Finding Your Way in Science

Lem Moyé

Description

Character sabbaticals that allow you to extract yourself from your environment to actively consider your station in life are among the simplest and most illuminating times in your life.
Finding Your Way In Science 2nd edition, lays out for the scientist the principles that can produce and sustain the character growth that guides the development of the scientific professional.
The central thesis of Finding Your Way in Science is that the relentless pursuit of productivity is not a worthy career goal for the junior scientist. While productivity is and will be a fundamental attribute of the professional, there are other core themes that must be allowed to develop, appear, and exert their influences as well. The presence of self-control and patience, of moral excellence and compassion, of discipline and flexibility are as critical to the development of the junior scientist as is the acquisition of technical skills. The presence of these traits engenders collegiality, persuasive strength, responsibility, administrative diligence, influence, and vision, i.e. the qualities of charitable leadership. Each of the topics in this book is discussed with the goal of not just imparting tactical advice to the investigator, but as part of the general theme that the investigator must develop their professional character in parallel with their productivity record. Like the apples of gold in settings of silver, good character and productivity must go together to develop strong scientists.
The audience for this book is broad in scope. It is written at a level for all advanced graduate students, post doctoral researchers, and scientists. It is applicable to all scientific fields, and to researchers in industry, government, and academic institutions.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Développement personnel
• développement personnel
• Self-help
• Inspirational
• Motivational

Informations

• Publié par: Trafford Publishing
• Date de parution: 18 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781698713434
• Langue: English

Extrait

Finding Your Way in Science
 
How to combine character, compassion and productivity in your research career
 
Second Edition
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lem Moyé
 
© Copyright 2022 Lem Moyé. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6987-1342-7 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-6987-1344-1 (hc) ISBN: 978-1-6987-1343-4 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022920710
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
Trafford rev.  11/11/2022
www.trafford.com North America & international toll-free: 844-688-6899 (USA & Canada) fax: [phone]
 
Other books by Lem Moyé
• Statistical Reasoning in Medicine: The Intuitive P–Value Pr imer
• Difference Equations with Public Health Applications (with Asha S. Kapadia)
• Multiple Analyses in Clinical Trials: Fundamentals for Investiga tors
• Finding Your Way in Science: How You Can Combine Character, Compassion, and Productivity in Your Research Ca reer
• Probability and Statistical Inference: Applications, Computations, and Solutions (with Asha S. Kapadia and Wen Chan)
• Statistical Monitoring of Clinical Trials: Fundamentals for Investiga tors
• Statistical Reasoning in Medicine: The Intuitive P-Value Primer Second Edi tion
• Face to Face with Katrina’s Survivors: A First Responder’s Tri bute
• Elementary Bayesian Biostatis tics
• Saving Grace—A N ovel
• Weighing the Evidence: Duality, Set, and Measure Theory in Clinical Rese arch
• Probability and Measure in Public He alth
• Catching Cold—Volume 1: Breakthr ough
• Catching Cold—Volume 2: Redemp tion
 
Lem Moyé
 
 
 
Finding Your Way in Sci ence
How You Can Combine Chara cter,
Compassion, and Productivity in Your
Research Ca reer
Second Edi tion
 
Lem Moyé
5671 S Wayne
Chandler AZ 85249
USA
LemMoye@PrincipalEvidence .com
https://Principal-evidence .com
Instagram: principalevid ence
 
