Publishing Frustration

[Neuronix]

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This post is graduate school frustration. Feel free to not read if you don't like whining.

I've had 2 sizeable and I feel solid manuscripts get rejected (both on Friday nights so it kills my weekends) in the past few months. I can understand if I'm getting killed based purely on science, but there's another issue...

I think both of the reviewers that gave me bad reviews did it because they simply don't use/like the techniques I use. They either pioneered or work in labs that use OTHER techniques to investigate the same or similar things and I think they're nixing me almost entirely for that reason. It seems to me to be because they're a competetor and they view my work as a threat to them. It becomes "WHY DIDN'T YOU USE THIS TECHNIQUE", reject, when in all honesty there are drawbacks to their technique that mean I would introduce tons of different problems in my work if I had used it. Unfortunately, my field is very small so I'm afraid my papers will keep bouncing back to the same people even if I resubmit them.

I'm second author on a paper that is having the exact same problem. This paper has gone through two separate journals now with initial "accept with revision" recommendations and then been nixed at the last minute after 6+ months of review.

I'm really getting sick of this. My boss of course doesn't help because he thinks all my work is fantastic and should go to the highest quality journals in my field. He told me "I'd rather see this not published" than have it published in an impact factor 1-2 journal that much of my field publishes in! I'm really getting concerned, because getting my papers published is almost a condition for me to graduate (at least within 9 years).

I'm going into lab in a bit and tomorrow as well to work on a separate project. What's the point? Is that ever going to get published even if I do have success (and I've already had some). What ends up getting published and funded seems to have more to do with politics and scientific fads than it actually does with science.

Combine this with the F30 grant I submitted. I resubmitted it once and got a very fundable score. The funding decision was about 3 months behind schedule. One small piece of paperwork has held that up another 3 months. That means I'm 6 months behind the grant start date. It's been almost 2 years since I first started working on this little grant. I guess I'm lucky, none of the assistant profs can get any grants at all. Well, they get grants about the size of my F30...

So can someone please tell me why I should continue in science. I mean I'm just a lowly MD/PhD student and all, but this doesn't seem worth it. I spend over 1/4 of my time in the lab fighting with red tape and beuracracy to get any experiments done at all, then I spend another 1/4 trying to spin my work so someone will publish it (unsuccessfully). That's 30 hours for crap and about 30 hours for research. Maybe I should have had a better idea this was the case (what PI isn't bitter about this?), but maybe this isn't for me. But seriously, who is this for? Could someone tell me why I should keep doing research? I'm losing the forest through the trees.

 

[URHere]

A rejected manuscript isn't the end of the line. All journals encourage resubmissions with revisions (or arguments against making certain revisions) and even if the reviewers refuse to cave, eventually publication decisions default to the editors. I would say keep trying, and eventually you should get past the hands of the reviewers. If their issues with your work are petty, it shouldn't halt publication for you in the end.

Research has a hierarchy like almost everything else. Once you publish a few times, it should be easier to get your work accepted.

I know research makes it hard for people not to become frustrated with the field, which is a shame because it is a field that really needs new blood. Many investigators are stuck in their ways (which can be a real hindrance to progress and a real barrier for people who want to do things differently), but those of us entering the field now owe it to ourselves to fight to keep the field progressing. I've always said that research is alot like bipolar disorder: you feel great about what you are doing and your energy is off the charts, then you a crushed and devastated and never want to work again, then it all repeats. The key is realizing that things will be enjoyable again. If you keep trying, I'm sure things will work out for you in the end.

 

[j-weezy]

Is your PI interested in getting you graduated or is he worried he'll lose his best indentured serf? I understand his wanting the lab's work to go to the premier journals but to not publish work at all??? That seems strange.

As for the publication reviewers: I don't know anything about your research but if you could show that their technique and your technique arrive to the same conclusion for even a tiny part of the experiment could that then validate your technique in their eyes? Basically if A and B get the same results then A or B should be acceptable techniques and maybe it could head off any of the "technique-oriented" bad reviews

hang in there neuronix - you're almost through with the PhD years - I think the frustration you feel is pretty normal

 

[QofQuimica]

I don't really have any amazing advice to give you, but I totally feel for you. 🙁 I hope things go better when you submit next time.

 

[EpiGirl]

You should stay in science because you love it, and you love the pursuit of truth, and as frustrated as you are today you know deep down you're lucky to have a job that's only 50% crap, especially when the other 50% is important to you. Not many people in this world can say that.

Some day this terrible war in Iraq is going to end, and when that happens NIH funding will stop disappearing, and it will not be quite so hard to pull a grant. These are lean years in science--I work in a national lab, I feel your pain.

I take this motherly tone with you despite being a mere applicant b/c I'm older than you and I've been to grad school.

 

[Neuronix]

A rejected manuscript isn't the end of the line. All journals encourage resubmissions with revisions (or arguments against making certain revisions) and even if the reviewers refuse to cave, eventually publication decisions default to the editors.

That's actually not true. For the journal that just rejected me both reviewers have to give an accept with minor revision recommendation for publication. They don't take appeals. It's their stated policy. They didn't even send me the first reviewer's comments. I did write back to ask for them.

The other journal that rejected me both reviewers did actually give accept with major revision recommendations and the editor still rejected the paper. I guess I could appeal, but just sending it to another journal seems like the better course of action to my PI (and I guess me?).

Still, thanks for the encouragement.

Is your PI interested in getting you graduated or is he worried he'll lose his best indentured serf? I understand his wanting the lab's work to go to the premier journals but to not publish work at all??? That seems strange.

I don't think he meant that. I hope. The threat keeps rolling around in the back of my mind and I've seen grad students screwed by this before in other labs. I have a lot of respect for my PI and I don't think he'd hold me up from graduating when I want to. It's more my committee, and I can't blame them. There's very much a 3 publications and you're out rule expected unless you've sat around for a long time. The sad thing is I thought it was reasonable until I wrote 3 publications and had 2 rejected. The one that did get accepted was just to a lightly reviewed source.

if you could show that their technique and your technique arrive to the same conclusion for even a tiny part of the experiment could that then validate your technique in their eyes?

The sad thing is on the one paper that was rejected I did EXACTLY that and they STILL didn't accept it. I'm almost certain I know who the reviewer is and it's the biggest name in this little niche, so it almost comes down to how can I convince this person?

For the other paper that wouldn't be possible. I think making the comparison is so complicated it would require another manuscript to do. It already includes a comparsion to a different technique. I actually do think that's the natural progression to compare to their technique, but the study would essentially have to be redone with the other technique. The manuscript is fairly sizeable as it is.

you're almost through with the PhD years

I hope so. If none of this holds me up from a 7 year timeline and a long vacation, then all is well and I'm making the mountain of the molehill. I'm just getting really worried. Thanks though.

You should stay in science because you love it, and you love the pursuit of truth, and as frustrated as you are today you know deep down you're lucky to have a job that's only 50% crap, especially when the other 50% is important to you. Not many people in this world can say that.

