What is success?

I have a philosophical doctorate so let's do some philosophizing.

In my currently chosen profession - academic medical research - there is a generally accepted progression from peon-know-nothing to fat-cat-tenured-professor.  It basically works like this: enter a PhD program and work your ass off for 5-7 years for less pay than you'd make working a cash register at Best Buy (I know first hand...).  Write a ~200 page document detailing your efforts and spend a day justifying said document to a panel of people (some supportive and truly nice, some not so much...) who hold the degree you're trying to earn.  Pass and you're a doctor.  Great!  On to that professorship, right?

NO.

Now you have to apply for a postdoctoral fellowship, somewhere else, and work your ass off for a subsequent 4-5 years for a little more coin - but far less than all of your collegiate friends with Bachelor's degrees are making at *insert tech giant company name here*.  And forget 401Ks and other perks of real employment.  There, NOW we're ready for that professor position at U of Wherever, right?

Well, maybe.  Let's see here.  I see that you worked for 6 years at Whassamatta U under Dr. X.  Hmmm, one first author paper...tsk tsk tsk.  Then you went on to do a 5 year traineeship with Dr. Z studying the mating apparatus of the banana slug...one first author paper and a few contributing manuscripts.  How many hours a week did you work during these appointments?  Please don't tell me you actually took off on Christmas Day?

There is the rub.  I would like to know when it became acceptable for the establishment (and I know it isn't just my profession where this occurs...) to expect the ridiculous as the standard.  40 hours a week is essentially part-time for scientists in academia.  At least for scientists trying to attain tenure.  60-70 hours a week is probably closer to "average" for students/postdocs and new faculty appointees.  Do the math.  If you're not working weekends, 60 hours is 12 hours per work day.  Tack on an hour a day for an average commute (13), one to get ready in the morning (14) and 7 for sleep (21) and that leaves 3 hours during the day to do EVERYTHING else.  Make dinner, clean up dinner, feed cats, play with kids, get kids in bath/bed, do laundry, vacuum, run errands, and maybe have a fleeting few minutes for leisure (all this, of course, if you can function the next day on 7 hours of sleep with anything close to 95% effectiveness).  And, try as we might, sometimes science DOES run into the weekends despite our desire to have these free.

I don't get it.  I know there is an entrenched dogma of "I did it this way and you have to also" but I think it's stupid.  The root of all of it is the availability of funding (really low) becoming more difficult to procure and therefore requiring larger volumes of impactful data.  Professors write the grants - postdocs do most of the "impactful" bench work and students do a measure of the impactful work but are essentially learning how to be overworked postdocs.

I understand in science, like in all professions, that there are a select group for whom their work defines them and IS their life.  That's fine.  But it's not me.  I do science because I like it, it is endlessly interesting, and I am moderately "good" at it.  But I do not want my headstone to read "Cancer Curer and Driver of Knowledge".  I'd much rather it not even make mention of me being "Doctor Hall" (a moniker, 2 years later, that I still have a hard time identifying with).  Rather, I'd hope whoever is having it cut decides on something more like "Devoted Husband, Doting Father and Drinker of Life".

My personal success, I believe, should be measured by how I provide for my wife and my daughters; not financially (again, if it were about $$ I'd never have gone back to school in '03), but temporally.  If I'm at work 60+ hours/week and sleeping minimally 49 hours/week, that leaves me less than 60 hours/week potentially in their presence.  Actually, subtract 5 hours for commute and we're down to <54 hours.  Oh, and since the girls are so young and go to bed at 7, it's actually more like 34 hours/week.  34 out of 168. That's 20% of my week devoted to potential parenting and spousal duties.  I am supposed to be OK with sleeping more often that playing with my kids.  And this is all at a "reasonable" working pace.  If I want to be scientifically successful (in the eyes of academic types) I need to ratchet it up to 70-80 hours/week...leaving my family with a paltry ~15 hours of my time out of every 7 days.  2.2 hours a day for my family.  What kind of model are we building here?

Now, if I don't work at that frenetic pace, I'm much less likely to produce a large enough volume of data to generate either a single remarkable journal article (Cell, Science, Nature etc...) or two-three solid if not spectacular articles (PLoS One, JBC, Developmental Dynamics etc....).  This means I will not be competitive as a faculty recruit (regardless of my actual intelligence or ability to do science), and will either have to settle for a tenure-track position at a VERY small liberal arts college somewhere in the foothills of the Ozarks or accept a non-tenrue track research faculty (read: super postdoc...yes, 4 more years of ass-busting for no title) at a major medical school and hope I can convert to tenure track with progress and making a few friends at the institution.  Neither of these choices are optimal.

And, if I opt to bail on purely academic science and jump back into biotech/biopharmaceutical research? Then I become a bit of a pariah in the academic world.  A "he couldn't hack it" type, or a "he's too interested in his paycheck...we do it for the love of science" type.  It is NOT about the $.  It IS about the more structured career environment and ability to have defined steps and logical advancements.  It IS about having the ability to work 45-50 hours a week more regularly and to get back 15 hours with my family.

I think there needs to be a major overhauling of the academic career path.  Tenure, while great for your job security if you earn it, is actually a demotivating carrot once earned (I've seen this in abundance).  It should be done away with.  There should be free-flow of scientists between academia and industry.  Why create an artificial barrier and block the advancement of knowledge?  Biopharma does science with a goal of making money, sure, but academic scientists are not devoid of non-scientific motivation either.  How many have I seen give a talk where they believe they are walking on water?  How many are striving to be named "Director" or "Chief" or patent their "findings" as well?  The cache of name recognition and counting the number of times your recent paper has been cited in new ones...it's all ego.  And, by the way, tenured professors at decent schools make a pretty pile of wallet-stuffing too...so let's not mince words.

I just don't get it and can't figure out what my best course is.  The thought process has been consuming me more and more lately.  I'm almost 1 year into my potential 5 year fellowship.  I'm a husband and father.  I'm an adult in physical form if not mentally.  There is a fork in the road ahead, just out of sight, but I know it's there...left or right?

What do I want to be when I grow up?  And what am I willing to sacrifice to fill out that uniform?

-Mike

PS. Tomorrow I'll fill you in on our camping trip from this past weekend.  This other topic was on my mind tonight, so I went with it.