my life, my pace

Really? Do you have what it takes to be an MD/PhD? Before you rattle off your sky high GPA and MCAT scores at me, let me tell you about the requirements they don’t tell you about or sugarcoat because they know you’ll go running for your life.

1. Have an inquisitive mind. Sounds like a good skill to have, right? Something that’s really indispensable if you’re planning to pursue research? Well, yeah, it is. But what they neglect to tell you is that no one is going to listen to your ideas. No one at all. You might even get yelled at. Because you’re just a peon and how dare you think you have anything new to add that some seasoned PI hasn’t already thought of.

2. Work well with others. Research is all about collaboration. Nobody gets anything done by doing everything themselves. You just can’t possibly know everything there is to know about everything. What they don’t tell you is that collaboration as a grad student means checking your ego at the door and groveling at the feet of collaborators who hold your already tenuous fate in their hands. Oh, so sorry, I’m not available the entire month of April for your studies.

3. Be able to think on your feet. A good skill to have that applies to many aspects in life in general besides research. But when it comes to research, this skill takes on a whole new level. You need to be able to think on your feet while being bombarded with questions designed to destroy any credibility your study may have had and humiliate you until you have not a shred of ego left by know-it-alls who have nothing better to do than to destroy you just because they can and not because they’re interested in teaching you some far-reaching lesson about research.

4. Creativity, ingenuity, perseverance are musts. Because shit just doesn’t work in research. And you’re going to have to spend many sleepless nights figuring out why your shit doesn’t work and how to make it work if you ever want to finish your PhD. There’s no such thing as dropping your doomed project and moving on to something that just might work. Nope. You’re going to spend 3-4 years (or more!) chasing the same pointless project because your PI doesn’t want to admit that his idea was wrong.

5. Be prepared to be wrong. Because you often are. But you’re often not as well. But even then, you still are because you’re just a lowly grad student and even the lab tech knows more than you. So yeah, be prepared to be wrong, even though you very well may be right. And don’t even think about defending yourself because doing so is just going to get you yelled at.

So there you have it from the inside. Do you still think you have what it takes? If so, then good for you! We need more people like you in research. If not, just stick with med school. You’ll get enough abuse there.