I don't love this. There are things that I like, but when it comes down to it this is a job for me. I'm not sure I will ever *love* my job. When I looked around from my comp sci major to see what else might interest me, I was never looking for something to take over my life. I was looking for an interesting job where I could help people. Part of it was that I wanted to explore something else. I had been in computers my whole life (thanks to the PC for getting me out of the ghetto), so I was kinda bored in the CS degree. Anyhow, when I worked in computers I didn't like the job part as much, but it was almost 100% work and almost 0% crap. There's no going back now though, my skills in that have atrophied so much and the field has changed so much I'd be pretty much a beginner again. That being said, I do have very strong family reasons for why I went into medical research. My parents both have disabiling chronic diseases and my whole family is full of rare and weird stuff. Am I inbred or adopted?. I'm not from West Virginia so...

As an aside, one of the few things I ever loved was I really loved my ex-g/f. Like really really, more than anything else. Everyone knew we were perfect for each other. This field claimed her too. Before anyone thinks otherwise--I'm over her. I will continue to say that for the rest of my life probably.

I didn't think money would ever matter to me because I grew up very poor and never did hardly anything as a child. Now that I've had the chance to go out and experience the world a bit (ok a lot) I want to be out scuba diving. I'd like to go skiing all winter. Now I feel like I'm like the bunny hopping on a treadmill with another carrot in front of me. I really like Radiology too. My research is in Radiology and the clinical practice that I've seen really interests me. I still don't see why I shouldn't take the easy way out and make a ton of cash without doing fellowship. I would get about 3 months of vacation per year or even more and be able to do whatever the heck I wanted with life.

Right now I'm struggling just to make ends meet. It never bothered me before. But the longer this keeps going on the sicker I'm getting of it. Yeah, things could be worse. This is just griping.

Some day this terrible war in Iraq is going to end, and when that happens NIH funding will stop disappearing, and it will not be quite so hard to pull a grant.

This is a digression, but Hillary has been very wishy-washy on ending the war even when her democratic base is VERY against it. To me it means she's pretty much for continuing it. McCain seems to be as well. I think Iraq is going to continue for a long time. All of the analyists are predicted a deep recession. I'm worried Osama Bin Laden's stated goal of bankrupting America is about to come true. That being said, I won't have a real job for another 10 years, so what the heck. Errr... yeah, 10 more years of this...

I'm really worried with the sinking dollar I won't even be able to take the backpacker vacations I've managed to save up for (read: taken loans out for).

I take this motherly tone with you despite being a mere applicant b/c I'm older than you and I've been to grad school.

I'm not your typical MD/PhD student in that I had a lot of life experience before I started, but it's ok. I didn't even notice the motherly tone

 

[Ariodant]

Our hearts with you Neuronix. Life sucks, but life goes on.😳

And now I know what to expect when I become a graduate student

 

[Myempire1]

I have had a similar publishing experience. It's just the way it is i suppose. Lots of politics. Lots of BS. Lots of frustration. It took about 12 months get my main stuff published. I also went through a grad school funk around this phase questioning my intent, life goals, etc. But eventually things worked out. I have many other friends also in similar shoes. They are bouncing papers back and forth and realizing that graduation and their scientific careers is the hands of ridiculous reviewers. I am about to start another round of paper submitting... and I am not looking forward to the process again. Things will likely work out for you too.
Best of luck!

 

[Faebinder]

Ya, I had this happen to me plenty of times. Heck rarely did my publications get accepted first time.

My advice: Send to a different journal. The fine tuning you just did from the previous review will have helped hopefully.

 

[RxnMan]

Just submit to another journal. Persuade your PI to let you publish somewhere else. If he says "go for prestidge," tell him "I'm burning out."

Seriously, it sounds like you're reached the point where you need to submit your thesis and be done with grad school. 👍

 

[meowkat444]

I just wanted to drop in and be a supportive presence 🙂 I can't realistically say anything because I don't know (my sense is that it varies a lot field-to-field anyway).

And of course, I have to be defensive about that West Virginia comment!

Good luck! Hang in there!

 

[MNIkid87]

Yeah, reviewers / paper submission can be quite bitchy and frustrating. However, if this journal, submit it to another one. I know it sounds easier said than done, but try not to get too worked up over it. With my most recent pub I had a similar problem: What made it unique was that it looked at and incorporated two different theories/aspects that are usually looked at separately. So the journal first accepted it and was then like "we wanna cut down on pages ,so can you get rid of one of the two theories/analyses (i.e. like half the paper). My supervisor and I said "**** that" (just in a friendlier tone) and now it's going to be published in another journal.
Morale of the story: Bounce back, although the process is frustrating try not to get too worked up over it, and in the worst case submit it to another journal instead. If it is good quality research it will be accepted eventually

 

[qwopty99]

This paper has gone through two separate journals now with initial "accept with revision" recommendations and then been nixed at the last minute after 6+ months of review.

He told me "I'd rather see this not published" than have it published in an impact factor 1-2 journal that much of my field publishes in!

Ouch.

 

[linuxizer]

Another attempt at supportive presence here. The pubs will be ok. Unfortunately peer review is a flawed process, although I'm not convinced there's a better method yet. Just move on to another equivalent journal and exclude him from the process. A paper I'd spent almost 20 months working on got canned at one of the big general med journals because of a review that objected to the very idea of conducting such a study on ideological/political grounds. Submitted it to another one and it's coming out next month. It works out. At least publishing isn't as much of a pain as grant apps are!

Does Penn require 3 actual pubs or just 3 publication-quality papers? Or is that a departmental requirement? Seems a bit ridiculous to require they be published....

Ari

 

[qwopty99]

At the U of Toronto, the language on their websites seem to suggest that they view a PhD as the work equivalent to 3 publications, and that you can essentially submit 3 publications in lieu of a formal "dissertation".

The emphasis on publications is strong and I think it's their way of saying they basically want to see 3 pubs.

 

[mtlove]

The sad thing is on the one paper that was rejected I did EXACTLY that and they STILL didn't accept it. I'm almost certain I know who the reviewer is and it's the biggest name in this little niche, so it almost comes down to how can I convince this person?

For the other paper that wouldn't be possible. I think making the comparison is so complicated it would require another manuscript to do. It already includes a comparsion to a different technique. I actually do think that's the natural progression to compare to their technique, but the study would essentially have to be redone with the other technique. The manuscript is fairly sizeable as it is.

There is a lot of politics with publishing. Our generation of scientists needs to really work on cleaning up the negative aspects of science, including the publishing process.

A staff scientist in my lab spent over a year trying to get his solo author paper published, and he eventually had to add my PIs name (my PI contributed nothing) to get it published. Is your PI a young faculty member? If so, you might try to find a big shot to add to the list of authors since this helps with certain journals.

Are any of the reviewers or editors working on similar projects, since this can also be a problem. Someone may be doing similar things and the editors are trying to hold your paper so the other person can get the other paper ready to publish. You are probably doing great science but the editors are not interested in publishing the type of work you are doing now.

Finally, could your PI not get along with a reviewer or the editor. This can obviously create problems.

It sounds like you are finishing up the research phase of your training. You will get your papers published and finish up the PhD phase of your training. Just hang in there.

