ManuNastai
Transilvanian..
Topics: 55
Posts: 838
|
I started speaking about my experience and people started asking questions. Praying for a 99 even asked about the decizion of coming to do research.
praying4a99 wrote:
ManuNastai ... hi there, i hope eventually you get what you went there for. Mainly, do you advise any of us to try and go through what you're going through or its not worth it if someone wants to continue his life as a physician and not a scientist nor a researcher?
Uuuuh! Tough one. I won't answer that question 'cause obviously I'm not the one to decide for someone else. Now I'm going to make a sumary of my 3.5 months research experience at Hopkins trying to answers questions that I got over pm:
I spent this time doing surgical research (basic research.. mice and stuff..). There were questions like
What am I supposed to do there?
What exactly are you doing?
Well.. I did everything that we had to do in an experiment from actual mice work, to histology (processing the samples, embedding into parrafin, evaluating the slides). I procesed data after that (most of the time) doing Excell untill I could see spreadsheets at night, graphs, statistics... And not to forget the hundreds of hours spent on PubMed pulling out articles and reading them.
I worked 8-12 hours per day sometimes even weekends.
What do you gain from this work?
Where should I start? First of all I learnt what research is and how to do it properly. But you'd say who the hell cares about that? Tell us what we really want to know! What is important. Publications? Yes, I got my name on one.. It was hard and I've just been told the good news. But it was hard to get one. It's too much of work and too short time. A year will suffice to get your name on a couple.. something like second author. I also got my name on an abstract for a meeting and possibly on a peper if this will turn into one, but I doubt it.
What else? Maybe the most important thing: CONTACTS!!!!!!!!! How can you meet people and how could people meet you, if you aren't here? I think you could get a residency spot just by knowing the right people. This I think is mandatory for Hopkins. You won't get in here without knowing the right persons!!!! As sad as this sounds.. Hopkins is off limits for unknown aplicants (at least this is my impression which of course is personal and limited). But there is a good part to that. Unlike my country, you impress these people by working hard, being dedicated, showing genuine interest in medicine, research, PATIENT welfare, not bribery and being the son of some big shot like in my country... These sound like empty words but they are not. You really have to feel that and the right people will see it.
I consider it's not the best way to come here to work in research and do your exams on the side. Who runs after 2 rabbits will get none. Everything that you do needs your full commitment. This is just my advice. The rest is up to you.
I didn't write this to get aplauds. This is just a bunch of facts from an experience that people think of doing. You have to decide for yourself, but take into consideration that in order to get what you want you have to put at least about 12 hours per day into this business... I advice the rest who went through a particular experience to follow my example and others' and post them so we could all learn from it!
Good luck to all of you!
___________________
"Love is the only inflamation of the heart that drains in the vagina" (translation after Dr Petre Florescu, Professor of Pathology, UMF "Iuliu Hatieganu", Cluj Napoca
|
| Jackofknives
Ipwnpoker.com
Topics: 91
Posts: 700
|
ManuNastai wrote:
Publications? Yes, I got my name on one.. It was hard and I've just been told the good news. But it was hard to get one. It's too much of work and too short time. A year will suffice to get your name on a couple.. something like second author. I also got my name on an abstract for a meeting and possibly on a peper if this will turn into one, but I doubt it.
are you saying during your 4 months stay you got your name on a paper and an abstract and now you are potentially landing another one, making it in total of 2 papers and 1 abstract?
or did you mean 1 paper and 1 abstract in total if everything goes as planned, but you doubted that the paper is publishable?
___________________
There are many things in this world that can’t be changed no matter how hard you try. That’s why you must not hesitate when the time comes where you have to give it all you’ve got.
|
| ManuNastai
Transilvanian..
Topics: 55
Posts: 838
|
 no I said the paper is final. The abstract will be presented at a convention and we planned to make a paper out of the work behind the abstract, but I don't think it will turn into publishable paper.
___________________
"Love is the only inflamation of the heart that drains in the vagina" (translation after Dr Petre Florescu, Professor of Pathology, UMF "Iuliu Hatieganu", Cluj Napoca
|
| Jackofknives
Ipwnpoker.com
Topics: 91
Posts: 700
|
how is it possible to participate and moreover to finish 2 projects in 4 months? or did i misunderstood that the paper and poster was about one and same project
did u discuss with them which author you are going to be listed under? congrats on that one nevertheless
___________________
There are many things in this world that can’t be changed no matter how hard you try. That’s why you must not hesitate when the time comes where you have to give it all you’ve got.
|
| ManuNastai
Transilvanian..
Topics: 55
Posts: 838
|
Jack,
Why are you trying to do detective work on these stuff?.. Is it a feeling of fulfillment to play Colombo with others on these forums? For your information, there were 2 projects, not one and I was able to be involved in both because I worked like a mule, because I rather work than eat because I was aware of my short stay here.. I got no reason to lie so stop acting this way!
___________________
"Love is the only inflamation of the heart that drains in the vagina" (translation after Dr Petre Florescu, Professor of Pathology, UMF "Iuliu Hatieganu", Cluj Napoca
|
| Jackofknives
Ipwnpoker.com
Topics: 91
Posts: 700
|
I’m sorry if you were offended, it was not my intension to challenge your credibility. No doubt you have worked hard and you have results to show it but please tell the whole story instead of only the successful part, so that people unfamiliar to the academic world get misperceptions and possibly think that if you move to US for 4 months and work hard you can become a significant co-author for 2 papers. It’s worth noting that long hours is necessary but not sufficient for results, there are other factors involved such as luck.
To other people reading the post, research projects are not something that you can rush through; working around the clock in a factory produce results in term of increased production – that is not always the case in research. There are many more factors that is out of your control and could slow you down significantly such as pilot study results isn’t ideal and requires method to be revised, things suddenly didn’t go as expected in the middle of the project (can be both good and bad) where you have to find out the source of the mistake, logistic problems and more, in addition, sometimes you have to wait for the results to come out in order to proceed to the next step. Also, if one rushes too much through procedures then accidents ought to happen, resulting in waste of time and material.
Manu I suppose you were introduced to the first project at the end stage, because it takes around 2 months to 6 months for a paper from being submitted to being accepted in press, unless ofc one has discovered the cure for aids or the molecular structure of DNA back in the days, in which immediate publication is granted.
So my point is, don’t have too high expectations, 1st or 2nd author for one paper is sometimes doable if you’re lucky and work with nice people for that duration of time but if you didn’t get any publications even though you were being extremely productive, don’t get discouraged and keep going.
PS Manu, sorry if i seemed interrogative, i just wanted to understand what you wrote correctly.
___________________
There are many things in this world that can’t be changed no matter how hard you try. That’s why you must not hesitate when the time comes where you have to give it all you’ve got.
|
|
| |
| | | | | | |
