chess and the summer of stress.

ok. finally getting around to setting this down: the saga of the SUMMER OF STRESS.

so. basic background story you need to know: i work as a resident doctor with UCSF. now, i've always been happy with the prospect of practicing for the rest of my working life, but lately i thought that might just grow a little bit repetitive - patient after patient, case after case.

thus, i decided to look for some research opportunities. a lot of MDs do research, particularly at reputable university hospitals, and really, it's kind of ideal: science that has a real-life (clinical) application.

summer rolls around, and that's when my schedule frees up a tad bit. i start looking for a lab to join as a fellow. i home in on a lab in UCSF, which does stroke research. awesome doctor, very famous, one of the leading neurosurgeons of the world. so i'm thinking, how awesome would it be to work for him? he's got clout, he's got money, he's got great research going.

so, i approach him. ask him if he would like to take me on, and he says he'll have to test me out first for a month or two. i'm thinking, well, that's one or two months i'll have to essentially work overtime to cover for the time i spend in his lab, since he's not funding me yet, but i figure i have a pretty good shot at getting in.

i say yes. i join the lab on a temporary basis, and start cranking away. and i work HARD. i'm putting in like 10 hours a day at his lab, and that's on top of my other duties. i more or less LIVED at work for two months.

about a month into it, i talk to him about joining the lab permanently. he hems and haws and says, i can't make a decision yet. so i figure, all right. i gotta work harder. so i work HARDER. and now i'm churning out the data of three people, and he needs this data, btw, for a grant proposal.

fast forward a month. now he's got all the data he needs for his grant proposal. he's still not saying anything one way or another, and i'm starting to get antsy -- because if i don't find one this summer, i'll be too busy til next summer, and i only have so many years left in residency. after that, it might get a bit tougher to find a research fellowship at a place as good as UCSF.

so i finally ask him straight-out. he's like, let's talk next week. so i give him ANOTHER week of hard work --

-- and then his ass is like, i'm too busy for an MD research fellow. i'd have to mentor you from scratch, and it wouldn't be fair to you.

BULLSHIT.

what's not fair to me is keeping me on the line for 2 months, getting me to do all his crap work for free, and then telling me no at the end. oh man, i was FURIOUS. i think about it now and i'm steaming out my ears. i've worked with a LOT of famous doctors and professors, and some have been a little more -- er, brusque than others. but this takes the cake, man. i've never worked with anyone who was so utterly disrespectful of his underlings. i just hope i don't end up like him in 20 years.

so anyway. at this point, i'm in a mild panic, because it's now like mid-July and i'm starting from scratch. so i start looking into labs again, and this time i cast a wider net and look at labs down in Stanford too.

i get two possibilities: one very well-funded, youngish lab in UCSF, and another very established lab down at stanford. i weigh my options and i decide the latter lab's the one i wanna go to. better research going on, more interesting to me, more medically relevant, and the people seemed friendlier.

problem was, it's down in stanford. and money's the big problem. if it's in UCSF, i can talk to my program director, wheedle my way into some funding. if it's down in Stanford, there's all sortsa issues with funding and grants and applicable/nonapplicable yaddayadda... bottom line is, funding was VERY much in question.

so at this point, my life became a fucking chess game.

the pieces were:

1) Young PI (principle investigator, i.e. research professor) at UCSF, my backup plan.

2) Program Director, who's not at all obligated to pay for me to run off to Stanford and do research there -- however, he wrote an email in the course of the summer saying he'd be willing to offer a year's funding under the PI of the lab took over.

3) PI at Stanford, the one I wanna get in with.

4) Me.

So what I basically had to do was ascertain that that year's funding was still coming from the PD until the PI at Stanford can take over. Meanwhile, I had to avoid blowing my chances with the backup plan, and thus had to avoid showing him i was essentially looking for another lab. And at the same time, I couldn't make it look like I was going behind his back when all was said and done.

ERGO. Balancing act. Had to maintain enough interesting with #1 to avoid his backing out, while not locking in with him -- which would cause bad feelings if i then backed out. At the same time, had to remind #2 gently of the 1 year of funding WITHOUT asking him (because if I ask, it'd be much easier to say no), while making it clear to #3 that funding was the ONLY thing keeping me from going there so he didn't think I was waffling.

For about a week, it was the most delicate game of emails, phone calls and office visits I have EVER played. In the end, I visited #1 several times with made-up questions to make it seem like I was still trying to decide. Then, fortunately, he took a vacation, and I made my move! (hah)

I wanted to do it in person, because I'm pretty good in person -- but #2's busy as hell, and I figured if I interrupted something important, he'd be annoyed. And if I went away and let him contact me, he might ask about funding first, thus forcing me into a backhanded position where I'd have to admit that the professor didn't have funding -- which then gives him the opening to say "well sorry, we can't fund you either."

CHESS.

So, in the end, I dropped #2 an email essentially telling him I've settled on the Stanford lab, and *thanking* him for the funding. At the same time, I made it clear that without funding, I'd be unable to join that lab, thus backing him into a corner of guilt. Finally, to polish it off, I expressed my extreme gratitude at all his support, yadda, to top the guilt-cake with gratitude-icing.

Then I waited.

BUT HE WAS ON VACATION!

Oh no! Oh man! I almost LOST MY MIND when the autoresponder bounced back. I went to his old buddy, this lady who's very senior and powerful in the department, and basically pleaded my case there. With #2, I couldn't really give the full story -- or rather, couldn't play up the "if I don't get money I don't go" angle, because my angle there was "thanks for giving me the money". But with #2's buddy, I was completely hamming up the pity schtick, while simultaneously giving my best impression of bushy-tailed bright-eyed eager young doctor. The old and embittered docs love that.

So #2's friend sounded pretty positive about the whole thing, and said she'd make sure #2 got back to me soon. Annnnd then I went home, fretful but hopeful.

Not four hours later, I get an email back. Two lines.

"We will fund you for another year. Congratulations on finding a good fit."

...oh man.

Went home that night? Slept 13 hours. I hadn't even realized I was so exhausted. Slept like a BABY.

I swear, this summer has taught me so much. I think my parents have been trying to teach me this all my life, but I finally figured it out for myself:

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CONNECTIONS AND THE POLITICAL GAMES.

it's so fucking disillusioning, sorta. heh. i mean, it's not about brilliance and hard work at all. or it is? but in a place like ucsf or stanford, everyone's brilliant. everyone works hard. so you get ahead by under-the-table shoo-ins and connections and that extra smile in the hallway, that extra office visit when it counts.

ah well. welcome to life, eh?