You’d better like where you’re going because you’ll be there for a long time. 

In my roles as attending physician, scientist, mentor, and director of an institutional career development office, I spend a lot of time talking to students, trainees, and early career scientists and physicians. Each conversation challenges me to reflect on my own journey, noting parallels and departures. As I progress in my career and find myself on the brink of being a “senior” faculty member (the horror!), these reflections have uncovered a truth about adulthood – it’s long.  

Yes, I am a rising senior who has been working as a physician scientist for 20 years. In some ways, I feel like I am just getting started. New students, innovative ideas, unexpected collaborations, exciting findings, keep the job fresh while a growing manuscript portfolio, lengthening list of “not discussed” proposals on ERA Commons, and ever stronger reading glasses remind me that I’ve been at this for a while.  

In the last year or so I’ve started to notice an underlying current of urgency in career development conversations I’ve had. Aspiring and early career scientists and physicians are anxious to get where they are going, and for good reason. It does take a very long time to become a scientist or physician. I added it up for my kids the other day when they asked me how many years of “school” I had. Four years of college, four years of medical school, three years of residency, three years of fellowship, before finally becoming an Instructor (an “almost faculty” position). I felt old by the time I finished.  

Trainees and Early Career faculty I talk to are loathe to add more years to that training. And I was too. So often I hear, “The opportunity sounds good, but I really don’t want to do another year of training,” or “I’ve been training forever, I’m ready to be done!” But what I’m realizing now with the benefit of 20 years of hindsight and hopefully another 20-30 years (fingers crossed) ahead of me, is that training is short in relation to the rest of it. You don’t want to sabotage the long game by conceding to short term pressures.  

All my years of training helped me to land in a career that I thoroughly enjoy. One that is different every day. One that continually challenges and excites me. In order to get where I am today, I had to take that long path.  

I do fully acknowledge that financial, family, or other responsibilities often dictate timing, but that doesn’t change the basic fact that you will be doing your “real” job for an awfully long time, so you’d better enjoy it. I’ve wondered where I would be today if I had tried to rush things. Maybe in a place that was not so fulfilling.  

If you are a student, trainee, or early career physician or scientist and find that you are saying to yourself, “I just want to be done and get to [insert job here]!”. I’d encourage you to take a moment and ask yourself, “What are you running towards?” 

About the Author

Screen Name

Julie Bastarache, MD

About Me

Julie is a Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician Scientist with a basic and translational lab studying lung injury and non-pulmonary organ dysfunction in sepsis. She enjoys sharing lessons learned on her journey as a Physician Scientist.