(I wrote this article for "The Postdoc Press (Issue 3)", a proud publication from the MUSC Postdoctoral Association)
Postdoctoral researcher is not just a
revered title; it is an opportunity to envision things that never existed
before. The data produced by a Postdoc (PD) plays a crucial role directly or
indirectly for the advancement of science and technology, understand disease
conditions and its treatment, support the intellectual strength and infrastructure
of institutions, increase the influx of grant support which in turn helps
recruit more lab personnel, handle lab finances, publish papers that puts the
entire lab in spotlight, and build alliances and intellectual bridges between
institutions. While there are cases where a successful PD experience results in
a lucrative career, there are several instances where PDs unwittingly become an
‘academic slave’. This article carefully scrutinizes what the definition of PD
means in a real world, what more a PD have to do in addition to producing data,
responsibilities of institutions, funding agencies and the nation to restore
the significance of a PD career.
To begin with, the January 29 (2007)
letter written by Dr. Norka Ruiz Bravo and Dr. Kathie L. Olsen proclaimed the
definition of a PD as follows: “an individual who has received a doctoral degree
(or equivalent) and is engaged in a temporary and defined period of
mentored advanced training to enhance the professional skills and research
independence needed to pursue his or her chosen career path”.
Now, a postmortem analysis. Gone are the days where the word temporary period
used to mean 2 or 3 years, but now this number spikes to 5 or beyond. There are
several occasions where a 5-year PD training was marked as the upper limit (for
example, to obtain a K99/R00 grant), but NIH/NSF fails to openly state this. Because
of this, several institutions (and PIs to some extent) exploit PDs as a ‘cheap
labor’ to beef-up their infrastructure. These days it is becoming increasingly
common to see PDs beyond 5 years. If a PD career is considered a training
period, then NIH/NSF must openly declare in its definition what the maximum
length of the training period should be. Carefully avoiding this will result in
more ‘victim’ PDs.
Let’s inspect the phrase ‘enhance the professional skills and research
independence’. In labs, it is expected of any PD to produce more data and there
is nothing wrong with that. What is not right these days is a lot of PDs are
trained ‘only’ to produce data and not to worry so much about the future of the
data or even about themselves. These doctorates know to create things that
never existed before, provide scientific reasoning to complex phenomenon, troubleshoot
state-of-the-art machines and publish papers, but they passively accept their
bondage to labs and lack requisite skills to take a quantum leap upward. In
short, a Humanoid in disguise!
The professional skills that are required in the present era includes –
but not limited to – research ethics, grant writing, teaching, speaking & writing,
business and negotiation, lab management. Because crafting technical skills to
produce more data was assigned the top priority of most labs today and
activities that promote obtaining independent funding are usually restricted to
reputed institutions and that too in few labs, PDs find little room to increase
the breadth of professional skills or the depth of research independence. The initiatives taken by Postdoctoral
associations across the nation to care for their peers are quite laudable. Since
these associations are run by volunteer doctorates whose fulltime job is to
engage in research, a more organized approach involving PIs and the
institutions that foster continuous learning, improve communication and
networking skills could play a vital role to fill the paucity of professional
skills that the PDs lack. It must be made clear that producing more data is not
an indicator of possessing professional skills.
Somehow in this practical world, knowingly or unknowingly, the very
basic definition of a PD meant differently to different institutions, and it is
about time NIH and NSF come forward to do something before the damage gets
worse. To begin with, PDs should be recognized with a status, an open
assessment and evaluation, NIH-standardized minimum salary, benefits, and help transit
to regular career positions after 5-years, etc. Whenever key decisions are
taken at the national level, at least 100 PD representatives (not from the NPA)
must sit at the table to give their inputs. Because more science funding is the
real solution, the institution should stop underpaying PDs and should look at
their elected officials and demand that science be better supported.
Critics, who once passionately conducted academic research for the love
of knowledge, today discourage anyone pursuing a PD career because they feel
the system is antiquated and failed to fulfill its purpose. They were partially
right because some of the concerns PDs face in most institutions today did not
happen overnight, but are present quite some time. Concerted efforts involving PIs, academic institutions (especially the Human Resources division), funding bodies, governments and current PDs to improve the overall PD experience is the need of the hour. Otherwise, the humanoids will engender more humanoids!
