Raymond Clark never wanted to be a postdoctoral fellow. Now, as a leader in the US National Postdoctoral Association (NPA), he listens to postdocs' concerns to try to change what many believe to be a flawed system.
After receiving his PhD in physiology from Idaho State University, Clark envisaged teaching and conducting research at an undergraduate-only institution. He didn't want graduate students. He didn't want to worry about pursuing grants. As a doctoral student, he'd had lots of independence and ample teaching experience. He'd served on university committees, and advised undergraduate and master's students. By the time he finished his degree, he felt ready to step into a faculty role. "I did everything a faculty member did. I was ready to go," says Clark. "Then I went into a postdoc and became a nonentity, especially with the culture and the lab I went into."
Clark did two stints in different labs at the University of California, San Diego, for a total of five years. "The postdoc in the life sciences has become the de facto terminal degree," he says. "The writing was on the wall: do a postdoc or you don't get a job as a faculty member at a decent school at almost any level." Like many budding biomedical scientists in the United States, Clark felt that he'd worked as a postdoc without any real direction or time frame in mind.
In recent years, the NPA, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other organizations have worked to secure better pay, benefits, training and rights for postdocs in the United States. Discussions have also focused on ways to define the postdoctoral experience better and to stick with a specific timetable. Meanwhile, many postdocs — particularly in the life sciences — follow the crowd, with the often-flawed assumption that they'll be guaranteed a job at the end of their fellowship.
Different Fields, Different Opportunities
Which way to go? The traditional route isn't always the best.
The scenario varies from one field to another. In physics and chemistry, where postdoctorates are typically shorter than in the life sciences, it is closely correlated with the economy: the number of postdoc stints rises when unemployment does. Even in the life sciences, the statistics tell a complicated story. Despite the recent uproar about endless life-science postdocs, trends seem to be reversing: the length of first postdoctoral appointments among life-scientists seems to be decreasing (see H. H. Garrison, S. A. Gerbi & P. W. Kincade FASEB J. 17, 2169–2173; 2003).
Regardless, many scientists are still frustrated by directionless, low-paid postdoctorates that offer little training. Now a policy committee co-chair at the NPA, Clark believes his experience was typical: the head of his lab wasn't interested in training a young scientist — she wanted skilled labour for her research project.
Some principal investigators (PIs) understand that training, leading towards independence, should be the priority. "Postdocs should not be copies of their advisers," says Keith Yamamoto, vice-dean for research at the Medical School of the University of California, San Francisco.
"I find great difficulty in understanding a postdoc who will go to a lab and will work on a project that's specifically to do with a PI's [grant]," agrees James William Nelson, a professor of cellular physiology at Stanford University School of Medicine in California. "Where's the independence in that?" Nelson urges his own postdocs to "use and abuse" his laboratory, in working towards an independent project that is likely to impress their prospective employers.
Down to Business
Establishing independence isn't easy. But postdocs who don't leave their fates entirely in the hands of their PI are often able to navigate a successful career path.
Lille Tidwell credits careful planning and forethought for what looks to be a promising future in technology transfer. After earning her doctorate in neurobiology and anatomy, Tidwell struggled with her next move. Doing a postdoctorate would garner more publication credits, so she started one at Georgetown University in Washington DC. But she was wary of a medical-centre career in which much of her salary would come from her own grants.
A career seminar on technology transfer piqued her interest and changed her direction. She earned an NIH Office of Technology Transfer individual research training award, to serve at the NIH in Rockville, Maryland, and is very positive about her new career path. She will spend up to five years as a postdoc. "But my career has taken on a much brighter future," says Tidwell. Her awareness of the postdoc's plight led her to create the Georgetown University Postdoctoral Association, and she was later elected to the executive board of the NPA.
L. FEDORKOVA
Forethought: Philip Clifford recommends it for setting postdoc goals; Lille Tidwell (below) used it to arrange her career path.
Hoping to get postdocs to focus on their goals and move through the system more efficiently, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) two years ago drafted an 'individual development plan' (IDP). One of its creators, Philip Clifford, professor of anaesthesiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, says it was born of the recognition that too many postdoctoral fellows had little sense of what they needed to accomplish. "They were just sort of following the crowd, doing the same thing everybody else had done with the expectation that there was going to be some sort of a job at the end of the postdoc rainbow," says Clifford. The IDP is geared towards biomedical science, but is of use to postdocs in any field, he says.
Modelled on the sort of priority-setting done in industry, the plan suggests, for example, that postdocs "conduct a self assessment" that analyses current abilities and outlines long-term objectives. It suggests identifying career opportunities with one's mentor and establishing effective dates for the length of a postdoctoral appointment. If a postdoc has an interest in industry, for example, then he or she might take steps to experience that environment. IDP users are asked to review their objectives every few months. "It just helps to formalize the process, makes people take it more seriously," says Clark. The IDP also offers a step-by-step process for mentors to make them more effective and aware of their obligations.
Harvard economist Richard Freeman, who researches the science and engineering workforce for the non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research, calls the IDP a nice idea, but too "touchy-feely". He believes postdocs need to accept that their interests — new skills, new research areas, independence — are often in conflict with their mentor's. "You want to get out earlier, you want credit for the ideas you contribute. A PI may want you to get out later and not take this knowledge to another lab," he says.
Freeman would like to see a short course included in the PhD programme to teach career management and what the postdoc's rights are. He'd also favour drafting a contract that states explicitly that the postdoc is there to both work in the lab and be trained.
One potential model could come from the world of business, where students are taught to manage their career path, as well as to organize other people into helping further the student's own objectives. This may seem aggressive in science, but that's what PIs end up doing, says Freeman.
Postdocs are taught to look for the people doing the best research, which can be misleading, according to Clark. Finding out how long previous postdocs have been in the lab, and what the PI's interests are — if he or she has industry connections, say — can be just as important.
"They're not taught the way we teach business students, to look not only for the best business environment but for the best human resources, the best support and the best teams," says Clark. Successful, quick postdoctorates are most likely when students take at least as much responsibility for their own training as the institutions and faculty do.