 

[Newquagmire]

Everybody I've talked to who's on the academic path has stayed on it because they absolutely love (or have convinced themselves that they do) doing science and nothing more interesting has been discovered.

Good luck, Neuronix!

 

[Doodledog]

Neuronix:

First of all, I'm really sorry for what you've described. Sometimes I see complaints on SDN about science and academics that ring false or exaggerated, but yours rings absolutely true and very unfortunate. I've spent time talking with grad students, post-docs, fellows and faculty about each of these issues you've described and I know they occur and are common.

I'd like to provide some comments, some of which may not be directly applicable to you, but might be helpful to others more than your situation. I am a senior academic research/clinical/teaching faculty. I am not an MD/PhD but instead did a 3 year NRSA post-doc at the intramural program of the NIH after my clinical fellowship . I currently am very involved in an editorial role with a journal and thus am familiar with the issues of publication you have highlighted. I routinely must send out the type of letters you've gotten and make publication decisions for a journal in which only a small fraction of submitted papers are published. I am making enemies rapidly….😕

It is unfortunately the case that in sending out papers for review, by picking the best known people in the field to do the review, we are, at times, also picking out people with an "agenda." This problem of course also plagues grant review. If the editor knows the field well, they can account for this and either avoid such reviewers or take their reviews with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, in many if not most cases, the editor making the decision does not know the details of who is who in fields that may only have a small group of experts. It can be impossible to figure out what is a legitimate "fatal flaw" pointed out by a reviewer and what is just a personal bias/agenda.

If you, with the advice of your mentor, believe this is happening to you, then you should, at the time of submission to the next journal (or the next time to that journal) make the editor aware of this situation. Do so cautiously. That is, do not insult or otherwise demean your "opponent." Rather, simply indicate that X person (using their name and giving their contact info) may have a bias against your research approach and you would ask they not be a reviewer. Some journals have this in the on-line submission, for others, you may need to write the editor separately.

What the editor does with the information is up to them. They could still send it out for review to this person, but even if they do, at least they've been tipped off to the potential conflict. Of course, try to provide a list of unbiased reviewers as well. Remember to make them truly unbiased. I get annoyed when people recommend folks whom I know are their best friends (scientifically) as the only reviewers. If you know experts who are truly unbiased, those are the folks to recommend.

With regard to the impact factor and where to publish, this is a difficult issue. In an era of pubmed and the like, it's true that any paper published in a journal which is listed on pubmed is identifiable by others and of course can be cited. However, it is also true that journal reputation and impact factor are important for things like faculty appointment and promotion as well as how the published article is viewed. In general, for graduate student research it is best to move "down the line" quickly so it can get published and the grad student get their credit. But, it's not hard to see why this is not very appealing to faculty, especially senior faculty who don't take well to rejection. Bottom line is that the grad student has to be advocating, sometimes in a difficult way, with their mentor to get the paper out. I sympathize and don't have an easy answer for you other than making sure your mentor really understands that for you, it is more important to get it published than where it is published.

I'll save the bigger questions about research and whether it is worth it for another time. This thread is about the publication side of things and I hope has provided you and others some helpful information, even if not any solutions.

Again, I'm sorry that you're caught in this situation. It shouldn't happen that way for grad students, but it often does.

 

[greg12345]

I would echo Tildy's advice about making the journal editor aware of extenuating circumstances, potential bias, etc. Also, when you say 7 year plan are you talking about 7 years total or 7 years for the PhD? Hang in there. The mid-latter years of the PhD are the darkest hour when it comes to the training, not even intern year is anywhere close to the torture that the last 1-2 years of grad school is as you try to wade through the politics of getting published, getting your committee on board, and watching your friends from med school move on with their lives in residency while you are working Friday and Saturday nights trying to churn out enough data so you can make it back in time. Hang in there. That time in my life really killed my love for science because of all the politics with regard to funding, publishing, etc. Now that I have been away for a couple of years I'm starting to entertain the thought of doing research again, but man was I glad that I loved clinical medicine so that at least I knew I had other options with regards to paying the bills in the future. My advice, become a radiologist and do shift work while making 300-400K and enjoy the rest of your life. Not that there aren't politics or serious issues in practicing medicine, but at least you get paid well to put up with it.

 

[qwopty99]

I am making enemies rapidly….😕

Wow. That makes sense. I never thought about that...


If you don't mind - just a question. Do peer reviewers know the names of the authors whose work they are reviewing?

I know that some journals explicitly say they perform an anonymous review, whereas others don't say anything to that effect. I've always had the impression that some journals are anonymous, and others aren't. Someone I know thinks all journals perform anonymous review. Can you chime in on this?

 

[Neuronix]

Thanks everyone for your kind words of support.

Tildy, thanks for popping in with your well-informed advice. Interestingly, I am pretty certain that one person wrote the most damning review of the first manuscript to be rejected. This was because English is not that person's first language and I recognized the particular English mistakes and also because of the bias clear in the review.

In what I consider to be a somewhat strange decision, my PI insisted I submit the paper to an even bigger name journal. This journal actually asks you to give names of potential reviewers when submitting. There are very few people within the little subgenre I'm publishing who were not previously involved with my lab. To find more than a handful of names you have to go back to papers published over 10 years ago! So the problem became... Who do I put on this recommendation? I ended up putting down one person who was previously in the lab, who I don't actually know and probably reeks of bias but I really didn't know who to put.

But still, my PI insisted I put the person I think wrote the most negative review on that list (mostly because who else would we list). The recommendation was to explain more why I can't use his technique in this next submission. There was very little change to the paper itself, just a few minor corrections, some illustrative changes to a few figures, and on the order of two paragraphs saying why I couldn't use the other technique. I'm pessimistic that this will work. I asked my PI what we do if the paper is rejected again, and he just said "Why do you have to be so negative"? The second author is more negative than me, he thinks I'm making that guy's life easy--"Oh, this guy is going to see the same paper again, this time badmouthing his technique even more. You're making his life easy!"

So we'll see what happens. The paper that I just received the rejection on I'm not sure who wrote the negative review and the review is pretty short. I can think of 2 or 3 people who would be likely to say what that person is saying. I am using an older technique, and most of the labs out there have moved to this newer technique. Unfortunately, newer does not necessarily equal better, but how do I convince anyone of that 😕 In any case I'm applying the technique to something nobody else has investigated before, so why should it matter? The other reason I was nixed... I investigated only a small group of patients (a dozen total). The results are highly, highly statistically significant, yet the pool is supposedly too small for any conclusions to be drawn 😕 What is a sizeable enough pool?! Ugh!

I just don't know what to do with the more recently rejected paper. Even if I submit to a lesser name journal, will the same thing happen again? The field for that paper is also really small. It investigates a major clinical question but with a very unusual technique. I have no idea what to do at this point. It'll probably just get resubmitted to a different journal with a few minor changes. I worry it's just going to get bounced right back to me but I guess I have to try.

I'm really worried at this point both manuscripts are never going to get published. Maybe I shouldn't be?

Also, when you say 7 year plan are you talking about 7 years total or 7 years for the PhD?

