuscripts twice, and gave the go-ahead to submit. Two day before submission, they realized that they didn't like the analyses, and that the statistical approach we had decided against months earlier was the one to go with (but they don't remember us ever having that conversation). I go re-run my analyses, and practically re-write half the manuscript. A few days before that is ready to submit (again with their approval), they realize that subjects in this data set were incorrectly classified as either being in one group or another, which, by the way, I had voiced concerns over months earlier, but they dismissed this concern, seemingly insulted (fun fact, they already published papers with those data). So, they go and review the data and ensure that each subject is classified correctly. They do so manually(!), when writing simple syntax would be less error prone. Stupidly, I didn't double check their work, so I re-run the analyses only to realize that there are still mistakes with the classifications of subjects. I finally do the classification myself, and of course have to re-run the analyses, and re-write half the manuscript again. At this point, the results are pretty underwhelming, and if that had been the outcome during my initial analyses, I would not have pursued this manuscript further.

• I had discussed with them the possibility of putting together a K-award and presented my ideas, which they liked and suggested to apply for a small seed grant for pilot data. So I wrote up this proposal. We went back and forth several weeks refining it, and all of a sudden they tell me that my idea isn't innovative enough, essentially stops giving me feedback on this idea, and tells me to be a co-investigator on an R21 they want to submit. I drop everything that I had spent quite a bit of time on, and focus on that R21. Again, stupid me did not double check that the due date they had told me was indeed the correct one. By the time I confirmed when they wanted me to send them all the materials (about 5 weeks before the presumed due date), we had already missed the deadline for sending it to the research office for review before submitting the grant.

• I am applying to academic positions, even though I am not very hopeful. I just don't have the CV at this point in time to be competitive. Anyways, some applications were due last week on October 1. Last Friday they told me they would submit their letters of rec over the weekend. On Monday, they said "I'm about to submit everything, I just need to change the names of the universities." It is now noon on Wednesday, and still no letters have been submitted. Although I presume that universities are most likely not going to penalize applicants for that, I also don't think it reflects well on me or them, and they likely have plenty of applicants whose mentors were able to submit their letters on time.

There are more gems like this, but these are the ones that stand out, and happened since the beginning of the year. Although I like the projects I'm working on, I'm angry most of the time over this situation. I've talked to a few people, who have suggested that I be the one who takes initiative and creates a timeline for myself with specific action goals, and have them sign off on it, so that it makes them accountable to do their part to provide feedback in a timely manner. Although they have been very enthusiastic about this plan, it's pretty much just fallen apart right away because they have so much on their plate. There hasn't been a single meeting the recent past when they weren't late or walked into the meeting without announcing how exhausted they are because they are so busy, and that they therefore don't know how much bandwidth they would have to talk about things. Because of that, the main project I''m working on has been progressing at a snail's pace, which is extremely frustrating.

Anyways, thanks to everyone who has read my long post until here. I am committed to this position for the next year, so I'm partially just venting, but would also appreciate advice on how to make the most out of this situation, especially from those who are in academia.

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