I don't know how some people are granted PhDs in biomedical research and they can't do anything to save their lives. How can you come from a molecular biology/ cell culture lab with a PhD and you can't:
1. plate cells/ do cell culture
2. make media
3. do PCRs
4.western blots
5.read a recipe and make simple reagents
7. isolate DNA/RNA
8. transformations, cloning etc
How can you have a PhD and not know how to do any of these fundamental things? but give an interview/ presentation showing results that relied on these said skills.
Answer: Have some one else do them for you but not tell anyone or give them credit.
I am increasingly annoyed (as a grad student) from my encounters with postdocs who can't do JACK SHIT to save their lives, but yet your ass gets paid more than me.
Maybe it's just my lab that takes in these fakers but we have postdocs who can't do any of the above and many other things that I know how to do even techs know how to do.
Today's incident:
There is a postdoc who came from a lab that works on a protein that I am the only one in my lab that works on it (Protein M). Most of her papers are in vitro cell culture based with westerns etc. some on this protein but from a completely different approach. She's confessed on many occasion that they had a tech and a grad student in her old lab that did everything for them.
I worked on this protein M for a while and discovered something novel but it was a side project and as such got put on the back burner. When she got here she wanted to work on it not knowing that in my lab, I am the go to person. So she asked me if there was anything I was planning to do, I told her we have a manuscript we are working on but needed one or two more experiments to tie it together. So we discussed it and she agreed to look at the expression of Protein M in a series of cancer lines via simple Westerns and the interaction of Protein M with it's regulator Protein X via IP. And then knock down Protein X and probe for Protein M.
Is this difficult???
The reason I can't take this on is because I have three months left and other shit to do. She has been growing these cells forever, how hard is it to thaw, plate, trypsinize, re-plate, treat, collect, lyse. She's like the cells don't look good, I'm about to loose my patience with her.
Oh My God, now on to the westerns. She didn't know how to measure the protein and I showed her fine, it took her a while to calculate the concentration that we needed, then I was like everything is ready for you to go ahead and start.
She started to complain that she took for granted all the things the other people in her lab did for her, now that she has to do them herself. She complained that all the buffers in her lab were bought and why we make our own and she's not comfortable using home made reagents. I told her that in our lab western reagents are the same as the ones you buy, we just make own and because it's cheaper. She started to tear up I kid you not, I saw she was about to cry so I told her that if he's not comfortable doing it our way I have no problem doing it. No,no, no I'll do it, mind you the samples have been sitting out for a couple hours now, then she disappears for 2 hours, so I took back the samples and told her I'll do it. Then she like you can do this, do that. Bitch I don't need you to tell me how to do anything, unlike you I can do almost everything because having no techs in this lab, meant I had to do everything for myself.
I am so disappointed,so pissed because I don't have time to do this right now, so bewildered at people who essentially are faking it till they make it. I was straight forward with her before she started this, I told her you won't get credit for anything unless you do the work and I mean bench work. Anybody can discuss anything, I can go outside and find a crackhead and discuss science with him, but that doesn't mean he'll have his name on a paper.
A note to postdocs and students who are about to be postdocs, STOP FAKING IT, people will see right through you. If you don't know how to do something ask, if you 'published' something and you don't know how to do it, figure out a way to learn it.
STOP FAKING SCIENCE AND YOUR CVs
Sounds like she's faking it.... but certainly not making it. Any pubs so far?
ReplyDeleteOMG! Be careful. I just wrote on my blog about how I enjoy being the "go to person", where I touched on my one negative experience as a grad student. I should share that experience in depth because it was a valuable but costly lesson for me.
ReplyDeleteA properly trained PhD should be able to learn new techniques fast. Even aged PIs who have not worked at the bench for decades have this skill.
Your PI obviously did not do a good job of interviewing this person. Now your PI must pay the price by babying this postdoc at the bench personally.
Do not help this person any more than is reasonable. Eventually she will have no choice but to go to the boss for help and guidance. She will be forced to reveal her incompetence.
On my CV I listed my publications and my specific skill sets. I do not pretend to have done all the experiments that are on my papers.
ReplyDeleteMy current PI contacted my PhD mentor to verify that I had done the ChIP experiments included in a couple of my papers. He had not done ChIP himself, but doubt I could have bluffed him. You should not pay the price of you bosses mistake in hiring this postdoc.
Her crying sounds like a manipulative technique, not genuine remorse at cheating her PhD!
Not everyone is forced to write their own papers, but she should have at least wrote her own dissertation. A certain amount of technical assistance is acceptable, but should be clearly acknowledged. And if a person is clueless how the hell can they instruct an assistant? More like the "assistants" were doing the PhD for her!
Sorry for the long comments but Fake PhDs piss me off too!
It was not until I cut of the incompetent postdoc that my boss saw just how incapable he was and handed him his notice. He retaliated against my refusal to cover for him by sabotaging my experiments - so watch your back.
Well...Im going to come out of a medical genetics lab with a PhD and without tissue culture experience. I object to your notion that this somehow makes my PhD "fake". All my work has been done in or ex vivo with transgenic mice. I haven't set food in the Tissue Culture room other than to help clean it when its our labs turn. I also plan on learning new techniques if I become a post-doc, so while I get your frustration at having to teach this person, you may be being a bit harsh on them for not being familiar with the things you are familiar with...just a viewpoint from the other side...
ReplyDeleteFebrua -
ReplyDeleteI think the point is that a postdoc should be able to readily pick up new techniques. A postdoc changing fields might require extra assistance, but they should not need babying. A postdoc should be able to read up on and troubleshoot new problems much faster than a grad student. After all postdoc is paid to function as a postdoc, not an over paid grad student.
The most valuable skill I learnt in grad school was not any particular technique, but the skill of readily acquiring new techniques.
I think it is unfair of any PI to expect a grad student to be teaching someone who is paid more, especially when she has a dissertation to write.