Dysthymia

Yesterday I was a bit silly and booked way too many patients into my clinic. I was majorly exhausted afterwards and had to spend most of the evening, into the wee hours of the morning, writing reports to send out by today. I had more patients again today (I'm trying to wind down my practice so that I can shut one clinic completely in order to run a research group) and it made me wonder whether leaving science might not be a good option.

Pay in science is not terrible, but not as lucrative as other pursuits that half-intelligent folk might engage in. In the clinical world, however, I could probably earn in two to three days what I earn in five from research. It should be now be fairly obvious that I'm in allied health...!

Academic spouse was today awarded a major major grant. Like, super duper wow stuff. He's also writing another fellowship application and his CV is just totally amazing. So it makes me wonder whether little old me really stands a chance of running an entire research group. Maybe I could be Clinical Mother and have more time for my kids, my friends, my garden, myself.

I've always thought it would be a 'waste' to leave science after all this time. Now i'm not so sure. Two of my patients yesterday gave me such lovely compliments (one had been suicidal, but hiding it quite well from the myriad of professionals he'd been seeing. Until of course he walked into my consulting room and I thought it was pretty clear that this individual was not OK, and so I made a few calls to make sure he had some supports). Somehow research seems so self-indulgent at times. To give of oneself to truly assist another may well be a noble pursuit after all.

Or maybe I'm the one with dysthymia.

Swamped

I'm swamped and it's evident to everyone. I'm behind on deadlines, students aren't happy, colleagues aren't happy and most of all I'M NOT HAPPY!

The most frustrating part is that I can't just shout "BACK OFF FOR ONE MONTH PUR-LEASE! I'm trying to negotiate a new job and find one million dollars to support my lab". Not that this is an adequate excuse but it sure is tricky to manage all of that along with everything else that one usually has on the over-loaded academic plate.

So I'm grouchy and more tired than usual.

Sometimes I wonder whether it's worth oxy-torching the candle. Academic Spouse was eager to head off to work this morning, whereas I was dreading the sheer number of new problems that would walk through my door today. Maybe there's something in that. We'll see.

Bean counters

Earlier this week I met with the bean counters and the proposed new institution. The discussion centred on the fact that a) they would not underwrite the initiative and b) how was I going to generate income and provide a means for cost-recovery? I felt somewhat dejected after that little chat and it made me realise that in science we really do have to have a broad skill set. Not only do we have to be able to bring in and manage funds but we really need to be able to look at the bigger picture.

The rationale for this initiative is so clear cut in my mind, and that of the institute's senior staff and director (which is a relief!). It will, however, take a lot of money to fund and so conversations with bean counters do make me think long and hard about whether using that amount of money is really justified. I mean, apart from having to pay a mortgage etc etc, can I justify spending that much money on science, particularly if the science is a little esoteric?

The simple answer is that I can. Big business and government thrown millions of dollars are clearly nonsensical initiatives (gotta have a committee to decide whether we should form a group to look into the possibility that some action might be taken by an unidentified group of people in four of five years, when of course there'll have been a change in government etc etc etc. blah blah). Of course, because in big bus. and gov't there are plenty of people paid to slap a bit of shine on such things (aka advertising, marketing, propoganda etc) then the populace thinks it's all a great idea. Everyone gets swept up in the excitement and forgets that there's really quite a lot of money being wasted on not a lot of progress.

So is science like that too, or do we not do marketing very well? I think scientists do (and should) get swept up in the excitement of a new idea and all that comes with it. But being eternal realists they return to land pretty quickly (there are experiments to be done, you see!). No, what I think is that the typical scientist is not good at marketing, because honesty and truth are such integral parts of being a 'good' scientist. And that's where sometimes as a mid-career researcher it is really easy to become unstuck.

If I don't back myself to step up to the next level of this crazy ladder then no one else will either. That's such an obvious statement that it's almost embarrassing to write it. At this point in time, however, I don't know that I've really got the energy to do what is required to jump up and hope that I don't miss the rungs. I barely see my husband, my kids are the only ones in our area whose mother and father work full time and my friends keep telling me that I need to slow down (maybe I need to befriend a few more academic women!!). So this constant conflict makes me wonder whether it's all worth the effort.

Message to self: Watch This Space.

Bumped

My meeting with current boss was bumped today. Shame, because I'd worked myself up to tell him that I'm staying put. Well, not actually staying put, but just not moving with him.

Wimped out and took the easy option and sent a non-specific email whose lines were easy to read between.

Staff in the lab are well aware that something is up. One person said that it's similar to the feeling in the air just before their parents split up. I can't say a thing because it's not my place to tell them all that they're out of a job soon. I've told my grad students and some staff that I am looking for a job elsewhere but not the reason why. They are all pleased and will come with me. I just want this to be resolved so that the next phase can begin. I fancy a bit of stability in my work life.

In other news, started processing data from study that has no papers at present. Colleague and I talked about publishing data in one of the Nature stable journals. I'm about half way through the analysis so it might not pan out that way but that would be a nice way to say goodbye...

I am NOT your mother...

My new PhD student has been in my lab for two months. She is right out of undergraduate and has moved away from her family for the first time to work with me. Today in our supervision meeting it was pretty clear from the word go that all was not well. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that her eyes were red and puffy. Or was it that she wouldn't look me in the eye directly? Anyway, we quickly established that something was up, she didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to return home to deal with the issue and could she please have some goals to concentrate on for the coming week(s)?

At the end of our supervision session I gave my little spiel about PhDs coming at a time in one's life where 'life' just happens. During my candidature I attended about 10 weddings, half of which were great parties but in hindsight they should have saved their money (...), three or four funerals, a major relationship breakdown of my own and all that goes with it (lose house, possessions, cat etc). A PhD isn't really a test of how intelligent you are. Rather, it's a test of how well you can cope emotionally with the ups and downs of life whilst you're focussed intensely on a single outcome - the thesis. If you get into the PhD then you're 'smart' enough to finish it. It just happens that I know a lot of smart folk for whom life got in the way of writing up and they never completed.

At the end of all of this, she had cracked a smile and laughed a few times but her eyes remained devastatingly sad. So my next line kind of just came out and I'm not sure it came out right. I said to her that although I'm not her mother and I'm not wanting to have that kind of role, I have a responsibility to support her through the process of gaining her qualification. Thus, I explained that I felt that this extended to ensuring that she was managing at a personal as well as a professional level. Hence, if she either needed or wanted to contact me then she should feel free to do so after hours. If she needed help to access support services etc then I hope she would feel comfortable to ask for guidance etc.

I thought about this a lot for the rest of the day. As a graduate student I had male supervisors, none of whom discussed particularly personal issues (aside from the one who drank too much and then explained how pretty I was - another story, perhaps, for another time). I had some pretty awful things happen (mostly, in fact, as a result of me rejecting the super generous offer of a totally inappropriate student-supervisor relationship) and there was very little support for me from those people or their peers. So did that experience make me go 'soft'? Should students manage on their own and just get on with the work?

There are a whole lot of boundary issues with students. I discussed this after work with Academic Husband and we agreed that in this instance it was a good thing to offer some support. I've also asked one of the other grad students to catch up with new PhD student for coffee and chats because I suspect she's more likely to seek and benefit from support from her peers than her supervisor. It's just made me sit back and think about the best model for guiding students through such times and whether my own experience plays too much of a role in how I now approach such issues.