7 total, I'm just busting my *** to do it.

man was I glad that I loved clinical medicine so that at least I knew I had other options with regards to paying the bills in the future. My advice, become a radiologist and do shift work while making 300-400K and enjoy the rest of your life. Not that there aren't politics or serious issues in practicing medicine, but at least you get paid well to put up with it.

👍 Part of the reason I posted what I did is to make everyone aware of how much this can suck. Picking not to do research with your MD/PhD isn't just because you're a greedy SOB.

If you don't mind - just a question. Do peer reviewers know the names of the authors whose work they are reviewing?

Reviewer #2 on the first manuscript actually put my name numerous times in the review. Besides, it's not hard to figure out who wrote a manuscript. They usually cite their own previous work prominently and cite their own abstracts and such. If you work in that field, especially in areas as small as mine, you probably know who wrote that manuscript just based on what people out there work on. So journals supposedly do "anonymous review", but I don't believe that for one second for the reasons above.

 

[Doodledog]

Two quick points from above responses:

1. As a reviewer, I will NOT review the same paper for 2 journals no matter what. I consider this double jeopardy. If I rejected it once for a journal and a second journal asks me to re-review the same paper (authors rarely make major changes after a rejection), I WILL send the editor of the second journal a note indicating that I had rejected it before and that I am unwilling to re-review, but no other commentary. This actually happens to me a good bit due to my specialized area of research.

If you get the identical negative review from 2 journals your PI should let the editor of the second journal know of this and ask for a re-review. There are no published rules about reviewing an article for two journals, but I won't do it, even if I hated the article or had found what I think is a "fatal flaw."

2. Some journals allege they do blinded reviews, but I agree with Neuronix that this is ridiculous and it is better to be honest and not pretend that reviews are blinded. It would be nearly impossible for a knowledgeable reviewer not to know who wrote the paper. In my field, blinded reviews are not common at all. Same is generally true for grants.

 

[Doodledog]

There are very few people within the little subgenre I'm publishing who were not previously involved with my lab. To find more than a handful of names you have to go back to papers published over 10 years ago! So the problem became... Who do I put on this recommendation? I ended up putting down one person who was previously in the lab, who I don't actually know and probably reeks of bias but I really didn't know who to put.

I meant to also respond to this from a journal editor's perspective. Although obviously it depends on the field, it really isn't usually necessary that experts are insiders on the exact area of research. This doesn't happen for grants and doesn't need to happen for papers. If you look around a bit, you can generally find someone in a related-field who may be a bit more unbiased. Certainly there are technical fields for which this is hard to find people who will understand what is done but don't actually do the work, but it's important to try for all the reasons you mentioned.

It is okay to list someone who was once in the lab, but, you should make sure they did not have any involvement at all in this project, even if it was not enough to be an acknowledgement. I've actually seen people recommend folks who were acknowledgements in their paper as reviewers. Uh, that can't happen.🙄

 

[MelRoos]

Keep you chin up- I can just tell you from the other side as others have said- the end ofthe PhD work is some of the worst times... Just focus on the light at the end of the tunnel!
I am slowly getting my stugg published- none have taken less than 2 submissions, and several up to 4 different journals. And you really should excluded reviewers- and really be aware of people you cloash with- start really paying attention at conferences to people doing similar stuff to you and their attitudes to help you pick who to exclude. Just as a story- on of our lbs post-docs submitted a paper and it was rejected flat out. reworked it minorly, sat on it a year and resubmitted to the same journal and it was accepted with minor revisions- all a bit of luck. I finished my PhD work 2.5 years ago and have had 5 accepted after much trial and error and still have some more to go.. it just takes time........
And my husband is looking at real job offers now- and the money will come too! I promise! Life gets so much better!!

 

[j-weezy]

How's it going Neuronix? Any better now that you've had a chance to vent?

 

[Doctor&Geek]

Just to note issues related to open peer review were covered in a recent issue of Nature:

http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/index.html
http://blogs.nature.com/peer-to-peer/

 

[Shunwei]

This post is graduate school frustration. Feel free to not read if you don't like whining.

I've had 2 sizeable and I feel solid manuscripts get rejected (both on Friday nights so it kills my weekends) in the past few months. I can understand if I'm getting killed based purely on science, but there's another issue...

I think both of the reviewers that gave me bad reviews did it because they simply don't use/like the techniques I use. They either pioneered or work in labs that use OTHER techniques to investigate the same or similar things and I think they're nixing me almost entirely for that reason. It seems to me to be because they're a competetor and they view my work as a threat to them. It becomes "WHY DIDN'T YOU USE THIS TECHNIQUE", reject, when in all honesty there are drawbacks to their technique that mean I would introduce tons of different problems in my work if I had used it. Unfortunately, my field is very small so I'm afraid my papers will keep bouncing back to the same people even if I resubmit them.

I'm second author on a paper that is having the exact same problem. This paper has gone through two separate journals now with initial "accept with revision" recommendations and then been nixed at the last minute after 6+ months of review.

I'm really getting sick of this. My boss of course doesn't help because he thinks all my work is fantastic and should go to the highest quality journals in my field. He told me "I'd rather see this not published" than have it published in an impact factor 1-2 journal that much of my field publishes in! I'm really getting concerned, because getting my papers published is almost a condition for me to graduate (at least within 9 years).

I'm going into lab in a bit and tomorrow as well to work on a separate project. What's the point? Is that ever going to get published even if I do have success (and I've already had some). What ends up getting published and funded seems to have more to do with politics and scientific fads than it actually does with science.

Combine this with the F30 grant I submitted. I resubmitted it once and got a very fundable score. The funding decision was about 3 months behind schedule. One small piece of paperwork has held that up another 3 months. That means I'm 6 months behind the grant start date. It's been almost 2 years since I first started working on this little grant. I guess I'm lucky, none of the assistant profs can get any grants at all. Well, they get grants about the size of my F30...

So can someone please tell me why I should continue in science. I mean I'm just a lowly MD/PhD student and all, but this doesn't seem worth it. I spend over 1/4 of my time in the lab fighting with red tape and beuracracy to get any experiments done at all, then I spend another 1/4 trying to spin my work so someone will publish it (unsuccessfully). That's 30 hours for crap and about 30 hours for research. Maybe I should have had a better idea this was the case (what PI isn't bitter about this?), but maybe this isn't for me. But seriously, who is this for? Could someone tell me why I should keep doing research? I'm losing the forest through the trees.

Bro, what you have described is really extremely common in research, happening to thousands to folks in the field per day. I am sorry to break it to you, but this is what you folks will have to live with if you want to have a research career element.

I used to think that scientific research is a peaceful pursuit where intelligent, rational folks gather to work together for the common good. After about ten years of seeing what's behind the curtain, I will gladly swear off any research (except to beef up my resume in D-School further) for my life. I agree when people describe it as a rat race--except that in the end you are still a rat even if you win.

 

[Neuronix]

First paper rejected again. Grant still not funded (submitted over 1 year ago with very good score). I looked into the research pathway I thought I'd do for residency and it really doesn't exist. I'm still putting in late nights alone in the lab and have no social life.

