The Donald

One of the responsibilities of a graduate student, post-doc or PI is that of mentoring and training new students. It is a valuable and important part of a scientist's training that they not just be able to plan out and perform experiments, but that they should also be able to teach the art to others. If after all a scientist can't explain his work to anyone, what is the use of having done even a single experiment? I feel that knowledge is really only valuable if it is shared, if you found the cure for cancer but never bothered to tell anyone then who cares?

I have, to date, directly mentored nine students and have had a couple of great experiences, many good ones, and a couple of bad ones. But I have never had a horrible, heart-wrenching, pull-your-hair-out, drive-you-to drink one. Until now, that is. Just over two weeks ago a new student joined the lab and was I was tasked with giving her a project and supervising her while she was here, we will call her Abhira. When Abhira arrived in lab I immediately sat down with her and explained to her that I was not familiar with her educational background so if I was going either too fast or too slow in explaining her projects she should not be afraid to tell me and I would make adjustments accordingly. I have found that this disclaimer is important to give as most students are embarrassed to admit that they aren't following so I try to put them at ease right away and tell them that when I first joined a lab I didn't know a petrie plate from a Pasteur pipette so they have no reason to be afraid to ask me anything (though I do of course assume a basic knowledge of biology, like the difference between proteins, DNA, etc.). So after spending quite a bit of time with Abhira on her first day she assured me several times that she understood what I was explaining and that she was comfortable enough to get to work with the flies that I had got started for her and had been collecting for about 2 weeks. Her first task: take the flies from old vials, transfer them into new vials with fresh fly food and return the vials to the rack exactly as they were. I left her to this very simple task and when I checked in on her some time later I found that she was not putting the tubes back in the rack in the proper order and everything was all mixed up which meant that I had to discard around 40% of the flies that I had spent the last 2 weeks collecting and caring for. Aughhhhh! I was very cool and calm and explained to her that she clearly hadn't understood what I had told her so in the future if she has any doubts she should just ask me and I would be happy to clarify. I gave her several pertinent journal articles and a book on fly husbandry and genetics and asked that she do the reading to get up to speed and also continue practicing a technique that I had taught her that would be required for her experiments. A few days later I sat down with Abhira again to discuss her project only to discover that she either hadn't read or comprehended anything that I had given her. She insisted that she had in fact read and understood all of it, but after quizzing her briefly I found that this couldn't possibly be the case. When I asked her what type of experiments were done in one of the papers which she swore she read and understood she told me that they did blah, blah and blah in flies. I told her that couldn't be true as the researchers who published this article don't even use flies in their experiments. Lied to yet again. I asked her to describe to me each of her three projects that she was working on in lab and she couldn't even cover one. And when I asked her to tell me the genotypes of her flies she not only couldn't tell me what, for sure, they were, but she would actually make things up, I guess hoping that I also wouldn't know what I had given her! Additionally, when she was stumped, instead of saying she wasn't sure or didn't know she would just sit there silently and stare at the paper as if the answer would magically appear on it if only she could stare at it long or intently enough. I thought to myself that I would just sit there and see how long she could silently stare at the paper before simply saying, "I don't know" but I got bored after a couple of minutes and had to speak up. Aughhhhhh! So after this disastrous meeting I told her that she had the entire weekend to read up as I had already told her to do and on Monday or Tuesday we would meet with the head honcho Gaiti (I had privately met with Gaiti and told her of my difficulties with this student and asked that she provide a second opinion in case I was being overly critical or something). On Tuesday we met and let's just say that it didn't go well. Abhira continued to be absolutely clueless and make up answers if she wasn't sure, for instance, "What chromosome is blah blah, blah on?" "Ughhh (complete blank and desperate look), it is on chromosome 2." "No, it is on the X chromosome." Why not just say I don't know??? Complete and utter torture. I submit that the CIA should incorporate Abhira into any techniques that might be used on suspects in place of water-boarding and other unethical means of acquiring information. Speaking with her has to be worse. Anyway, Gaiti and I again met privately and she suggested that Abhira stay just until the end of the week and continue to practice the technique that I had taught her and perhaps by Friday she might be able to look at a couple of experimental flies instead of just practicing. She, however, misunderstood that she was being dismissed due to her dishonesty and incompetence and thought instead that Gaiti asked her to leave because there wasn't enough time to actually finish her experiments. I decided that she needed to be set straight on this so I met with her yesterday afternoon and explained to her that she had to leave because she had continually lied to me about her understanding and I wouldn't work with someone that I couldn't trust. I also told her that I believed that she didn't understand basic biological concepts because she was unable to grasp very simple things that I was trying to teach her. She was shocked by this and stated that she didn't feel she was lying and since she hadn't worked with a foreigner before maybe that was the reason for the problems that we were having. This is, of course, horse crap since none of the Indian students I know would accept someone lying to them either, and I told her so. But I assured her that it is okay, this was a learning experience for her and that I was sure that she wouldn't make the mistake again and to not get too upset by the situation. I then went on to give her some advice on how she might improve on the technique that she had been practicing and we went back to lab. She then proceeded to completely ignore the advice that I had given to her and do what she thought was best. Nice. I again scolded her and after following my advice things her technique improved a bit. Did I mention that I started having a drink every night when I arrived home to try to relax and get her dullness out of my head?

This morning she arrived and spoke to me again and said she was feeling very bad about all that had happened and I told her it was okay, don't dwell on it, just learn from it and don't repeat the mistake in the future. About an hour later she approached me and told me that she had just used the technique that she had been practicing on MY experimental flies and she was ready to look at them under the microscope. WHAT!!! I asked who had given her permission to take my flies, I had certainly not given her the green light to proceed as I felt she wasn't ready to do the experiment yet. She stammered that she just thought that it would be alright, blah, blah, blah. I asked her to show me which flies she had used and found that she had again screwed things up royally since she didn't bother to think about what it was that she was doing. That was the last straw. Stealing my flies and then screwing it up on top of it all. I told her that she had to leave, there was a bus departing the campus in 45 minutes and she needed to be on it, I was done dealing with her. In the words of The Donald, "You're fired." She stood there looking at me like a stupid cow, with vacant thoughtless eyes and I was so disgusted that I just walked away. She followed me and asked that if she did exactly as I said could she stay and I told her no way, get out, it's done. I have never been so frustrated and troubled by a student and though I am relieved that she is gone, I also feel confused and unsure. Could I have done anything more? Is this my fault in some way? I don't think so but it is still hard to not feel bad about the entire situation. How can The Donald do this so regularly and not feel badly about it? Maybe if I had a couple of billion bucks and really bad hair I would feel better...