Mcat and working : my PI is guilt-tripping me

[akimhaneul]

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I work in a research lab as a technician and my PI gives me quite a lot of work. I am so busy that I eat lunch in only like 15-20 minutes and yet do not finish until at least 6 and normally 7 or 8. I also work during weekends to take care of my cells and do other random experiments so I pretty much work 60 hours per week. I am also planning to take mcat this June or maybe May. When I come back from work, I am quite burned out so I am having trouble studying. I thought about quitting and talked about this issue with my PI and he's like "well when you go to medical school and become physician, you are required to juggle many things and study for exams while working etc so you should consider this as a training"

So I'm not sure....should I toughen up and try to juggle both? I'm quite tired after a long day of work so often I don't study well. Am I just not working hard enough?

Mcat is my main flaw in my application so if I don't do well I feel like I'm pretty much screwed. But I also don't have a good rec letter from someone who was my supervisor or mentor after I graduated from college. I graduated in 2014 so would not having a letter of rec from someone who supervised me after college hurt me? I already have good letters from people I worked with during undergrad.

 

[HomeSkool]

You should fire your PI. He's guilt-tripping you about not wanting to stretch yourself too thin prior to taking one of the most important exams of your entire career. It sounds like his influence isn't likely to help you get where you want to be.

And yes, you have to juggle a lot in med school -- but you still need to get into med school first. Don't make it harder for yourself to get through the front door.

 

[Siromas]

MCAT score >>>> research experience in regards as to which has the bigger impact on your application strength- especially if you're retaking the exam.

 

[deleted480308]

Quit the lab or “i appreciate my experience here but my new availability is 10hrs/wk”

 

[Microbug]

Didn’t you sign a contract at the beginning? There should’ve been some kind of consensus on how many hours you should work. It’s a job as a tech, you’re not a grad student or post doc. It’s a job not your career.

 

[ObjectiveBoba]

Do you not have time to study in between experiments?

Regardless, if you signed a contract to work from 9 - 5, let your PI know that those are the hours you are available, and any other work that goes on top of that needs to be divvied up with other members of the lab.

 

[Durty-Trixxx]

Your PI is acting like a typical selfish boss and trying to squeeze max hours out of you regardless of what you got going on in your personal life.

Plus, it's extra douchey that he's making comments about your future medical career when he has no business doing so.

MCAT is far more important than some lab tech job. Flip your PI the finger and go home and study for the exam. Keep things in perspective here.

 

[akimhaneul]

You should fire your PI. He's guilt-tripping you about not wanting to stretch yourself too thin prior to taking one of the most important exams of your entire career. It sounds like his influence isn't likely to help you get where you want to be.

And yes, you have to juggle a lot in med school -- but you still need to get into med school first. Don't make it harder for yourself to get through the front door.

Thank you for your advice! What I am worried about is that I am a nontrad who graduated in 2014. It's been 4 years since I graduated.

I have letters for 2 science, 1 non science, and 1 research mentor I worked with during undergrad so I technically meet the requirements for the letters. However, because it's been a while since I graduated, wouldn't schools like to see a letter from someone I worked with after I graduated?

I worked in another lab (different from my current one) for two years until 2016 after I graduated but I did not have a good relationship with my postdoc so I was only able to obtain a moderate letter. This is why I was planning to work hard in this new lab to gain more research experience and also obtain LOR.


Do you think the letters I already obtained from my undergrad years are good enough for me?

 

[Spectar]

Quit the lab or “i appreciate my experience here but my new availability is 10hrs/wk”

🤣🤣

 

[Doctor-S]

Mcat is my main flaw in my application so if I don't do well I feel like I'm pretty much screwed. But I also don't have a good rec letter from someone who was my supervisor or mentor after I graduated from college. I graduated in 2014 so would not having a letter of rec from someone who supervised me after college hurt me? I already have good letters from people I worked with during undergrad.

Unfortunately, the PI appears to be exploiting you and is trying to make you feel "lesser than." Guess what? Succeeding in medical school is *not* the same thing as working in a research lab. Just saying.

On the other hand, your MCAT score is very important; and your MCAT score may be one of the reasons why you are (or are NOT) accepted into medical school.

It sounds as if your undergraduate LORs are positive. As far as I'm concerned, those LORs are fine.

[FWIW ... although there are exceptions, I don't pay monumental attention to LORs because I expect LORs to be filled with glowing comments anyway.]

 

[altblue]

I mean your PI seems like a douche and they could have approached the issue better, but maybe the 50-60 hours are necessary to continue your work effectively. You might have to find a job that's less of a time commitment

 

[aldol16]

Tell him there's a reason why medical schools block out protected time in the curriculum for Step study. For high-stakes exams like Step or the MCAT, it's worth it to take that extra dedicated time to study where you don't have to be juggling multiple things at once. Doctors juggle many things at a time but they've also been trained and conditioned for years to do it, from medical school to residency and beyond. There's no reason to start before you have to. You should have asked him if he started growing cell cultures in high school in preparation for his experiments in grad school.

