The NIH Postdoc Experience

Mention the National Institutes of Health to any science graduate student and the name conjures up images of top-notch researchers in white lab coats, doing cutting-edge science with lots of money to spend but very little space. Moreover, the NIH always seemed to me to be "Science Central" for the United States, because NIH grants support research nationwide, and because every prominent faculty member of my graduate school program ran off to attend study sections. The rhetorical question that shone in my starry eyes was: What newly graduated Ph.D. would not like to have a postdoctoral experience at the NIH? As I got closer to my own elusive Ph.D. degree and probed more deeply into future options, I heard some other reports. "The NIH is a postdoc mill"; "it's dark, messy, and crowded"; the postdocs work 18-hour days"; "the principal investigators have personality disorders, probably due to enlargement of the left sides of their brains ...." Nevertheless, I eventually found myself here in Bethesda, Maryland, in the "Mecca of medical research." My experience in a year and a half has been interesting, although not what I had expected. I had not anticipated how depressing the crowded, narrow hallways would become after a short time, or how exciting one's experimental results could be when keen-minded colleagues and mentors help to place them in the context of a new and ever-enlarging scientific landscape. The NIH is a physically limited world, but one that is emotionally challenging and intellectually stimulating. But what does that mean to Ph.D.s outside the NIH contemplating a move in? The NIH defies casual analysis, so I decided to elicit the help of 30 friends and friends-of-friends to complete an informal survey about their experiences as NIH postdocs. This number corresponds to about 1 percent of the 2,500 postdocs at the NIH--a significant enough study to command some validity but conducted in a casual enough way to be dismissed as unrepresentative. Personally, I found the study not only interesting, but enlightening. My sampling included 17 males, 11 females, and two who didn't know or perhaps couldn't remember their gender due to long hours in the lab. Approximately half of my respondents came from other countries. On a scale of one (terrible) to five (fantastic), almost half of the respondents rated their NIH experience as a four (good). As research institutes, few can top what the NIH offers in terms of focused and unfettered research; the combination of more-than-adequate funding, a concentrated site of scientists for that quorum of intellectual synergy, and a lack of grant writing or teaching responsibilities all make the NIH attractive for postdocs wanting a shot at the Nobel Prize. According to the survey, the science itself drew more postdocs than any other aspect, including prestige, location, salary, or simply job availability. NIH was the top employment choice for all but six of those surveyed. However, the ability to do science at the NIH does not alleviate basic postdoc concerns. The number-one fear for women and men concerned future career opportunities, followed by worries over labwork and publishing. The next concern for men dealt with personal finances; women bemoaned the lack of a home life. Both sexes wrestled with the issue of job fulfillment. There were few complaints about the cramped research space or problems with advisers who are not subject to "real world" funding pressures; I had anticipated these issues might be specific to the NIH. I did not include questions in my survey about red tape and bureaucracy, which plague most government-funded agencies; however, one fill-in-the-blank comment mentioned a problem foreign postdocs have: getting paid in a timely manner. The biggest source of joy for all surveyed is the financial support for research. "Doing research" and "collaborations and availability of people to talk science with" tied for the second most appreciated aspect of working at the NIH in both the women's and the men's lists. Other joys included the prestige of working at the NIH, the availability of specialized equipment, and a flexible schedule and vacation time. Most significantly, the majority felt they would recommend the NIH to friends looking for a postdoc position and felt fulfilled in their expectations for their own postdoctoral work. Life sciences currently present an occupationally slippery slope: Higher specialization does not guarantee employment. Although NIH postdocs are generally satisfied with their experience, they worry over future job prospects--even with the NIH pedigree. Is it simply personal insecurity? Repeatedly, I saw examples of postdocs with several papers who rated their achievements as poor. How many papers does it take to feel productive? Perhaps the question is, how many papers does it take to get a job? In academia, survey answers ranged from two to three up to 50 papers, whereas in industry, zero to 15 were believed to be required. Such a range indicates a great disparity between ideas of success among NIH postdocs. How can a postdoc feel successful when there are no clear indications of what it will take to succeed, let alone survive, in science? Is this a risk we accept with our profession--that there are no guarantees of success? Sometimes job prospects, like experiments, actually work out. Sometimes they do not. Hard work as measured by published papers will not necessarily result in employment, just as hard work as measured by completion of a complex experiment will not necessarily yield meaningful results. Future job prospects may come more easily by being in the right group, which I assumed that being at the NIH would afford. However, more and more job-searching manuals conclude that who you know is more important than where you come from. I queried the role of mentors in promoting future careers of postdocs. In general, women were more optimistic about (perhaps more reliant on?) the role of their mentors for their futures than the men. Contrary to one postdoc's belief that "NIH principal investigators are psychos," most NIH postdocs in this survey rated their relationship with their mentor/advisers as "good." What this survey suggests, which may not be accurate, is a propagation of sex discrimination at this end of the educational scale. Although the average age of females in this survey was 31.5 years and males 32 years, and the number of years post-Ph.D. was 2.5 for both sexes, the men earned approximately $1,000 more per year than the women. This was not explained by greater scientific success as measured by published papers; women averaged almost three first-author papers, whereas men averaged two. Perhaps this explains another rating: Women felt less enthusiastic than men about how taxpayer dollars are being spent at the NIH. Needless to say, postdoc salaries rarely compensate the recipient adequately for the years of specialized education and training to acquire the title of Ph.D. However, most of those surveyed felt their $29,000-$38,000 per year fellowship awards do provide a basic living. The cost of living in the Washington, D.C. area ranks among the highest in the country. But perhaps the benefits of living next to the nation's capital in an area awash in scientific research or other scientific endeavors offset some of the hardships. Indeed, four postdocs cited location as a primary reason for coming to the NIH. Overall, when asked about how the NIH has fulfilled their expectations, men and women felt good, if not fantastic. There were no commonly cited criticisms. I asked if they planned on staying in science. Women were more set on their careers than men by one full point (four vs. three on a scale of one to five). Reasons for or against staying in science ranged from "curiosity," "never boring," and "I love it!" to "too much time," "stress," and "tired of lab culture." This led me to realize that although NIH is a hub of science and provides some unique opportunities (and unique challenges) to postdocs, no place acts to shield against grim job prospects, personality conflicts, or personal uncertainties in career choice. So how can I sum up NIH postdoc experiences? Like experiments: Some work, and some don't. Ramie Leibnitz, Ph.D. (ramie@box-r.nih.gov), is a postdoctoral fellow in the Metabolism Branch of the National Cancer Institute, and a lecturer at the University of Maryland, College Park.

The NIH Postdoc Experience

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Ramie Leibnitz

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May 1999

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