For Mentoring, Postdocs are the New PIs: IHE article

[polly_mer]

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/10/11/study-says-when-it-comes-everyday-mentoring-and-training-sciences-postdocs-are-new

As I read through this article, I remember my master's advisor told me that most of his mentoring in the 1980s was done by the postdocs.  My advisor's advice was, as I looked at going elsewhere for my PhD, I should interview the group members to ensure I would get good mentoring because the big-name PI at an elite program wouldn't have the same time to mentor me as I was getting in the master's program.  When I enrolled at a top 5 PhD program with a big-name advisor in the late 90s, I found that situation to be true.

I'm filing this one under: yes, those in the community knew that, but it's good to have the study to back up the anecdotes.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

I agree with the article, however, such mentoring is not without danger for post-doc:
During my phd I witnessed a situation, when post-doc suggested to PI to conduct a new experiment at the MSc student's site. PI didn't see experiment's value at the time, but post-doc went to the site and installed all the necessary equipment anyway. Following the data collection, post-doc wrote critical elements of the paper and guided MSc student through the rest. PI then proceeded to accuse post-doc of "stealing" MSc student's data, nearly excluded post-doc from the paper, and even started to spread "data stealing" theory within the field.

Personally, I think that proper mentoring in the lab relies on PI setting proper incentives for post-docs in term of joint data use and publications

[bio-nonymous]

This could be filed under: "yet more abusive practices heaped upon postdocs because of the dire employment situation." In the comment section under the article, "99Luftballons" makes some good points about the scarcity of jobs and the lack of employment opportunity of many STEM degree holders within their field. I was told during my postdoc that there was 1 tenure track job available for every 7 postdocs. We all know that the academic job market is brutal, but many think that anyone [with a STEM PhD] who can't find an academic job can "just go to industry", which is not true either!-certainly not in the life sciences.

Mentoring grad students (so the PI doesn't have to), acting as lab manager (so the PI doesn't have to pay for one), and sitting at the bench acting like a technician running routine basic experiments for the PI's research agenda (so the Pi doesn't have to hire a technician), all while trying to write grants, manuscripts and develop their own research agenda so they can find a job, over their 65-80 hour work weeks, for less than $50k, is not a good deal for the Postdoc. We need fewer graduate students from fewer PhD programs so there are fewer postdocs, and far less emphasis that somehow "STEM" is the magic ticket to the promised land of the good life. Certainly the "E" can provide a good living with the right degree, but the others not as much, I am presuming.

OK, /off Soapbox...

[Puget]

This could be filed under: "yet more abusive practices heaped upon postdocs because of the dire employment situation." In the comment section under the article, "99Luftballons" makes some good points about the scarcity of jobs and the lack of employment opportunity of many STEM degree holders within their field. I was told during my postdoc that there was 1 tenure track job available for every 7 postdocs. We all know that the academic job market is brutal, but many think that anyone [with a STEM PhD] who can't find an academic job can "just go to industry", which is not true either!-certainly not in the life sciences.

Mentoring grad students (so the PI doesn't have to), acting as lab manager (so the PI doesn't have to pay for one), and sitting at the bench acting like a technician running routine basic experiments for the PI's research agenda (so the Pi doesn't have to hire a technician), all while trying to write grants, manuscripts and develop their own research agenda so they can find a job, over their 65-80 hour work weeks, for less than $50k, is not a good deal for the Postdoc. We need fewer graduate students from fewer PhD programs so there are fewer postdocs, and far less emphasis that somehow "STEM" is the magic ticket to the promised land of the good life. Certainly the "E" can provide a good living with the right degree, but the others not as much, I am presuming.

OK, /off Soapbox...

I understand your frustration (my understanding is bio is super over-supplied), and certainly there are labs that take advantage of postdocs for things that don't help the postdocs advance their own careers. However, as someone who made the postdoc to TT transition 3 years ago, I will say that a lot of these activities that aren't just doing one's own research are actually invaluable to learning to run your own lab and mentor your own students. Postdocs most definitely should be getting practice mentoring grad students, supervising staff, doing lab management and budgeting, etc., or they will be completely unprepared for being a PI.  It is striking how little of my job as a faculty member  resembles what you seem to see as ideal for postdocs (just working on their own research projects and writing)--Certainly they also need time to write papers and grants, but not the exclusion of all else.

[bio-nonymous]

This could be filed under: "yet more abusive practices heaped upon postdocs because of the dire employment situation." In the comment section under the article, "99Luftballons" makes some good points about the scarcity of jobs and the lack of employment opportunity of many STEM degree holders within their field. I was told during my postdoc that there was 1 tenure track job available for every 7 postdocs. We all know that the academic job market is brutal, but many think that anyone [with a STEM PhD] who can't find an academic job can "just go to industry", which is not true either!-certainly not in the life sciences.

Mentoring grad students (so the PI doesn't have to), acting as lab manager (so the PI doesn't have to pay for one), and sitting at the bench acting like a technician running routine basic experiments for the PI's research agenda (so the Pi doesn't have to hire a technician), all while trying to write grants, manuscripts and develop their own research agenda so they can find a job, over their 65-80 hour work weeks, for less than $50k, is not a good deal for the Postdoc. We need fewer graduate students from fewer PhD programs so there are fewer postdocs, and far less emphasis that somehow "STEM" is the magic ticket to the promised land of the good life. Certainly the "E" can provide a good living with the right degree, but the others not as much, I am presuming.

