Lisa McCoy and Dr. David Thomson, