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deleted1064759
Because
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Is he hard on you because of the tattoo(s)?
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Sounds super tedious.
Also sounds like a good time to work on the soft skills of life and medicine. Feel like I say this more and more in posts: but if you've never had another job/career (and thus have no context for workplace environments), you will discover that people like this are everywhere. Every level. Research/Med school/Residency/attending-hood. Developing resiliency in sub-optimal situations is an absolute must.
You've already tried turn the tide and develop a personal connection with him. That's a good attempt. The guy may not (and probably doesn't) give a **** about you. Keep up the subtle attempts. See if you can win him over. The benefits of succeeding are immeasurably higher than your current course of you doing the work and him not giving a **** about you.
If you can get him to like you and he's as well-connected as you say, an LOR saying "i like this guy a lot, he works hard" means way more than one saying "CommyØ completed a project on the mating habits of sugar bees in the Tehranian journal of surgical subspecialology"
"winning over the hostile person" is probably one of the single most valuable skills you can have in life/medicine. If this guy is as important as you say he is and he's giving you HOURS of his time, then there's obviously some need he thinks you can fulfill. Figure it out.
EDIT* and it may turn out he is an unredeemable asshat. That happens too....
Also sounds like a good time to work on the soft skills of life and medicine. Feel like I say this more and more in posts: but if you've never had another job/career (and thus have no context for workplace environments), you will discover that people like this are everywhere. Every level. Research/Med school/Residency/attending-hood. Developing resiliency in sub-optimal situations is an absolute must.
You've already tried turn the tide and develop a personal connection with him. That's a good attempt. The guy may not (and probably doesn't) give a **** about you. Keep up the subtle attempts. See if you can win him over. The benefits of succeeding are immeasurably higher than your current course of you doing the work and him not giving a **** about you.
If you can get him to like you and he's as well-connected as you say, an LOR saying "i like this guy a lot, he works hard" means way more than one saying "CommyØ completed a project on the mating habits of sugar bees in the Tehranian journal of surgical subspecialology"
"winning over the hostile person" is probably one of the single most valuable skills you can have in life/medicine. If this guy is as important as you say he is and he's giving you HOURS of his time, then there's obviously some need he thinks you can fulfill. Figure it out.
EDIT* and it may turn out he is an unredeemable asshat. That happens too....
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Ya. I would say tolerance is the single most important skill you will need in clinical rotations if you want to get where you are wanting to go in this medical career journey. I’m thinking residents/attendings telling you to be somewhere at a certain time then showing up an hr later without warning you they’re going to be late kinda stuff.
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After reading the initial post again, gotta say your attitude seems pretty troublesome and entitled. The research relationship sounds very transactional to you.
Just to frame the scenario. You are the lowly medical student begging to get into his specialty. He is the senior, tenured attending. The stakes for you are way higher. If he's as connected as you say, he could probably get you in somewhere if your other CV components are in the ball park. He could conversely black ball you and end any chance of you going into his specialty if you piss him off.
You are the disposable person in the research relationship. He's openly said he's gone through several med students on research projects in the past. If he gets one more thing published, it will be but a blip on his CV.
You are going to have a lot of trouble in medicine if you expect people to always work with you on your terms.
Just to frame the scenario. You are the lowly medical student begging to get into his specialty. He is the senior, tenured attending. The stakes for you are way higher. If he's as connected as you say, he could probably get you in somewhere if your other CV components are in the ball park. He could conversely black ball you and end any chance of you going into his specialty if you piss him off.
You are the disposable person in the research relationship. He's openly said he's gone through several med students on research projects in the past. If he gets one more thing published, it will be but a blip on his CV.
You are going to have a lot of trouble in medicine if you expect people to always work with you on your terms.
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Not going to quote the post but I’ll screen shot it 
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It really doesn’t make sense to work with a bad mentor regardless of how connected they are. Also OP, your characterization of the mentor as incompetent is arrogant and condescending. It makes me wonder whether you could be the problem in this relationship and the mentor actually isn’t that bad.
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If your attitude is "IDGAF," maybe it's obvious and that's why he's being a hardass on you. It's also possible that you "get **** done" but it isn't actually done well (due to your lack of caring) and may require reanalysis or expansion in order to get it into a publishable state. Difficult to say without seeing the work, but if you literally DGAF then it could be garbage in/garbage out.
That being said, this is also why picking a PI who is closer to the top of the totem pole may not be in the best interest of a student. At his level, what does it matter if he pumps out another five pubs in a low-tier journal? He can chew on the data all he wants until he finds a story that makes it worthy of getting a higher-impact publication, which is about all that moves the needle for him at this point. If you want to work with a high-powered group, I would almost always recommend that a student find an instructor or assistant professor who works under the big-name but is still in the same situation of just wanting to publish anything quickly. It might mean you wind up being second or third author rather than first, but you'll be more productive.
As to what you can do in your situation, I have two suggestions. One, you can try to analyze some of these "obscurities." If he keeps asking you to analyze these things, and then you keep coming back to the meeting having not analyzed what he asked for... then the lack of progress is your fault. If you can demonstrate that indeed, these obscurities can't be analyzed or are not feasible from your data, then maybe he will let you move on. Alternately, if you are *sure* that these things cannot be analyzed, then just write the damn paper and send it to him. Once there's an actual tangible manuscript in his hands it may get his attention.
That being said, this is also why picking a PI who is closer to the top of the totem pole may not be in the best interest of a student. At his level, what does it matter if he pumps out another five pubs in a low-tier journal? He can chew on the data all he wants until he finds a story that makes it worthy of getting a higher-impact publication, which is about all that moves the needle for him at this point. If you want to work with a high-powered group, I would almost always recommend that a student find an instructor or assistant professor who works under the big-name but is still in the same situation of just wanting to publish anything quickly. It might mean you wind up being second or third author rather than first, but you'll be more productive.
As to what you can do in your situation, I have two suggestions. One, you can try to analyze some of these "obscurities." If he keeps asking you to analyze these things, and then you keep coming back to the meeting having not analyzed what he asked for... then the lack of progress is your fault. If you can demonstrate that indeed, these obscurities can't be analyzed or are not feasible from your data, then maybe he will let you move on. Alternately, if you are *sure* that these things cannot be analyzed, then just write the damn paper and send it to him. Once there's an actual tangible manuscript in his hands it may get his attention.
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I’m a little confused about what’s going on here - all manuscripts will require revision. Some a lot more than others. If you’re not willing to revise work you’ve already done, no one will want to publish with you.
If he’s asked you for it several times, has he not seen the work you said you’ve already done? Or is it that you feel it’s been completed and there’s nothing more to do? And what’s the holdup on the methods - waiting for other people to make decisions? If not, somebody has to at least write a draft of the methods at some point
If he’s asked you for it several times, has he not seen the work you said you’ve already done? Or is it that you feel it’s been completed and there’s nothing more to do? And what’s the holdup on the methods - waiting for other people to make decisions? If not, somebody has to at least write a draft of the methods at some point
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I don’t understand how the PI is being bad or difficult. His suggestions make sense… and that’s how research is done? Like I don’t understand what the issue here is exactly.
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I agree with above, you should not wait to have everything done before starting to write parts of the paper. Get these parts done and it will help to figure out how to frame the story you're telling with your results. This is how people successfully publish quickly.
Also frankly, it doesn't matter how you want to write--he's the senior author, if he asked for the intro+methods you need to write them or expect things to continue going nowhere.
Also frankly, it doesn't matter how you want to write--he's the senior author, if he asked for the intro+methods you need to write them or expect things to continue going nowhere.
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Tenure you say?!
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Unfortunately your opinion does not hold the same weight as his. It’s more his project than it is yours (correct me if I’m wrong), so you’re going to have to do it his way. And to be fair, he has more experience so it’s likely you might learn something if you have an open mind.
Im also not really sure what you’re saying about him asking you to right intro/collect references. You’re saying that he’s asking to do it every though you’ve done it already?
Im also not really sure what you’re saying about him asking you to right intro/collect references. You’re saying that he’s asking to do it every though you’ve done it already?