Projects

The reality of my projects has been called into question--recently, but also on many prior occasions--and, as a more-or-less recently retired professor, I am here to defend them.

In academics, as in life, projects can take many forms. For me and many others in biomedical research, the classic pattern has been: 1) develop an idea; 2) do some preliminary research at little or no cost; 3) if the idea seems to have some support, try to get funding to do a larger-scale study; 4) publish the results; 5) iterate steps 3 and 4 for as long as possible, perhaps an entire career.

For the record, you can see how this looks in my case by clicking here. The number of publications is less important than the number of citations, which indicate that someone has read your paper and thinks that the research that they have done is in some way indebted to the previous work described in your paper. They may disagree vehemently with your conclusions, but they can't ignore your work. Scientific consensus arises from scientific argument; nothing gets you ahead in your career faster than disagreeing with the conventional wisdom and actually being right. Actually, "faster" isn't the right adjective. "Farther" is better. Lister, Mendel, Gallileo, McClintock, and many others did not achieve success in the short term. (The trick is that the conventional wisdom in science is very often right.)

I've started, finished, and contributed to all kinds of scientific projects over the years, ranging from assessments of the degree to which fallout from nuclear weapons testing caused cancer and other diseases in Utahns living downwind, to (many) studies of the utility of family history as a predictor of disease risk, to studies of molecular markers of aging . . . and numerous other projects inspired by collaborations with physicians, fellows, and students over the years.

The majority of projects don't get past step 1 or 2, but that doesn't mean they don't have merit. In fact, the early stages of putting together ideas and data, doing preliminary statistical analysis and seeing early results is usually more fun and rewarding than writing up papers for publication, preparing grant proposals, and even getting an award and making the dream project a reality.

At present, Liz and I are working on preliminary data and writing up results for several projects that have been or will be turned into grant proposals. We're doing this pro bono, which gives us the freedom to pick our spots and keep our priorities straight.

Of course I've had lots of projects over the years that didn't have anything much to do science: co-raising children, managing finances, house and yard maintenance, travel, pointless tinkering with electronics and software, etc.

Being a cancer patient is also a project--make no mistake: there are daily, weekly, monthly, and annual cycles of medications, blood tests, X-rays, and consultations. Every month requires a new prescription, a telephone order complete with nurse consultation, a check of the insurance status for said order, and a consideration of any travel plans for the next month, since a street address and delivery signature are required. The process is not especially hard or complicated, but it is always front and center and cannot be ignored.

And then, sometimes, I write about my experiences and associated thoughts. At Christmas I took all the posts from the beginning of this blog and formatted them into a book, to give to my mother and others who weren't going to be reading blog posts. The result was a slender volume of about 100 pages--not monumental, to be sure, but a satisfyingly tactile indicator of having done something.

Dog raising is another project. I'm pretty sure that it becomes less of a project as your dog becomes better trained. Suffice it to say that Sunny is still a small dog, but a big project.

And we've added a new project/family member: a tiny teardrop trailer ready for road trips. Mostly it won't require much work on our part, but I will need to improve my trailer-backing skills.