Why should I keep doing research again? I think I'm ready to give up on it for good.

 

[QofQuimica]

First paper rejected again. Grant still not funded (submitted over 1 year ago with very good score). I looked into the research pathway I thought I'd do for residency and it really doesn't exist. I'm still putting in late nights alone in the lab and have no social life.

Why should I keep doing research again? I think I'm ready to give up on it for good.

Sorry, Neuro. 🙁 Any way you can talk your PI into letting you submit to a differerent journal?

 

[Maxprime]

Why should I keep doing research again? I think I'm ready to give up on it for good.

No shame in that. Research is normally full of these issues - when funding levels become awful, it only makes everyone that much worse. You'll get 2 years off after you defend, then much of residency. By that point, things will be very different. You can't work with a PI for 3 years without having your needs/wants oppose each other - especially towards the end. Remember, next time you're in a lab, you may be the one running the show. 🙂

Concerning the paper submissions, my suggestions:
1) If you really trust another faculty member a great deal, ask them how you should handle it. Your PI may do this b/c some of his past students have finished on time with multiple top tier pubs. Or . . . they may do it whenever they get a student they don't want to let go. If you have someone you trust, you should ask them what to do.

2) Compromise with your PI. It sounds like you're already trying pretty hard to meet him/her half way. Make sure they know why you just want to get these pubs out the door and that you have a bunch of disheartening/stressful BS going on right now. You're not in the later stages of your career, you don't need every paper to be in Science - you just need to get done & move on.

All else fails, take a vacation - seriously. Take your laptop someplace, get some sleep, and just escape the BS for a few days. If your mind/body is saying uncle, listen to it.

 

[Neuronix]

For the record, we almost never publish in big name journals. These papers are being submitted to mid-tier journals in our field (impact factor 5-7). I'm trying to get my boss to let me submit to impact factor 2-3 journals... 🙁

 

[gbwillner]

No shame in that. Research is normally full of these issues - when funding levels become awful, it only makes everyone that much worse. You'll get 2 years off after you defend, then much of residency. By that point, things will be very different. You can't work with a PI for 3 years without having your needs/wants oppose each other - especially towards the end. Remember, next time you're in a lab, you may be the one running the show. 🙂

Concerning the paper submissions, my suggestions:
1) If you really trust another faculty member a great deal, ask them how you should handle it. Your PI may do this b/c some of his past students have finished on time with multiple top tier pubs. Or . . . they may do it whenever they get a student they don't want to let go. If you have someone you trust, you should ask them what to do.

2) Compromise with your PI. It sounds like you're already trying pretty hard to meet him/her half way. Make sure they know why you just want to get these pubs out the door and that you have a bunch of disheartening/stressful BS going on right now. You're not in the later stages of your career, you don't need every paper to be in Science - you just need to get done & move on.

All else fails, take a vacation - seriously. Take your laptop someplace, get some sleep, and just escape the BS for a few days. If your mind/body is saying uncle, listen to it.

👍 You are a youngun' but show great wisdom in this post.

 

[qwopty99]

For the record, we almost never publish in big name journals. These papers are being submitted to mid-tier journals in our field (impact factor 5-7). I'm trying to get my boss to let me submit to impact factor 2-3 journals... 🙁

Wow, in my field top tier IFs run ~3. Any submission to a journal greater than 5 would be to a general medical journal - which is incredibly hard to get into.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

For the record, we almost never publish in big name journals. These papers are being submitted to mid-tier journals in our field (impact factor 5-7). I'm trying to get my boss to let me submit to impact factor 2-3 journals... 🙁

Are you doing some sort of biophysics research? If so, is it possible that you're publishing in more biomedical oriented journals? Perhaps you could shift and put it into a more chemical/physical journal like Biophys J. or J. Chem. Phys. or something of that nature. These journals may not be high IF but are well respected in their fields, and submissions may not end up in the hands of the people who are screwing you over.

 

[Neuronix]

Update,

I ended up getting the one paper accepted into a more clinically-oriented journal that originally intended. 😀

Still working on the other one...

 

[qwopty99]

Update,

I ended up getting the one paper accepted into a more clinically-oriented journal that originally intended. 😀

Still working on the other one...

Congrats.

I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of a lot of forumites when I say we're pulling for you. In this thread you've authored among the most human posts anywhere on these forums.

👍

 

[Neuronix]

Thanks man 🙂 I just never anticipated that it would average about 1 year of reviews just to get something published. It looks like everything I did in grad school will be published years after I did it and questionably in time to even put in things like ERAS. What a goofy system...

 

[cyclin M]

Thanks man 🙂 I just never anticipated that it would average about 1 year of reviews just to get something published. It looks like everything I did in grad school will be published years after I did it and questionably in time to even put in things like ERAS. What a goofy system...

Hey Neuronix, sounds like the waiting game and cat and mouse with the reviewers is a losing battle. Do you have any advice on how to follow up with reviewers or how to play the politics of the publishing game to your advantage through your experience? Also, congrats on the paper, soon to be paper(s).👍

EDIT: By the way I'm not sure if this is 100% true, but from what I've seen professors with connections w/the editors and specific reviewers tend to get in much more easily. The revisions they ask for are much more reasonable as well. I remember getting back a review where they ask me to run a bunch of new assays, but I wrote back and said I understand what they were getting at and the purpose of those assays was to confirm a certain point. However, instead of running 10 assays, running 1 more assay in addition to my current data would provide the same evidence. So in the end they yielded and you know after some more revisions like citing more people it got through.

 

[Neuronix]

Do you have any advice on how to follow up with reviewers or how to play the politics of the publishing game to your advantage through your experience?

No, I am as frustrated with the publishing and grants game as I was when I started. I don't know that I've learned much except how dissapointed I am in science as a career.

 

[Vader]

Definitely true the connections can help open the door. That for better or worse is part of the game. However, by no means does having a well-known PI guarantee your paper gets accepted. That is up to the editor and reviewers who can either make your paper sink or swim depending on their level of interest, assessment of the quality of the work, and type of cool-aid they have been drinking.

Congrats on getting your paper published Neuronix! As they say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush... 😉

 

[Neuronix]

No, I am as frustrated with the publishing and grants game as I was when I started. I don't know that I've learned much except how dissapointed I am in science as a career.

I will amend my earlier post and say a few things as I get further from graduate school and try to put some perspective on it. The last months of grad school were a whirlwind of hard work, anger, frustration, and burnout. I'm sorry to everyone I interacted with during that mess. I wasn't myself to some people and I'm sorry.

The other paper I was complaining about was accepted recently. The journals that ended up accepting the two papers were among the highest IF journals I tried submitting each of them to. Huh?

