Plagiarism: grubby feasting

Niina’s recent post on plagiarism struck a chord with me. Some of my work was stolen a couple of years ago, a grant application.

Fools who thieve ideas

Maybe I’m naive but until fairly recently I thought that only bad people plagiarise. I mean, why would anyone do it? And who would be fool enough to think they can get away with it?

Post-PhD milk and honey

“What is there after the PhD?” is probably the question people who are thinking about doing a PhD most commonly ask me.

Mummy, what does Niina do?

Niina does research. Do you know what research is? Some children say it’s like Dr Who’s tardis. You put a question in, and you get an answer out.

“PhD? Nice! (But what is it?)”

I feel we’ve sold PhD as an idea to AHPs. I also feel the next challenge is for AHPs en masse to figure out what a PhD is, and what to do with people who have them. 

I feel that seeking to do a PhD is now largely viewed positively among AHPs, and there is a genuine acceptance that having a PhD is (somehow) a positive thing. I still do hear some occasional mocking, and some unwelcome comments, e.g. about people with PhDs having a different brain size than the rest of the humans, but in my experience people making these comments are now a minority and are seen as making a fool of themselves more than representing a condoned majority view.

What seems to have changed much less is how AHPs understand what a PhD is (what does it make the person competent for), and how we can make use of people with PhDs to advance our practice, knowledge and impact. 

Over the next 12 months I’d like to take further steps to change this. To move more towards a point where people actually understand what PhDs are good for (and what they are not). To this end, I will run some dedicated posts to explore the question of “What do people with PhDs do once they finish their PhD – and what more could they do given a chance?”.

I am particularly hoping to publish posts by people who are at least 4-5 years beyond completing a PhD (but pre-Professors). That is because I want to focus on the experiences of people who are in full swing of hard core crafting of contributions to AHP practice, science and future (and skip the early post-PhD haze phase….).

If this is you, and you’d be willing to write a post – please do email/tweet me and let’s make a plan for your contribution!

Happy, and very exciting, 2017 to everyone! ☺

Resign on a stinky leadership?

I find following a good leader very exciting and highly empowering. In fact, given a choice, I much more enjoy following a good, inspirational leader than lead myself. But I also find good leadership scarce.

Forging through a PhD fellowship application

Guest post by Michael Sykes. I ask myself, ‘OK, so you have had your NIHR Fellowship interview; regardless of the outcome, what have you learnt over the last couple of years that might help others?’. It is likely that I will look back at this in a few years and think how little I knew. Just as I now look at who I was when I first started my clinical academic journey all those years ago! 

Let’s NOT have another conference

It’s the time of the post-holiday enthusiastic planning for 2016-17. Someone is bound to suggest “Let’s host a conference to promote [x]!”. I propose that our default response should be “No, let’s NOT.” Don’t get me wrong. I quite like conferences. And I think they have certain very important functions. But.

Fellowships: interview rejections and success

Guest post by Pamela Jacobsen: Fellowship interviews tend to get burned into my memory for all the wrong reasons. One moment from an interview a few years ago has always stuck in my mind with terrible clarity.

What does it take to get a fellowship?

Take all the (~100) people who have talked to me at any length about fellowships over the past five years. So far, nine of them have completed a draft of an application. Six have submitted their applications. Two have ultimately got fellowships. What’s special about those who do succeed?