OK, /off Soapbox...

I understand your frustration (my understanding is bio is super over-supplied), and certainly there are labs that take advantage of postdocs for things that don't help the postdocs advance their own careers. However, as someone who made the postdoc to TT transition 3 years ago, I will say that a lot of these activities that aren't just doing one's own research are actually invaluable to learning to run your own lab and mentor your own students. Postdocs most definitely should be getting practice mentoring grad students, supervising staff, doing lab management and budgeting, etc., or they will be completely unprepared for being a PI.  It is striking how little of my job as a faculty member  resembles what you seem to see as ideal for postdocs (just working on their own research projects and writing)--Certainly they also need time to write papers and grants, but not the exclusion of all else.

I was not referring to the fact that learning how to run a lab and mentor people is not a useful skill that postdocs should be doing. Of course it is and should be a part of their training. And, yes, of course there is s ridiculous oversupply of biomedical scientists, which is what allows this system to exist.  I am sorry if I you misunderstood my point, as evidenced by your interpretation of what "I seem to feel is ideal". What I was referring to is the use of postdocs as cheap disposable labor with no regard for their future career--which happens very often by PIs who just want someone to do the work as cheap as possible without expending a lot of effort in training, mentoring, or help with job preparation. Perhaps you have not observed much of this and your postdoc mentor and everyone who you knew also had a highly supportive postdoc mentor who assisted them in their careers. I don't know. I also understand that you won the job lottery and made the transition to a tenure track position, which is fantastic for you. I am one of the 1 in 7 biomed postdocs who moved on to tenure track faculty as well. That does not mean I approve of the system as it stands and the abuses observed over my years as a graduate student and then as a postdoc--and since I get frustrated that there is nothing that I can do to change the status quo, I sometimes get carried away and rant a bit! :)

[Puget]

This could be filed under: "yet more abusive practices heaped upon postdocs because of the dire employment situation." In the comment section under the article, "99Luftballons" makes some good points about the scarcity of jobs and the lack of employment opportunity of many STEM degree holders within their field. I was told during my postdoc that there was 1 tenure track job available for every 7 postdocs. We all know that the academic job market is brutal, but many think that anyone [with a STEM PhD] who can't find an academic job can "just go to industry", which is not true either!-certainly not in the life sciences.

Mentoring grad students (so the PI doesn't have to), acting as lab manager (so the PI doesn't have to pay for one), and sitting at the bench acting like a technician running routine basic experiments for the PI's research agenda (so the Pi doesn't have to hire a technician), all while trying to write grants, manuscripts and develop their own research agenda so they can find a job, over their 65-80 hour work weeks, for less than $50k, is not a good deal for the Postdoc. We need fewer graduate students from fewer PhD programs so there are fewer postdocs, and far less emphasis that somehow "STEM" is the magic ticket to the promised land of the good life. Certainly the "E" can provide a good living with the right degree, but the others not as much, I am presuming.

OK, /off Soapbox...

I understand your frustration (my understanding is bio is super over-supplied), and certainly there are labs that take advantage of postdocs for things that don't help the postdocs advance their own careers. However, as someone who made the postdoc to TT transition 3 years ago, I will say that a lot of these activities that aren't just doing one's own research are actually invaluable to learning to run your own lab and mentor your own students. Postdocs most definitely should be getting practice mentoring grad students, supervising staff, doing lab management and budgeting, etc., or they will be completely unprepared for being a PI.  It is striking how little of my job as a faculty member  resembles what you seem to see as ideal for postdocs (just working on their own research projects and writing)--Certainly they also need time to write papers and grants, but not the exclusion of all else.

I was not referring to the fact that learning how to run a lab and mentor people is not a useful skill that postdocs should be doing. Of course it is and should be a part of their training. And, yes, of course there is s ridiculous oversupply of biomedical scientists, which is what allows this system to exist.  I am sorry if I you misunderstood my point, as evidenced by your interpretation of what "I seem to feel is ideal". What I was referring to is the use of postdocs as cheap disposable labor with no regard for their future career--which happens very often by PIs who just want someone to do the work as cheap as possible without expending a lot of effort in training, mentoring, or help with job preparation. Perhaps you have not observed much of this and your postdoc mentor and everyone who you knew also had a highly supportive postdoc mentor who assisted them in their careers. I don't know. I also understand that you won the job lottery and made the transition to a tenure track position, which is fantastic for you. I am one of the 1 in 7 biomed postdocs who moved on to tenure track faculty as well. That does not mean I approve of the system as it stands and the abuses observed over my years as a graduate student and then as a postdoc--and since I get frustrated that there is nothing that I can do to change the status quo, I sometimes get carried away and rant a bit! :)

I'm sorry you had that experience-- I did not, and don't really know anyone who did (though some had less than ideal relationships with their mentors for various reasons), although I'm not in bio either- I'm in psych/neuro. If this poor quality if mentoring is common in bio it suggests to me a real cultural problem which that field needs to address-- I don't think structural problems alone can account for that.

I was reacting to the fact you wrote "This could be filed under: "yet more abusive practices heaped upon postdocs because of the dire employment situation." in reference to an article which was actually about how how beneficial postdocs are for grad student development and not about the problems you note. The interactions the article talks about, where postdocs are working alongside the grad students, guiding lab meeting discussions, etc. are beneficial to all parties.