so I won’t have to daydream of kicking you in the junk every time I see you!
(A rant about a Ph.D. and his statistician.)
Background: I’ve had a bad week or two. I got dumped by the love of my life, I have to move (albeit to a great place), and I have some money problems right now. But the last straw is what is going to drive me NUTS!
I work in research. Specifically, I make all the medications that we use for drug studies in alcohol and drug research. I package medication, which is then checked by a pharmacist, and I dispense it to research assistants, who take it from there. I am good at my job. I do things correctly, and follow board review guidelines. I can do my job in my sleep. I always make sure that I am doing my job correctly, because I realize that if I fuck up, someone else could die, or a physician/pharmacist could lose their license. It’s my responsibility to make sure it’s correct before it gets checked. It’s not my livelihood on the line, and I sure as hell don’t want to be responsible for someone having wasted an entire college education only to have their license yanked because of me.
I recently was asked to unblind a study, and send the results to a statistician. I created a file, verified that everything was correct, and emailed the file to her. (Basically, it said Patient # blah-blah got medication Blah-biddy-Blah.) I was out for a day (recovering from bad break-up), and when I returned, I got an email telling me that I had filled EVERYTHING incorrectly, and I had basically screwed the entire study.
I opened the file. I knew I had filled everything correctly, because the table used to dispense medication was created by another physician in the study, and all I did was print out his email to dispense the meds. So, I compared the printout of the file with the table that I had used. Big suprise, same thing. (Well, I had to check… just so I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong.) So, I email the statistician and tell her that the file I used was created by a doctor, and if there was an error, it couldn’t possibly be on my part.
No, you’re wrong. You’ve screwed this up, she says.
I got frantic. I started checking everything I ever got from this guy. Everything was cool. I checked with the pharmacist in charge, and asked her to send me a copy of the file she had regarding the table. Yup, same thing. (Makes sense, as the doctor who created it CC:'d her on it.)
I emailed the Ph.D. in charge, to let him know that I had the original copy of the email, and that I had only dispensed medication based on what the other physician had sent me. About 10 minutes later, I ran into him in the hallway.
Basically, he reamed me, right in front of the patients sitting in the waiting room. “You’ve filled everything wrong, and now the study is useless,” he said, among comments about how pharmacy is always wrong, and maybe there needs to be a review, and how a LOT of money was wasted for me to give him shoddy work. (Keep in mind that this guy has also remarked before that he doesn’t know how anyone can live on my salary.)
Then I found out that he had told the other Ph.D.'s the same thing. So, now everyone thinks I’m the dumbass.
I went to the statistician’s office. I asked to see the file that she based her data on. Well, wonder of fucking wonders, IT’S THE SAME GODDAMN FILE! It turns out that she had entered data incorrectly into another program, which gave her entirely different results! I emailed the Ph.D. to let him know this, as politely as possible. I told him that if there were further problems that he could count on me to help get to the bottom of them.
This was last Friday. I’ve seen both the statistician and the Ph.D. in the halls, and NEITHER ONE has said, hey, sorry about that. That’s all it would take. A simple sorry, didn’t mean to yell at you, should have looked at all areas before making you a scapegoat. I mean, I know these people are more educated than I am, and I’m just the low-girl on the totem pole, but at least I ADMIT WHEN I AM WRONG! Both of these people act like I have just screwed the universe out of a cure for cancer, and then when I find out I am in the right, neither one has the balls to admit it and apologise.
I understand that maintaining a study can be stressful. I personally take care of all the medications for 8 different studies by myself. This Ph.D. has two studies right now, which research assistants do the majority of the work on. Work that they cannot do is done by research coordinators and three co-investigative physicians. The statistician compiles the data for those two studies. Between the two studies, there are approximately 10-15 patients a week. HE DOESN’T EVEN SEE PATIENTS! HE GETS THE GRANTS, AND WALKS THE HALLS! THE STATISTICIAN PLAYS WITH NUMBERS ALL DAY! I JUST BUSTED HER NAPPING IN HER OFFICE!
And I can’t even get a simple apology from these people…ARRRRGH!