Things have been changing lately at work and it feels like someone has pulled the rug out from under me.
Looking back on how far I’ve come over the past year, my foray into research finally seemed to hit its stride since transferring to a new hospital.
Certainly unnerving at first as with all transitions but all the surprises were rather pleasant.
And I think the greatest gift was meeting a mentor who encouraged me to show my work.
No matter how “amateur” the quality of the work was.
It was his empowerment that I published my first scientific poster at a stroke conference in late 2023.
Others had their opinions:
- “Posters are easy. And low quality. Run a batch of logistic regressions and adjust them till you get a significant p-value.”
- “They’ll accept whatever poster you publish because the organizers don’t even have enough abstract submissions.”
- “With over a hundred posters on display, probably no one really cares about what you’re going to say.”
Those are the people who never published a poster before.
I must say that they are 99.9% correct.
The poster that I published was not built on a solid understanding of the existing literature, was not statistically sound, and probably will not contribute much to the medical community.
Yet those were the precise lessons I’ve learned by publishing an amateur-quality poster.
And those were the aspects that I know I will improve on in my next poster.
Seeing my mentor going at it conference after conference, despite the comments, was an inspiration in itself.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,
Because there is not effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;
Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…”
Daring to show up, to show myself, and to show my work was the most memorable mark my mentor has left on my endeavor into research.
He’s moved on to the next stage of his career since 2 weeks ago.
I feel thrilled for him.
I also feel lost after losing a mentor like him.