On Being a PI

7/23/2019 On Being a PI

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On Being a PI (Book Review---At the

Helm)

(This is a book review I recently published on a forum.)

Scientists are notorious for being unable to say No! and are very

poor managers of their (limited) time. This leads progressively to an

over-burdened, over-worked, harassed and distracted individual who

has no time for lab or family. (Caveman 2000)

1. The missing training with a well-trained scientist

So far I have recruited four undergrads who volunteered to work for

8-10 hours per week in my presently-empty lab. During interviews I

told them, You set your own schedule, but once youve decided on
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it, please try to stick to it. Youre welcome to bring homework to the

lab if there isnt much to do. Having flexible hours is one of the

biggest advantages of working in academia. The reason for me to be

strict came from past experience working in my advisors labs. That

is, for unpaid undergrads, except a few highly motivated, once they

are used to not showing up, youll see them less and less often over

time.

This is one example of what new PIs do---they make decisions and

establish styles based on previous observations of what have or have

not worked for their advisors. With extensive training in almost

every aspect of academia, they have never been trained on how to be

a PI. Although replicating the labs they have worked in can be an

effective strategy in some situations, sooner or later they will run

into challenges, because they are in a new institution, with different

student qualities, and most importantly, what have been proven to be

golden doctrines in an established lab with an experienced PI may

fail a starter.

This book focuses on all kinds of issues that are likely to be

encountered in the early stage of a PIs career. I especially

appreciate the fact that the opinions are not from a single source. For


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most of the topics that are covered, the author, Kathy Barker, has

interviewed dozens of successful PIs throughout the country. Some

of the arguments are contradictory to one another, because there isnt

supposed to be a universal answer. Given your skills, personality,

and the environment, you choose your style and come up with your

own solutions. As mentioned above, beginners tend to imagine there

is an ideal way of surviving every situation, and they often resort to

memories of their mentors. With the many options listed in the book,

you may gain more freedom when designing your career, and the

author tries not to make judgments on your preferences. There are

questions with no answers, just to bring up your attention on the

issues. Even if you have no idea what you would do facing those

situations, learning the questions in advance can be a great help.

There are occasions when you have to rush, but more than often,

composure is what people want the most from their leader. (The

Starlight Fortress)

Note that this isnt a book that is meant to please you, i.e., to make

you feel good about yourself (nor is the career as a PI in general, to

be fair). It will point out mistakes you have made, and may even

forecast the regrets you are going to have later according to others

experience. You will read about issues you wish youd never run


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into in your entire career, but bear in mind that the intention of the

book is to be preventive; living through an imagined crisis is, after

all, easier than handling it in real life. In the worst case when things

do happen, it can be comforting to know that you arent the sole

individual in the world who is suffering from an imprudent hire, or

crying over the permanent loss of experimental data.

2. The guts to say No

Recently someone on this forum complained about being frequently

occupied with various administrative duties and left with only

scattered time slots for research. We really cant afford that to

happen! A PI should never grant others the right to take charge of his

schedule. I work at an institution where everyone uses Google

Calendar that allows colleagues or students to see one anothers

schedules (they know youll be busy at a certain time without

knowing the exact details). Its easy for people to assume that, for

any blank period on your calendar, youll be available at that time

and they can just pop up or send you a Calendar Invitation to

schedule something. A colleague once shared his schedule with me,

and I saw that he even put down 12 pm, lunch on every single day!

Poor guy, I thought.


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A request can be difficult to decline if we indeed have an open slot,

not one with which we forgot to note an event. However, having

nothing scheduled does not mean you are obligated to fulfill

someones request. Especially if that chunk of time has been

intended for you to read papers or write grants or visit your lab, its

actually not an open time slot and you should say no. Find another

time, and if the meeting doesnt demand much thinking, find a time

with which you cant do intellectual things anyway. If we cant

control our own time, how are we going to be the masters of our

labs?

Speaking of time management, we all have some ideas about

priorities, about sticking to our plans, but why do we still struggle

for more time to do what we really want to do? The book categorizes

a PIs common activities into four categories.

1) Urgent and important, such as grant deadlines, personal (e.g.,

health) or professional (e.g., tenure) crises, equipment problems

(e.g., broken machines).

2) Not urgent but important, such as reading papers, lab meetings,

thinking and planning.


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3) Urgent but not important, such as certain phone calls or mails,

administrative meetings or duties.

4) Not urgent and not important, which can include a lot of things.

