Ethical dilemma

[tapotti]

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I have to get this off my chest:

So as a 4th year medical student, I worked my ass off to finish a research project. Literally 2 months of data mining and manuscript writing.

I created the first draft for submission and sent it to my mentor. She keeps telling me she's revising it. This keeps happening over and over for A YEAR. By this point, I'm an intern, still wondering when this will ever get done. Finally, I gave up and figured that I at least got a poster out of it.

It's now 3 years later, and my new mentor tells me my old research is still valid and I should publish it.

Here's the big question: do I owe anything to my mentor who essentially screwed me? I know I do. I already emailed her telling her I plan to submit. Per usual, she still wants to have editing ability. How would you handle this situation?

 

[ratherbefishing]

Are you going to put her as last author? She might be ok with you submitting and 'editing' after the reviews come back.

 

[tapotti]

She specifically stated she wants to see the manuscript before initial submission and during each subsequent revision. I personally think this is unfair since it takes her forever to respond, not to mention, the last time I gave her authority to help she abandoned the project.

 

[smithers12]

I worked my ass off to finish a research project.

Literally 2 months of data mining and manuscript writing.

lol

Here's the big question: do I owe anything to my mentor who essentially screwed me? I know I do. I already emailed her telling her I plan to submit. Per usual, she still wants to have editing ability. How would you handle this situation?

In all seriousness, it sounds like you've already made your decision. IMO, you don't "owe" anything to your old mentor. You're not in her lab anymore. She's not paying you. Period. Your mentor could easily hand this over to another student in her lab to finish up at the expense of bumping you from first author.

If I were you, the only reason I'd want to spend the hours wrapping up the paper would be to 1) add another line to the CV and 2) not to burn any bridges that you may rely on in the future. If you have the time, of course.

A simple no thank you would have sufficed. You're a resident. 110% of your time is spent running a hospital.

 

[StIGMA]

Ask her to send you her current revisions immediately. State that you want/need the article submitted in a specific timeframe, such as 2 months or something- you don't need a reason. Set up a teleconference schedule to discuss revisions (such as Skype). Tell her if she cannot meet this schedule, then you want permission to transfer the project to a new mentor at your current institution but keep her on as an author, essentially freeing her from all responsibilities for the project.

 

[Neuronix]

You're mad at your PI because you did studies and wrote a manuscript that your PI just sat on. I've been there and I get that part. Now the PI has decided they want to publish it way later than you wanted.

So you're going to tell your old PI to buzz off just because you're unhappy with them? I mean really, how much work is it going to take to revise this manuscript and submit it? A couple hours? I understand you're a busy resident now and it doesn't matter for your career as much, but you might as well add another publication to the CV for this minimal effort, particularly if you're first author. Telling your PI to buzz off just because you're not happy with them and it's too late now would be silly in my opinion. You might still get some middle authorship if you do that, but you're wasting your first author potential here.

My advice would just be that you make clear with the PI that you want to be first author and you would like to actually submit the manuscript. This way there are no hard feelings down the line and you have control over it.

 

[Elixir6]

Yeah, I definitely agree with neuronix and StIGMA.

1) Ask your current mentor to read over the manuscript. Make any changes they suggest. Not sure how much research/publication experience you have but there might be something wrong with the manuscript that is causing your old mentor to want to burry it rather than look at it. Don't take offense, I'm just thinking it may be a possibility (you might have a PhD, this might be your first poster, I have no idea). And even if that is true, it doesn't excuse your old mentor's behaviour.

2) Contact your old mentor and tell her you would like to submit the manuscript as first author and to meet/Skype about it soon. Ask her what she thinks an appropriate timeline to edit and submit, and ask about the exact process. Get her to commit to specific dates. If she suggests a date you will have better luck than if you insist on some random date yourself. Be clear on who is submitting. I suggest trying to see if you can do it yourself in this case. Though watch out with page charges - you might need a PO/billing number for that. Make sure her billing manager is onboard.

3) If she is vague about a timeline when you ask her, feed her specific dates: Would in two weeks, May 29th be good?

4) I would avoid burning any bridges even if she is a raving lunatic. If there are other authors/stakeholders, you could get them to lean on her.

 

[catzzz88]

We had this problem very recently with a submission to Nature.

What worked in the end was this: say that you will be submitting on (date two weeks from now). Say that if there are edits, you will be happy to include them in the submission. Say that if you do not get edits by (specific date), you will assume there are no changes to be made. Promise to update PI about any response from editors and will provide the peer review feedback as soon as you have it, etc.

Make sure that you are the corresponding author for submission or you will be dependent on the PI or everything and it will take forever!

Another thing that worked was finding out we were about to get scooped, so that's always a kick in the butt... See if you can find any other labs that are doing similar research? Fear of being scooped can be a nice fire lit under the ass...

Your story sucks though in general, sorry you have to deal with that nonsense!