Happy Tuesday everyone, the week before last I gave you my career story in brief and highlighted three areas where I had experienced feelings of being trapped in my role as an academic researcher. That marked the beginning of a series of posts that I’ll write about what compels people to stay in the academic career system even at potential detriment to their own professional advancement.
On talking to colleagues I realised that other researchers also shared these experiences. Specifically I’ve discovered that many experience one or more of the following feelings at any one time in their careers:
(i) Addiction to their research interests to such a degree that they are willing to forgo the lure of stable career prospects
(ii) Ambivalence towards their situation; waxing and waning between wanting to leave, but not feeling they have the capacity to do so and
(iii) Experiencing an overwhelming fear of fully committing to other career paths.
This week I plan to explore the first of these in a more detail and try to offer to advise those of you who feel as if you’re ready for a change:
(i) The Endeavour of scientific research is addictive
There were four main factors (a-d) that led me to being addicted to my role as a biomedical researcher:
(a) The Eureka factor
There’s no getting away from the fact that the shear nature of conducting scientific research can be an exciting and highly stimulating endeavour, and as a result many researchers get addicted to the buzz of finding something new. This work feeds curious, inquisitive and intelligent minds and so its hardly surprising that lots of researchers feels as if no other job would be as fulfilling.
This is absolutely fine and it’s how I felt for many years as a biomedical researcher. I too fell in love with those ‘Eureka’ moments when you’re standing in the dark room with a film (yes I am that old) and you suddenly realise, OMG who’d have thought that my hypothesis was right/wow I’d never have predicted that, but this is way cooler…adrenalin buzz!!!
It’s in these ‘Eureka moments’ where you feel your doing the greatest job in the world and you couldn’t possibly consider doing anything else with your life.
In truth, it was these moments that kept me going through the mundaneness of everyday life-science lab work. Whilst these Eureka moments filled me with a sense of overwhelming joy, I also found them (rather disappointingly) to be exceptionally rare.
I had also learnt to deal with false positives where I later found out the result was irreproducible or down to technical error. So in time, I had to see results at least a second time before I became excited.
All in all I could probably count the truly exciting findings on one hand in my 15 years as a biomedical researcher. This is just the nature of the beast and as such, an essential skill for all biomedical researchers to develop is tenacity.
How could other jobs compete with this, surely they’d just be brain dead in comparison?
If the Eureka moments start to become too few and far between, the feeling of elation that they bring can quickly become lost in the drudgery of repeating experiments that don’t appear to be working out.
Furthermore, it’s doubtful that there are jobs outside of academic research that couldn’t stimulate you as much. It’s probably more likely that you haven’t been exposed to such opportunities.
Career Tip – take a bit of time off from the lab bench to explore possible opportunities. Seek support/advice from experts where applicable to help you identify if other career trajectories exist that you would thrive in.
(b) Work culture
Aside from your own drive, determination and interest in your work, the departmental environment in which you find yourself also has a huge role to play in fuelling your addiction to biomedical research.
In a vibrant institute that’s doing well and producing fantastic work, it’s easy to get caught up in the thrill of producing novel findings. People are excited about your work and seek your opinions on their own projects.
The work culture can also play a role in altering your perspective in life – to one that focuses your attention only to the research community in which you find yourself. This can occur at the expense of exploring other career paths where your talents could also be utilised.
This cultural nuance of academia can be so persuasive that many find themselves fully indoctrinated into a single way of thinking – that a highly successful academic research career (at all costs) is the only thing that matters.
Potentially there is no problem with this if academic research is ultimately for you. However, if it’s not, this pervasive attitude within your peer group and your environment can severely limit your ability to critically judge your future career trajectory.
The flip side to all of this is that a poor working culture has the ability to affect researchers in the opposite way and drive them to consider leaving academia, even if they may otherwise chose not to.
In a department that’s struggling to keep afloat and is underperforming in one or more of its functions or in one that has been over achieving and is fighting to remain ahead in the league tables, this can often foster a hypercompetitive environment, which can ultimately result in unpleasant working cultures.
Sometimes such environments can be damaging enough to put off talented, budding trainees from pursuing a biomedical research career, which can be equally damaging as those environments that persuade people to stay in the academic system when it may not be right for them.
Career Tip – The take home message is that sometimes you need to take a step out of your environment for reflection and ideally seek outside advice to obtain some clear perspective on the correct career path for you.
(c) Research independence
There is a perception amongst early career scientists that once they gain research independence and set up their own lab, they will be rewarded within complete autonomy over their work. That once they’ve established a group of their own they will be able to choose what they work on when they want to (provided they have the right training background of course).
I certainly shared this view when I was establishing myself as a career academic researcher and was excited by the prospect of spending my future answering the questions, which I myself found the most stimulating.
Whilst there is some validity in this perspective, in as much as you can choose a theme or area in which to develop your skills and then eventually work in, there are heavily persuasive external influences that determine what type of research is funded (and therefore conducted).
Often these influences are predominantly driven by activities in the commercial market place. Take for example the expansion of immuno-oncology drugs over the last decade. Companies like BMS and Merck are seeing bumper profits from only one or two phenomenal products in their portfolios. Sales of BMS’ immunotherapy Opdivo® (nivolumab; an anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody antagonist) grew by 60% in 2017 and contributed the largest proportion of their oncology business last year.
Unsurprisingly this success has filtered into the academic research space, not only for clinical cancer research, but for basic science too. In recent years, funding opportunities in this area have opened up, channelling resources specifically into this field.
For example Cancer Research UK’s immunology project awards are aimed specifically at building a strong base of cancer immunology work in the UK. Such initiatives ultimately benefit big pharma in the long run as we learn more about how to harness the power of the immune system for future drug development.
This is not to say this is a bad thing, as ultimately the people to benefit the most from this research in the long run, will be patients. By supporting commercial activities, some academic endeavours will eventually be converted into usable technology that will ultimately save lives.
Rather, I make this point simply to highlight the reality of today’s hypercompetitive biomedical research space. Ultimately it’s now very difficult to work in a field that does not support (at least to some extent) trends influenced by global markets and almost impossible to work in one that does not possess a translational component to it.
Career Tip – Be strategic in your search for research independence and train in areas that are supported by relevant funding sources. This will dictate your ability to obtain the finances required to do your research. If your interests don’t align with fields that are readily supported by funders/industry, seriously consider if a potential struggling research career is right for you, or if you should contemplate a different career trajectory. Advice from a trusted mentor can help with this.
(d) Identity
A factor that becomes more and more imprinted over time when you work in scientific research is the idea that you begin to identify with yourself primarily through your work.
Who am I if I’m not a biomedical researcher, what’s my purpose, why do I exist? So overwhelming was this feeling for me, that I primarily identified myself as a research scientist above anything else in my life (spouse, parent, football player etc.) and if my work was gone then who was I?
Upon reflection this perspective was warped to say the least. Ego was definitely playing a role here, but more than that – I had never taken a step back to envisage myself as anyone else or anyone I could be. Once I had done this, I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of freedom and opportunity that I had not felt very often as a career academic.
Career Tip – Don’t lose perspective!
Join me next week for our next instalment in this series, where I’ll be exploring the eerie world of career procrastination – should I leave academic research or shouldn’t I? Until then remember to stay focussed on your goals and keep learning how to be a badass in your biomed career.
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