We admit that urgent and important things (Cat-A, grants, etc) have

to be dealt with seriously in a timely manner. We dont ignore

urgent but unimportant duties (Cat-C, meetings, etc.), however

reluctant or resentful we might be in carrying out the tasks. What

matters is that, with only that many hours every day, plans that are

important but time insensitive (Cat-B, reading papers, etc.) often get

pushed aside. Sometimes Cat-B can even yield to Cat-D, such as

sitting on meaningless committees or listening to gossips, mainly

because we are unable to say no (another reason may be that Cat-B

doesnt pay off immediately). You could argue that we arent

machines; what the fun of life is if we arent allowed to relax. Thats

absolutely true when you have the leisure to dissipate, but not when

little time is left for research.

We have probably all met a few businessmen-typed PIs. If you ask

them about their current schedule, they have meetings every day,

and two incoming grant deadlines. Check back two months later,

the same thing. This may work for a senior PI whose lab has several


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postdocs or scientists, each being responsible for his own project,

attending conferences and keeping up with literature. In other words,

the PI has well-trained people who are doing the Cat-B for him, and

all he needs to do is pay for the publications. For a new PI with at

most a technician and a few students who count on him to write

programs and papers for them, this can be suicidal. Under the current

funding situation, we are often advised to keep sending proposals

out. Well, yes and no. Why should any organization fund you if

you no longer advance in science?

The book especially urges beginner PIs to spend adequate time

thinking and planning. It can be tormenting not to have publishable

data for the first year or two, and the quickest way to circumvent the

problem is continue on your previous projects---to tie up loose

ends, to bolster earlier conclusions with still more evidence, and to

explore side issues (Vermeij 1997). Different opinions are offered

here. Some think that having a productive project as soon as possible

is all that matters; you can always explore new ideas later. Others

caution on this strategy because once you have something going,

you are less willing to take a risk in a new area that may involve

investments in new equipment and endless trial and error.


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Whichever path you adopt, be sure to think carefully and dont rush

into actions. I once came across a quote related to novel writing.

One of the problems we have as writers is we don't take ourselves

seriously while writing; being serious is setting aside a time and

saying if it comes, good; if it doesnt come, good, Ill just sit here.

(Maya Angelou) So instead of putting down 12 pm, lunch on my

calendar, I have reserved a whole afternoon every week marked with

Cat-B. Ill go all the way to protect that sacred time, and if on a

particular day, for some reason, I couldnt read papers or write

computer programs or create research plans, Ill just sit there.

Note that sometimes we have to say no to offers that appear to be

attractive but do not essentially agree with our best interest. After I

had recruited the undergrads, I was called for a meeting with the

Director of the Graduate Program in our college. He encouraged me

to take a couple of Masters students by promising full tuition

coverage. Had I not read the book, I might have considered it. At the

moment I have enough to worry about my own future. The last thing

I want is the responsibility of another persons future. I dont feel

too bad to engage the undergrads in cleaning and shelving, but I

would be sleep-deprived knowing that, in a year or two, the Masters

students will need something for their theses. On this forum we have


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also read stories about the regrets a PI can have by taking Ph.D.

students that have been offered for free. After spendinga

tremendous amount of time and energy in training a student, a PI

may end up in a fruitless mentorship. The frustration to both the PI

and the student can be painful, although it may bring excitement to

other lab members as they speculate Is he going tofire her?

All right, there is a fine line between selling a book and pirating its

content, and I should probably stop here. If I have to give a negative

comment, Id say that the arrangement of the topics can be

improved. For example, the section on Working with a Secretary /

Administrative Assistant appears quite early in the book. Maybe its

just my field, but Ive never met a PI who has the luxury of hiring a

full-time secretary to work solely for him. When fifty pages later I

saw the prudence one needs to have in evaluating candidates, I had

already finished my hiring process.

A final message. Its not rare to come across negative or passive

attitudes from PIs on this forum, evidenced by complaints of losing

interests in research, or statements that being a PI is just another job

to pay the bills. There can be various reasons for it to happen (some

are listed in the book), but I hope people realize that it is to their own


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benefit to stay motivated with their projects, because research is

more productive if we genuinely care about it, and life is more

gratifying when we feel proud of what we do (this applies to any

type of job). Off topic here, over the years Ive noticed a trend of

devalulization (I know this isnt a real word) among certain

Chinese, here and in China, towards arts, science, and faith. Does it

look smart or cool if a person appears to care nothing about spiritual

things, I wonder. But its a personal choice. To me, being a PI is

about enjoying the fun of science despite funding pressures, setting

realistic goals without forgoing your wildest dreams, hanging on a

little longer after others have all quit.

About being yourself and yourself alone.

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On Being a PI