To answer the original question, the secret behind getting your papers published is to try try try again. Everything is try try try again. Write a paper, submit it 3+ times. You have to hope the reviewers will like it (and not see it as a threat/platform for their own work, which happened with numerous reviewers). If they don't accept it, get new reviewers. With grants it's the same thing--write a grant, resubmit it 1 or 2 times. Write many grants, expect to get some small percentage funded. This is the world that is science. It is frustrating to put in so much effort and hard work only to have it rejected and bounce back at you repeatedly. But, that's the way these things go. But then if all you're doing is revising the same things over and over again, are you really a scientist at all? Or are you just a writer/editor? The more people in my field I meet, the more I realize the more senior they get, the less they understand wtf is going on (in general, though there are a few people I highly respect). So many presentations where the big name person doesn't understand fundamentals. So many fairly simple questions that have to be referred to a post-doc or grad student or are completely BSed. That's not the kind of career I envisioned for myself when I started this game.

I'm normally a patient person. But, the biggest problem with this system is that as students and junior faculty we are caught in the middle. You are told you NEED publications or you NEED data, but then are given ridiculous barriers to actually doing so. The person these requirements and hurdles hurt is the person who is most vulnerable: the student. The expectation on me was that I'd have 3 publications accepted to move on from my PhD. Neither of these 2 papers required more data, and the reviewers never seriously asked for it. No, it was just a matter of getting the right reviewers and the right journal to line up. Meanwhile, my committee just became increasingly frustrated and disapproving that my data was not published. As my MD/PhD advisor, who has been following this thread, told me: "Works get rejected for a reason, and it's not really the reasons you're talking about." Indeed. So am I just lousy or does my PI not have enough friends?

Now I did get to finish grad school when I wanted to. It was a very nasty experience where I had to get my MD/PhD program director to come to my committee meeting. In the process my PI and my committee chair got very angry with me for doing this. According to them I was not presenting things correctly to the committee and thus bringing these problems on myself. It became a very complicated situation complete with yelling matches. Did I mention I had 5 papers submitted or ready to be submitted? The stress drove me to take some time off after graduate school. My PI is very angry at me for that as well, for if I'm on vacation now I surely could have been in lab working.

I know as junior faculty at my instituion you get a big 3 years with 50% protected (hah) research time to bring in serious funding for yourself. This is without any startup package I'm aware of. How are you supposed to get publications and funding in 3 years? At 150% of my time I was able to get a few small publications and very minor funding in a little over 4 years. I neglected everything and everyone else in the process and terribly burned myself out. Meanwhile, I hit so much red tape and nonsense along the way that I felt like half my time was spent dealing with that. Without a big name PI to back me up (which only happened when I was at wits end), I don't think I would have ever gotten my work accomplished, so I am now very fearful of actually being independent. All the PIs say the regulations were not this bad when they were students/starting, but because they hate it, we're the ones that have to do it these days. Gone are the days of: "We have a new idea, let's spend the next 2 weeks trying it", it's more like "We have a new idea, let's spend the next 2 months waiting for it to get approved."

I used to be the brightest-eyed MD/PhD student there was about research and the academic life, but now I'm extremely concerned about my prospects for having a balanced life and a successful academic career. Because, no matter how hard I work, the bar is so high (funding rates, competition), the time is so short (tenure clocks, funding expectations), and the beuracracy so great, that I just don't see how it's possible to get started as a new PI these days. Well, that is unless you have some really strong graduate students/post-docs that you can make work very hard. This in my mind equates to abuse for the hours/pay grad students and post-docs must put in for an uncertain future. Then again, how to pay or attract these qualified students/post-docs is entirely another story.

It turns out now that I'm more senior, I'm not the only one to have these thoughts. All the other senior students are thinking, "well, duh." But the fact is, in my lab every MD or MD/PhD who graduated and didn't stay at my institution or, especially those who went into private practice (the majority), were considered lazy/poor/greedy/name your negative adjective. The MD/PhD program never talks about these possibilities either, leaving the (junior) students to whisper among themselves about how "disappointing" it is when students don't stay in science. When I told my PI that the senior MD/PhD fellow told me to get out of grad school as quickly as possible, because nobody would care in the long run what you did in your PhD, my PI said that must be because the fellow was a lousy PhD himself. Turns out the fellow published several first author PNAS papers as a grad student. But, in his words, nobody cares now that he's looking for faculty positions. What did you do in fellowship? What have you done for me lately? Those seem to be the questions. So I'm looking forward to beating myself up all over again if I ever want to be faculty. Note I didn't say tenure, since in my department that doesn't exist any longer.

Now that I'm out from the world of constant stress and work, I'm talking to those people who chose the clinical world and the people they knew along the way. They were like me once. They believed in science. They got to some point and got so frustrated, so burnt out with this constant process of rejection, red tape, high stress, low pay, and high hours, that they decided to get out.

So while the articles are written about "There's a high demand for MD/PhDs" and "We wish we could find more MD/PhDs for our department", I don't see it. All I hear about are hiring freezes at my institution. I hear about labs shutting down. I hear a lot of very frustrated people. But I hear something else too. A few successful people. They don't seem to ever want to talk about the negatives, and anyone who talks about the negatives is looked down upon and scorned. Anyone who bailed out did so for poor reasons. The academic world is great. So don't mind me: just a greedy/lazy/cynical/insert your adjective here PhD posting.

I'm working on a sizeable writing about all of this. If anyone is interested in reading it before I put it out there (not under my own name/screenname for obvious reasons), let me know. But if you're one of those who told me not to put the acknowledgements in my thesis the way I did, you might want to shy away. I deposited it without modification.

When I vented a small fraction of these concerns to my PI he laughed at me. He told me I'd look back at grad school as being a great time in my life and that these problems would seem trivial. If that's true, count me out of the academic world. People used to tell me that about high school too. That was the worst time of my life. My last year of grad school was the second.

 

[WorkaholicsAnon]

Sorry Neuronix to hear of your experience and how bitter it left you. Sounds like you could have had a much stronger mentor that should have backed you up more and/or at least given you some more and better advice about how to get your papers through.

Also, no offense but your institution sucks.

 

[Vader]

Sorry to hear how difficult the process has been for you. I can't imagine having to bring in the MD/PhD director to a committee meeting. It does sounds like you have managed to publish in spite of much adversity and finish your thesis, a great accomplishment.

You are certainly hitting on one of the major problems in the academic medicine career track. Simply put, do the costs outweigh the benefits?

I think the major reason we have seen a decline in folks choosing the physician-scientist career pathway is that there are too many associated costs for most people and far too many benefits from a non-academic career. Until such time as people in academic medicine tilt the balance toward benefits, I fear we will continue to see a decline. Unfortunately, I would say encouragement is often lacking throughout the process and most of the reward is internal (i.e. one must feel satisfied about their progress, accomplishments, etc), as accomplishments are rarely recognized. Combine that with the generally disconnected, detached attitude that most faculty in academia exhibit (most often due to their own ambition, lacking time for mentoring, etc), and there is little in the way of external reinforcement.

We lose far too many people simply as a result of negligence. Lack of mentorship. Lack of support throughout the process. Lack of teaching about how to successfully navigate the system. I think this needs to be improved, particularly at some institutions. I was actually considering writing a guidebook for folks to navigate our program, but became too busy with the clinical years of medical school. I think our program has actually morphed too quickly for a guidebook to be of significant value, at least without at least yearly revision. It is probably more valuable at most places, to find a handful of mentors who are supportive and can help you navigate these treacherous waters. I have been lucky to find a few folks like this during my time at my institution, which has helped me greatly in focusing and pursuing my goals. I'd recommend for anyone going through an MD/PhD program to actively seek out good mentors, people you can trust, who will help you focus and build your career.