 

[DrStephenStrange]

Thank you for your advice! What I am worried about is that I am a nontrad who graduated in 2014. It's been 4 years since I graduated.

I have letters for 2 science, 1 non science, and 1 research mentor I worked with during undergrad so I technically meet the requirements for the letters. However, because it's been a while since I graduated, wouldn't schools like to see a letter from someone I worked with after I graduated?

I worked in another lab (different from my current one) for two years until 2016 after I graduated but I did not have a good relationship with my postdoc so I was only able to obtain a moderate letter. This is why I was planning to work hard in this new lab to gain more research experience and also obtain LOR.


Do you think the letters I already obtained from my undergrad years are good enough for me?

You'll probably need to add a Committee and/or Advisor letter from your undergrad school as well. A lot of schools have that requirement. Other than that you should be fine without your PI's letter. Anyway like everyone already said you should take time to study for your MCAT because it's what's gonna get you in medical school. Trust me I'm speaking from some really really bad experience with the exam. I took it more than people usually do mostly because I was trying to manage work, school, research and studying all at once. That pretty much shut the doors on me for most MD schools, but I'm thankful enough that I still got into a DO program this cycle. All that to say don't make the mistake I did, and take at least 3 months off to study for the MCAT.

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[Deleted member 750603]

The thing your PI is not considering or which is not convenient for him to mention is that as a physician you 'juggle' many things that are related. In doing so, information reinforces each other. He juggles stuff too but all of his things are related and when that happens you can relax a bit. There's less mental energy expenditure when you have a number of things going on that are all related.

If he was running a lab in whatever field, writing grants, and was studying for an unrelated thing like the LSAT he'd find that time and energy has a way of running away as well. It takes time and energy to mentally switch between unrelated things.

As a physician you're seeing patients, you're doing/leading research, you're staying on top of new skills, you're going to conferences, you're refreshing for the boards, but THEY ARE RELATED. It's not the same kind of juggling you're trying to do right now.

Sounds like your PI is full of $*#@

Prioritize and study for the MCAT. It's the rest of your life. Are these few months of research going to change your life or is getting a good score to get into medical school going to change your life?

I am speaking directly from experience. I was in a similar situation and I was being squeezed for hours as I was studying for the MCAT. I told my PI that I was quitting because I was doing both things poorly and medical was more important to me. I didn't ask for a letter from this PI because she did not respect my goals and the sense I got was that I was a source of "data" rather than a person with my own aspiration which were not a part of her interests.

 

[shortcoatdream15]

Fact: Your #1 priority right now is getting accepted into medical school, not serving your PI's unreasonable expectations.
Fact: Apart from grades, the MCAT is the most significant determining factor for your success.
Fact: Your research is not as important for your application as your MCAT score.

Conclusion: You should not sacrifice a single point of your MCAT score over this. If quitting the lab means getting the best score you can get, then quit. If keeping your job while also studying hard enough to get a score you're happy with means that you will be absolutely miserable, that's not worth it.

Either your PI gives you a leave of absence (ideal), cuts you some slack (depending on what you feel you need for a score you want), or you quit and you don't look back.

 

[akimhaneul]

Thank you everyone for you advice!

So it looks like he is currently hiring more people and will introduce one candidate to the lab tomorrow.

He also told me that he has candidates lined up but the hiring and approval process and paper work takes 2 weeks or so. He's not lying about this because it took couple weeks for me too when I started.

He offered part time but I'm pretty sure that his definition of part time is not the same as the one that most people think.

If I tell him that I want to quit after this week, would it be a bad move? I don't want to burn any bridges and want to end on a good note.

 

[Microbug]

Thank you everyone for you advice!

So it looks like he is currently hiring more people and will introduce one candidate to the lab tomorrow.

He also told me that he has candidates lined up but the hiring and approval process and paper work takes 2 weeks or so. He's not lying about this because it took couple weeks for me too will when I started.

He offered part time but I'm pretty sure that his definition of part time is not the same as the one that most people think.

If I tell him that I want to quit after this week, would it be kinda douche move? I don't want to burn any bridges and want to end on a good note.

You should give minimum 2 weeks notice. And work extra hard these two weeks and help with transition. In these situations, you want to put yourself in a position where he has ZERO reasons to criticize you. This way if anything goes wrong down the road, you can honestly portray yourself in good light where you went above and beyond.

 

[PreMedStudent55555]

Anything I wanted to say has been said already but just wanted to say I'm happy you made the right decision, OP. Research in academia is rough these days and can make the best people become exploitive and manipulative to get ahead. Happy that you thought about yourself first. Best of luck

I was in a similar situation last summer and was trying to study for my MCAT but couldn't as my boss made me work overtime and I was too tired to study. I do not plan to do anything this summer to focus on my MCAT.