Clinician-Researcher

The clinician-researcher path

Spot on...extremely long years of training, for me... 6 years of medical school, 4 years of specialist training, and now 2+ years of research training (& to continue with 1 year of subspecialty training???)... I am too tired now, after all these....... not sure how the future in this path looks on...it looks pretty bleak at the moment.....my SVs are very subtle, but when they started hinting that "The worst thing can happen is when you realize there is something that should have been done 3 years ago", "There is interesting paper that you write, but if you send it right now, it will be rejected and criticized, and worst still if accepted, it will be criticized", "What you lack is the driving force, but on the other hand I think you are driving it in your quiet Malaysian way" How should I feel hearing this, after I have been working really hard on it, to the point of neglecting my family? Am I paranoid? It crushed the very essence of my motivation. Why now, why not before? Why this, after they have rated me 'outstanding' during all the previous PhD review? Adakah itu hanya diberi utk memastikan saya meneruskan pengajian utk membantu mereka menjalankan kajian itu (sebelum ini saya menjalani kajian itu seakan berseorangan). Kemudian apabila kajian itu habis, mereka tidak memerlukan saya lagi? Perasaan ini dikuatkan lagi apabila mereka berkata utk mengklonkan saya utk menjalan kajian lain di masa akan datang...

Point of no return

Point of no return, must go forward no matter how big is the obstacle.......thinking back, why do I venture into this path? I am at the lower side of mood....after a month of hard work scattered to ashes...ashes to ashes...hu hu....must remember it is a learning process.......but the demotivation is hard to accept, and I keep questioning myself again, can I continue with this, am I able to perform....maybe it is not my cup of tea, but it is too late now to withdraw, too much has already been at stake.......I must go forward.......I have invested time, money (although I am fully supported in this), and the most important thing is sacrificing my clinical experience for this, I must go forward....forward is the only way.......Ya ALlah, assist me in this, ameen

My new sanctuary

The neverending PhD saga...

Past: Literature review, hypothesis forming, data collection, retrospective data collection & analysis, journal writing and publication.
Present: Updating literature review, converting journal publications to thesis chapters, cleaning of data (2 major studies), exporting data & analysing them....
Future: Obtaining results and conclusion, defending them, writing them up for journal and thesis chapters, final conclusion of thesis...and hopefully submission.
Another 12 months to go....panic mode!!!

Panic Mode

Panic and nervous mode....how time flies. My literature review is due this coming May, but I am still totally unsatisfied with my work....

Thesis writing versus journal writing

I found it extremely difficult to concentrate on reading one journal, let alone writing the whole chapter of literature review. This is totally different compared to journal writing, as for journal writing it is short and concise. I would only concentrate on the introduction and discussion part, as the methodology and result is well taken care of with my analysis. Introduction is simple, as it outlined the aim of our analysis, and discussion looks at the current literature pertaining to the topic, and discuss our finding. Much more simpler than literature review! Because of the vast interest in the area that I am working on, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of literatures that comes out over the past 2 years. Even to read one journal took me more than 1 day (as I do not have the ability to concentrate).........now I am at loss. Don't know how can I cope with completing this chapter. Furthermore, two of the hypothesis that I would like to test in the coming trials had recently being published by other investigators.......even one chapter that I have recently published also has been recently described by other author......how can I contribute significantly to this field then? Have this phd journey trained me to become independent researcher? Or am I too dependent upon my supervisor? These questions continue to pop up in my mind...albeit the positive feedback that I received, I am constantly questioning myself. Is there light at the end of this tunnel? Yakin and tawakal to Allah swt is my only pegangan....

Looking Back

2 years on, with 1 year anniversary of no access to university building due to the earthquake.

I must have achieved something within these 2 years...if not i may have wasted all the time and money spent.
I need to list down the new skills that I acquired, at least in term of computer software skills that I have sort of mastered...
So let's see what software they are
1. Microsoft Word: I thought I knew it all, but how wrong am I
2. Microsoft Excel: am loving it each day, seeing its capability
3. FileMaker Pro: learnt it from scratch, developed 3 databases, alhamdulillah I am comfortable with it
4. GraphPad Prism: this produces excellent graph. Still learning ways to manouvre it to produce some theoretical graphs.
5. Omnigraffle: this produces excellent flow charts and diagrams
6. SPSS: again thought I knew it all, but how wrong am I. Easily produce several statistical analysis, but the graph is poor.
7. EndNote: still using this as my main bibliography rather than using papers2 because of my library that already has about 1000 papers, but this does not mean I have read it all
8. Papers: am loving this each day, especially for its capability to sync with my iPad
9. Dropbox: since the earthquake, I have started using this extensively...still remember that is the first item I grabbed before evacuating our building was my pen drive, can't imagine if I have lost it...hence, since that I have been using Dropbox extensively.
10. MatLab: another powerful statistical software that I would like to master, am still learning it. InsyaAllah. Probably LabView if time permits.

Not bad eh.....alhamdulillah...but the most important skills that I have yet, and still continuing to grasp include:
(1) research thinking: abstract thinking...to question everything, and not to just accept everything at its face value.
(2) soft skill: how to interact with your supervisor, colleagues, clinicians, nurses, patients, relatives, lab personnel, university personnel
(3) laboratory skill: very minimal, but I have learnt how to set up clinical trial, and how to run it smoothly
(4) writing skill: have learnt a lot from my supervisors
(5) presentation skill: 7 to 8 presentations within these 2 years
(6) statistical analysis skill: again learnt a lot from my supervisors
(7) time management skill: this one I think, I failed miserably...especially after working from home, but thinking back not sure if I am effective when working from office a year back...

But what I missed? CLINICAL skill.....hope to relearn back after I got back...but considering all the above, this is minimal price to pay....once an anaesthetist, will always be an anaesthetist...hope my 10 years experience doing anesthesia will help, amen

Apart from the above, I have also gained the opportunity to learn more about Islam, to be more aware about my religion.
I have been blessed by Allah with the opportunity to attend the Quranic Tafseer class, the Quranic tajweed class, and interact with few religious people to gain more knowledge about Islam, alhamdulillah. Khadijah also got to attend hafazan class, she had already memorized 24 surahs within these 3 months time. She has also acquired love for reading, and accumulates lots of book, especially her Stilton series books....alhamdulillah ya Allah. You have shown me that this is the best pathway for me, forgive me if there's any elements of doubt within myself....