To Dixie and the D ELTS
Preface to The First Edition
If you’re a graduate student near the completion of your training, a scientist with both feet firmly set on the bottom rung of your career ladder ready to step up, or a midcareer researcher questioning the meaning of your routine work week, then I want your attention.
As a young man enrolled in college in the early 1970s, I believed that the combination of (1) a good education in science, (2) natural talent, and (3) consistent hard work was all I’d need for professional success. This trifecta would serve as the collision-avoidance system of my career aircraft, flawlessly autopiloting around dangerous objects.
The preprogramming failed as overwork slammed me into one catastrophe after another; and with no sense of purpose and balance, I rammed into the mountains of dissatisfaction, divorce, and disillusionment. While I have overcome much of the damage from these accidents, I am often reminded of the visionless efforts that haunted these early despondent days.
The interminable rain of uninspiring and exhausting activity can drench the junior scientist’s early enthusiasm. At first, opportunities abound, and the young researcher plunges in, full speed ahead. Before long, the combined assault of unwavering workloads, exhausting teaching schedules, towering task lists, and miserly pay erodes the researcher’s initial zeal. Drained, disoriented, and unable to cope, the scientist begins to withdraw the best of themselves from their work and action that can be professionally and spiritually destructive.
Your experiences during this germinal stage of your career shape your future. For right now, you cannot change the system. However, you can change yourself, moderating the system’s destabilizing influence on first you then much later on others who look to you for support and guidance.
Just as today’s critical scientific issues are decided by scientists who were once junior workers (afflicted with the concerns and insecurities that you now feel), it is only a matter of time until you yourself play a pivotal role in shaping the impact of science on society. That time is coming for you, like tomorrow’s sunrise. When it arrives, you must be ready, meeting it head-on not just with scientific knowledge, but also with strength and wisdom, compassion and vision.
Although character growth is as essential as productivity to the development of the modern scientist, I have keenly felt the absence of a tract written by modern scientists about the role of character and personality in the professional researcher’s development. The occasional inevitable missteps that have punctuated my early career had their roots not in some scientific miscalculation but in a neglected character defect. A new sense of value and good judgment, always challenged, but perpetually reaffirmed, along with a set of useful coping skills rejuvenated my career—the acquisition of these traits is the focus of this book.
Lem A. Moyé
University of Texas
School of Public Health
June 2008
Preface to The Second Edition
So here we are, now twelve years after my 2008 edition of Finding Your Way in Science: How to Combine Character, Compassion, and Productivity in Your Research Career. What has changed that requires an update.
Two things.
I have, and everything else has.
Since the 2008 edition, I hurdled through a twelve-year NHLBI-funded projects in cell therapy research, becoming team leader of a national coordinating center. That gave me new insight into leadership.
Frankly, I was thrown into circumstances for which I wasn’t prepared and, despite my best effort, lack sufficient coping skills. I had to understand how to both learn and engage simultaneously. I and my team made mistakes. I learned how to take responsibility clearly and unhesitatingly. We had both national and international critics whose arguments had to be addressed. Although I learned to build consensus, I also learned lessons that I did not anticipate.
Now, having been retired for four years, I have had time to reflect on my experiences. The Russians have a saying commonly quoted by Stalin: “Whoever looks backwards should have their eyes torn out.” Looking back has value only if it can be applied to the future.
The second thing that has changed is everything else. We live in a world with more human beings facing existential, political, zoological, nuclear, and climate threats. Finally, good people are under attack in our time. Public health authorities are spat upon and assaulted. Community leaders with public health mandates are shouted down at meetings. National science leaders are ridiculed. We will put ourselves in the shoes of these people and talk about a strategy that they can employ that combines genuine humility (being completely unafraid of the consequences to themselves) and directness.
So there is much to discuss in this second edition. Think of it as a harrowing roller coaster ride in which Schubert’s “Ave Maria” is piped through your headset. It is either scary or comforting. It’s up to you.
Lem A. Moyé
Chandler, AZ
November, 2022
Acknowledgments
I have had the opportunity, privilege, and pleasure to work with many junior investigators. Their kinetic questions have energized me, and their intellectual challenges have provided critical illumination as I have walked my own career path. Both their and my trajectories have been altered in the course of our interactions.
I am overdue in acknowledging Jerry Abramson, PhD, and Viola Mae Young, PhD, who have long since retired from the Baltimore Cancer Research Center. These two scientists were the first researchers with whom I worked side by side, and the combination of scientific rigor and compassion I absorbed from them still resonates.
Many have contributed to the content of the book by either inspiring it or by taking time from their schedules to comment upon and criticize its early drafts. Dr. Craig Hanis and Dr. Susan Day provided important advice about the utility of subcontracts for the junior scientist. Heather Lyons, Dr. Sarah Baraniuk, Dr. Wendy Nembhart, and Dr. Sharon Johnatty were especially helpful in their suggestions, convincing me to include important material that I initially did not consider. If the text is instructive and serves you well, then these hard-working young scientists have earned a full measure of the credit. Any problems, misstatements, or inaccuracies in the text’s content are mine and mine alone.
These last years, my project managers Shelly Sayre, Rachel Neave, Judy Bettencourt, and Michelle Cohen faced what we believed were towering ethical challenges. These situations excited emotional responses and cerebral ones, and we worked together to not exclude, but integrate the two. Commonly, our own personal beliefs were disparate across our group and we had to integrate those as well.
Finally, my dearest thanks go to Dixie, my wife, on whose personality, character, love, and common sense I have come to rely, and to my daughters, Flora and Bella, whose continued emotional and spiritual g