The PostDocs Forum

Salaries and benefits for Postdoctoral Fellows in biomedical research are extortionate impacting the motivation for US youth to pursue careers in this field.

GOVERNMENT BENEFICENTS OR DESPERATION?
The US government, by inviting international Postdocs to take temporary positions in biomedical research, is expressing some kind of good-will share our expertise program with the international biomedical research community.  Alternatively it’s not good-will at all; it’s desperation. If there are not enough qualified workers in the US to perform biomedical research, who is going to do the work of the biomedical research program?  In a previous posting (Series 3, SCIENTISTS AND FINANCIAL SUPPORT) I pointed out that billions of US tax dollars are invested in biomedical research.  Furthermore the information harvested from biomedical research ultimately improves the US quality of living and extends our healthy years into retirement.

Biomedical research gives us hope against our enemy of disease and failing health.  You can surround yourself in retirement with the best of sofas, plush carpeting, the best posturpedic mattress and a retirement account that sustains you and a little extra as your children’s inheritance.  Yes, you have retired from a career that helped your employer make decent profits/advancements in biomedical research.  But if your health incurably deteriorates and incapacitates you during your retirement years what good is your flat-screen TV?  Obviously these purchases will comfort you in your feeble condition but wouldn’t you prefer a cure?  The government realizes the importance of biomedical research and it wants its citizens to live a retirement of good health.  This goal is noble and very expensive.  Who will do the work and at what minimal remuneration?

Engineering degrees are probably the most practical programs offered in universities.  That is to say that engineers with an undergraduate degree will earn a decent salary over his/her career.  This payoff is due to the efficiency that they offer to private industry for producing products (circuit boards, building designs, structural assessments, scale-up chemical processes etc..).

By comparison what is the picture for a graduate from a four-year curriculum in biomedical research?  Well to start out it is a picture of 5 more years in graduate school and another 5 to 10 years as a postdoc and then maybe, just maybe you’ll land a job making a salary equivalent to entry level engineers.  Truth is that a degree in biomedical research could pay at least the same as engineers but the government has placed a value on biomedical research degrees, and it is not the same as engineering graduates.  It’s that simple.  Consequently high school students opt for degrees with higher financial rewards. The end result is that there are fewer workers with biomedical research degrees to take the low paying jobs offered by the government.  As such, available positions in biomedical research are opened up to international biomedical scientists.  Once in the US these scientists eventually realize that their neighbors next door only have undergraduate degrees, mostly outside of biomedical research.  Moreover, their neighbors are making a lot more money. One day international biomedical scientists will ask, “Are we being discriminated against and exploited financially or does the US really not take seriously the biomedical research program?”

ENTER THE AVERAGE
As a Postdoc in biomedical research, the tendency of putting off raising a family in favor of career raises interesting evolutionary implications.  Assumption:  the most creative and brightest of the world’s population earn Ph.D.s in biomedical research.  They are lured to the United States and have illustrious careers because they can out publish their competitors.    They tend to have few children or none at all favoring advancement in their careers.  Assumption:  intelligence is genetic.  These highly successful people marry other highly successful people, someone from the lab down the hall for example.  Any subsequent offspring are assumed to be equally or more intelligent than their parents.  Thusly intelligence evolves.

But such evolution is less likely in the United States due to the current conditions of long hours, years and years of “training” and extortionate compensation of Postdocs.  And if the most intelligent are not contributing to the gene pool then the gene pool becomes well, not as intelligent as it would be with them contributing to it.  I do not espouse pro-creating an ultra intelligent race of human beings.  But I do argue that Postdocs should not have to trade off career for family.

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CULTURE MEDIA
The penny-pinching lifestyle of a US Postdoc begins to resemble that of missionaries compared to the lifestyle of friends and family in careers outside of biomedical research.  Postdocs get a fixed two weeks vacation with frugal (if any) annual increments, sick days are discouraged because competition for publication is so fierce, no family leave for sickness or childbirth and if there is continued pay during such periods is unlikely, no extra pay for overtime hours, no employer contributions to a 401K account, child care help is non-existent or too expensive (deterring postdocs from having children), no social security or other tax withholdings and no unemployment insurance.   At some point, many Postdocs see their economic reality and the high unlikelihood that they will triumph before prime child bearing/rearing age has slipped past them.  Or if they do have children, they are grown up before their Postdoc parents have a chance to get to know them due to long lab hours.   As it stands Postdocs are indirectly expected to pass up many “life” perks in favor of publications and in favor of a 6% chance of landing a job as primary investigator in their own lab.

What do the other 94% of Postdocs do?   I read in one email publication of an official government voice stating that Postdocs in biomedical research simply must be creative about how they market their highly developed skill of critical thinking.  When the biomedical authority makes a desperate recommendation such as “be creative” you know that there is a problem in the balance of jobs and workers.

OUT FROM THE POSTDOC POT AND INTO THE PI FIRE
If a Postdoc does manage to beat the competition, s/he steps on to the first rung of the academic ladder as an assistant professor or Primary Investigator (PI).  Now it’s time to land your first grant, where 80% of applications go unfunded.  Do you still want your kids to become biomedical research scientists?  Do you really want to wait for your children to be in their 40’s to make you a grandparent?  Let’s say you are the Postdoc and you have your first child at 40 and your child in turn follows your Postdoc footsteps (against your advice, of course) and s/he has her first child at 40.  That means you are 80 years old before you experience the joy of being a grandparent if you’ve managed to stay alive! And what about those embarrassing moments at the local playground?  You managed to squeeze in a few hours outside of the lab to be with your five-year-old child.  Other parents (with degrees in business and engineering) say to you, “You must be so proud of your grandchild!”

To find links to past posts in this “Union For All” series posts click the “search” tab then enter “union” or “beck” into the search box.

Links related to this topic:

• Aaron Dossey started this National Postdoctoral Union Facebook Group recently
• Does the U.S. Produce Too Many Scientists?
• Go to China, young scientist
• “An Internal Brain Drain”

Dr. Beck is an accomplished Ph.D. ion channel electrophysiologist with four publications from his dissertation research alone. His scientific work is just one joyful “hobby” that he strives to keep in balance with several others. Dr. Beck spent a number of years in industry before embarking on his Ph.D. Thus, he has a unique perspective to offer the academic postdoctoral community. Dr. Beck’s first-hand observations of so-called postdoctoral positions led him to conclude that this “training” experience actually hampers careers, retards scientific growth, exploits dedicated scientists and delays family/life plans. He is compelled to galvanize the scientific community into one voice for the purpose of change.