 

[dl2dp2]

Amen. I cannot agree more. I just want to add that we are getting the squeeze from both side, as basic researchers see us as being less committed to research, and the culture in basic research is not a very encouraging one.

There are many times when I said to myself, if I became a PI one day, I'd do a better job. I hope that day really comes.

I think the major reason we have seen a decline in folks choosing the physician-scientist career pathway is that there are too many associated costs for most people and far too many benefits from a non-academic career. Until such time as people in academic medicine tilt the balance toward benefits, I fear we will continue to see a decline. Unfortunately, I would say encouragement is often lacking throughout the process and most of the reward is internal (i.e. one must feel satisfied about their progress, accomplishments, etc), as accomplishments are rarely recognized. Combine that with the generally disconnected, detached attitude that most faculty in academia exhibit (most often due to their own ambition, lacking time for mentoring, etc), and there is little in the way of external reinforcement.

 

[gbwillner]

I also agree with Vader.

I would add that, much like the cliche Aerosmith song states, "Life's a journey/ not a destination."

If you truly enjoyed what you were doing, you would probably have willingly put up with the BS and taken it as part of the learning process. If you thought you could enjoy what you were doing but just had a bad mentor, you could/would have switched... labs/institutions, whatever. From your posts, it appears that you didn't really enjoy the process and you were going through the motions you needed to complete to get a PhD. It sounds like you just wanted to get through your training for the sake of being done with it, the quickest way possible. In that regard, I can see why you have been so miserable- every misstep was someone blocking you from your goal, not a learning experience you could just consciously appreciate and overcome. While almost all of us have difficult moments during our training (publishing frustration, fights with PIs, feelings of being unimportant to our mentors), those of us who come out excited about our time in the lab don't seem to have as much regret because, I think, we enjoyed the experience, regardless of how traumatic it seemed at the time.
I do sympathize for you. My fiance just went through the same thing... a terrible mentor, she waited too long to change labs... She became miserable and wanted to straight up quit after 5 years and become a teacher. I pushed her to continue, which devestated our relationship. Finally, she took a 6 week leave of absence to think about what she wanted to do with herself... and decided to continue on her own accord, in her own terms, with her own motivations, and to make the most of it.

Maybe you really do just need that year off to reflect where you are going, and "reset". Hopefully you can also come to some sense of clarity.

/DID like high school

 

[Neuronix]

If you truly enjoyed what you were doing, you would probably have willingly put up with the BS and taken it as part of the learning process.

That's hard to say. We had one grad student in lab quit grad school entirely. Another was very pissed off most of the time and almost quit a few times but seems to be eeking it out. That's 3/4... The other one had a much better/easier time, though he spent much more of his time doing simulations and thus didn't have to put up with the BS you have to go through when you work with humans and/or animals.

If you thought you could enjoy what you were doing but just had a bad mentor, you could/would have switched... labs/institutions, whatever.

You know switching MD/PhD institution is just a silly concept.

As for switching labs, I'm not sure that's possible either. I really do like what I do technically and that's what kept me going. In a significant way, it was my convincing that brought a younger student to my program who is now searching for labs. She has found, much like I did, that your choice of lab is much more restricted than you realize before you join the program. Labs that you thought were great in your field don't want you because you're MD/PhD. Labs that we were once flourishing are now floundering. Some people left. Other PIs sort of churn along with minimal funding and would never be approved by the MD/PhD program because there's no proof that PI has enough money to support you. Another PI who is a big name in the field you find out when you get here is a terrible mentor and has had many issues with their grad students... So perhaps I could have switched fields entirely. I don't think I could have switched labs. I'm now feeling a certain amount of guilt for selling my school to this person who now will likely join the lab I was in because there's no other real choices for her.

But this is all just talk because I was successful. I think my story brings up more of the concept of what is a complete PhD. I think, and I didn't touch on this as much, that beauracracy has a stranglehold on science and this is one of many reasons why you can keep increasing funding, but productivity won't increase. Our funding goes towards keeping many people employed whose jobs it is simply to put barriers and red tape in front of the person who has to do the work--i.e. the graduate student and the post-doc. All of these pressures are magnified when you want to get out and be done in some reasonable amount of time. i.e. The MD/PhD student who typically feels they don't want to be in grad school very long and get back to clinics. The MD/PhD student who is in many cases (me) still deluded into thinking this is/can be a 7 year program if you work hard enough.

These issues of completeness and non-scientific barriers are magnified even more when you have a set date you have to be out of your PhD by, and you push and you push and the walls in front of you just won't come down. My PI I think feels very strongly that his students should have minimal protection from these things to get the real experience of what science is about. That's his perspective--that he gives out ideas and gets funding and its your job to go do them. So in that sense I think most of the PIs in my department would disagree with Vader and sluox. But then again, is this the right way to train graduate students?

But back to the topic of completeness, I felt done much sooner than my PI and committee thought I was complete. The major stress came when the requirements and barriers for me kept shifting. I was expected to do X within Y timeframe by my committee even though I thought I was "done". But then one more experiment becomes Z A B C D E F G getting in my way. When I report back that I've done X, can I go now, it now becomes I need to do H. Meanwhile you get to hear from your program "you must go back by X date or stay another year in lab". This presents a terrible and tremendous stress to the student. My committee somehow felt that I could write my thesis after I went back to clinics (one older MD/PhD on my committee did this!) and wouldn't listen to my protests otherwise.

But anyway, why would I switch out of a lab in my last year when I've been so successful? I had considered dropping the PhD, but what sense would that make when I had several publications on the way? This is why I had to get the administration involved to get me out. I ended up taking some time away from the program, rather than go back to medical school 4 days after my defense, so that I could clear my head a bit. My PI is very angry about this--I should still be in his lab working (especially since I had my own funding), and to him the MD/PhD program bailed me out so I could go take a vacation. So are my LORs shot in the future? Am I that student who is doomed to failure because of my "personality issues"? I doubt it, and I try not to dwell on these issues.

From your posts, it appears that you didn't really enjoy the process and you were going through the motions you needed to complete to get a PhD.

I enjoy science. I don't enjoy spending 50% of my time with BS.

It sounds like you just wanted to get through your training for the sake of being done with it, the quickest way possible. In that regard, I can see why you have been so miserable- every misstep was someone blocking you from your goal, not a learning experience you could just consciously appreciate and overcome.

There's no learning in most of the crap I'm complaining about. You can either blow it off as "psst, just more crap to deal with, whatever" or look at it as I do, which is... I want to be a productive individual who is learning and contributing. I'm expected to do this, i.e. learn and get things done, and the time expectations of my PI and committee that are put on me are often quite short. So I could have looked at it the former way, relaxed, taken my time, and spent 2 more years in graduate school. But my PI and committee would have been unhappy with me. But some of them seem to be unhappy with me now anyways, so maybe that was the appropriate course? I think many grad students do look at it this way, but then again they don't have a 7 year residency and fellowship (Neuroradiology) looking at them in the near future.

