Beauty in Science

Well, this is awkward. Perhaps, because I recently changed jobs and the new one is with a very specific timeline and plan in place (it’s designed that way). A day in my current life is still figuring out what the routine could/should/might be. I can talk a little about my old job, and my industry in general.

So, I’m a scientist. Level? Changing. Industry sub-pocket? Also changing. My old job was in a non-profit tissue engineering research and development laboratory. It was good for a while, and then great, and then not-so great. I’m not an engineer by training, or by trade. I’m a pharmacologist, which is a heavily interdisciplinary and translational discipline – enough for me to be able to develop assays and transplantable bone grafts.

When it was just good, I was young and naïve, and hadn’t been promoted yet. I was working full-time in the lab and working on my MBA part-time and the job consisted of performing assays and collecting experimental data to support product development when the projects had a lead that was not me. It was pretty low pressure and allowed me to forget about the day and move onto school during the evening, then pick up the next day as if nothing had happened – routine and mundane. I was in charge of my schedule and the only goal was to get as much done as possible, within the 40 hour workweek.

I rarely took vacation time and instead saved it up to stay overseas for 2 months and had dreams of leaving to do a fellowship in healthcare administration. This did not happen, as I started to develop assays rather than simply run them, including training other people on developed protocols. This went straight into product development, which was non-stop for a while – prototyping, feedback, and back to the drawing board, until scale-up, production, testing, and approvals. That was the part that was great – I was free to explore and create at-will, and I was willful.

It was non-stop. The work was challenging and the goals were exciting – a new product on the market, all my design? Absolutely. Then it changed to not-so great, in part due to changing leadership but also an overextended schedule trying to get my PhD while working full-time. Balancing both fields and vastly different thought patterns was enough to give me splitting migraines and want a lobotomy. I did my best to reduce my overall stress – starting at home. Over time, I felt unchallenged and caged in my position, but not in my industry.

I love what I do in medical research. It’s so vast – the approaches, the diseases, the systems. I left to continue in research and development, to stay curious and challenged, to continue solving problems that make people healthier, better, stronger. I was able to impact so many people indirectly by creating transplants. Now that I’ve had that experience in my repertoire, I know that my current opportunity and future ones will be similar in intention but hopefully impact many more people.

I hope to meet great mentors, and advocate for myself in pursuing opportunities. People that hold me accountable and keep me honest. I hope to always be learning and growing as a person and as a professional. I love the weird stuff, the cutting edge things. Currently working on expanding my business skills so that I can be an entrepreneur rather than an academician or subject to the fancies of a large company.

Most of us lose that feeling when we’re young – that feeling like we can change the world. I still have it, and I am determined.