I do sympathize for you. My fiance just went through the same thing... a terrible mentor, she waited too long to change labs... She became miserable and wanted to straight up quit after 5 years and become a teacher. I pushed her to continue, which devestated our relationship.

I'm glad you guys had each other. By the last year of graduate school, my girlfriend had left me. I was completely friendless and had pretty much no social interactions whatsoever from working very hard at all sorts of strange hours. I didn't mention this, but most of the work I did could only be done at nights or on weekends because graduate students have the last priority on the equipment we use. I tried dating again, and eventually found someone right before I finished, but overall that was a miserable flop full of rejection.

Maybe you really do just need that year off to reflect where you are going, and "reset". Hopefully you can also come to some sense of clarity.

Indeed. I think it's important for me to write about this stuff because I think it's important for those who read to reflect on the experiences that they and their classmates have. I don't think any of my classmates are happy about their graduate school experiences. I was the longest holdout--in that I still liked my mentor and still liked what I was doing. I recognize that I was holding on to my cognitive dissonance, ignoring the bad and the potentially bad, as much as I could so I wouldn't sink into depression and anger. I was eventually the last to give in. Most students internalize it all. For some, it's THEIR fault whatever happened to them. But for most I think it's simply viewed as a complicated situation that they are an actor in and there's no clear bad guy. I think that's true. But, I also think there's a tremendous fear against speaking out, even anonymously, for fear of retribution in this system that is mostly subjective and recommendation based.

But then really I get to write all this stuff because I took time off. If I went straight back to OB/GYN 4 days after my thesis while revising papers, I wouldn't have time to write these 30 - 60minute long reflections. I could just churn the rest of my life away at 80 hours a week, feeling like a rat on a treadmill.

This leads me to think the whole concept of balance in MD/PhD is completely shot. From the moment you start it's take med school, be a top student, take PhD classes on top of it, go to grad school, be a top student there too, finish faster than your PhD classmates, go back to clinics, get all honors because in reality your research doesn't mean that much to PDs, go into medicine, work 80 hours a week through internship/resident, become assistant faculty, work constantly to try to get funding and build a lab...

I don't see any personal time in that last run-on sentence. Maybe some people are built for that sort of thing. That's who we're trying to select I guess, with their top undergrads and 99th percentile MCATs and near 4.0 GPAs. So I guess it does come back to me. I realized there's more to life than a hospital and a laboratory. That's my choice, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's a good thing to keep in mind, as the "martyrs" and the "crusaders" will constantly remind you that you are not a real MD/PhD until this whole system has swallowed you whole.

Screw that. But believe me that I haven't sworn off academics. I'm just uncertain about the whole situation. I'm apprehensive and very concerned. I don't know what my future holds. But I want all of the "crusaders" to understand why someone MIGHT choose to get their MD/PhD and NOT stay in research. There's some serious problems with this system in my view. You won't know them or take them seriously until you have gone through it yourself. You'll also change over the 15 years of training from the time you start MD/PhD until the time you finish residency and fellowship.

But you better believe, that like all my classmates who are uncertain or some who are absolutely convinced they are not going to do research anymore (most of these are going into things like IM and peds and path!), I will say "I love academic medicine" at my interviews. I have to do that if I want to get the residency I want. Just another strange part of another strange system.

 

[its science]

She has found, much like I did, that your choice of lab is much more restricted than you realize before you join the program. Labs that you thought were great in your field don't want you because you're MD/PhD. Labs that we were once flourishing are now floundering. Some people left. Other PIs sort of churn along with minimal funding and would never be approved by the MD/PhD program because there's no proof that PI has enough money to support you. Another PI who is a big name in the field you find out when you get here is a terrible mentor and has had many issues with their grad students...

Do you think that this is a systemic problem of all MD/PhD programs? Is there any way incoming students can find out this kind of information before joining a program? Sometimes it can be hard to see past each school's presentation of being the best mstp ever, but as a current applicant, I'd like to know these kinds of things before I get to the school....

 

[Neuronix]

Do you think that this is a systemic problem of all MD/PhD programs?

Yes. There are only two possibilities:

1) The MD/PhD program doesn't provide much oversight as to which PI you pick. Thus you have more options but they may have abused students in the past or might be 2 days from running out of funding.

2) The MD/PhD program provides much oversight. This way you may run into what I'm talking about.

Note that my problems are a bit more specific because my area of interest is a sub-field of bioengineering. The more you get away from the typical cell & molecular biology techniques, the screwier things tend to get.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Neuronix, I have to say that it is only now, after six months in the lab, that I'm starting to understand your view. I've not been happy, not in the least. In fact I switched after four months to another lab and am facing even issues here. I think it's partially an issue of personalities (last lab was awful, current lab has one great mentor and one bleh co-mentor), and partially an issue of the student (myself). I strongly identify with your interests in things outside lab and the hospital. Having read your autobiography on your blog, it's clear that you're not quite the common wealthy-parents-pampered-ivy-league-college student who ends up in these programs with single-minded determination and blinders on. That's not saying that everyone is. But some people TRULY are *obsessed* about "science." I have a colleague in my program (same year as me) who already has three 1st author publications from his current lab (althought he's just a first year graduate student) because he worked all hours of the day and night doing experiments during the first two years of med school and all his summer lab rotations were in that lab. He'll probably have a 2 year PhD. 🙂 Frankly, I don't see myself as that kind of person or PI ultimately. I imagine myself one day earning a good income, a nice house, traveling, time with family, and a glorious research career with great world-transforming discoveries. Unfortunately, the desire for personal satisfaction and even glory in research (where many of us imagine(d) that we WILL (would?) discover the HIV vaccine or the cure for Alzheimer's) is shattered by the constant troubleshooting, the failed experiments, the realities of what's feasible, the questions of what the in vitro cell lines/ex vivo/inbred mouse model experiments even *mean* in the context of actual human disease, not to mention all the other frustrations of grad school - the qualifier, classes, TAing, committees, and getting things published. Even without all the bureaucratic BS of the research career, starting from grad school and getting worse as we go, it would be hard enough with all the practical experimental problems that arise, and publishing. But when you throw in bureaucracy, competition, funding drying up AND you're expected to be a scientist AND a clinician - it just seems kind of ridiculous. I've just realized that I'm on the "fast-track" of life and that I don't really want to reach the pre-ordained destination.

Btw, how did you manage to get time off? It's wonderful. I looked into that option but my medical school allows leave of absence only for illness, family emergency, research or other "useful" stuff, i.e. more work in the fields of research and medicine.

 

[Neuronix]

Btw, how did you manage to get time off? It's wonderful. I looked into that option but my medical school allows leave of absence only for illness, family emergency, research or other "useful" stuff, i.e. more work in the fields of research and medicine.

You can take a personal leave of absence for any "approved" reason here. I told them I wanted to have a good time and that was a good enough reason.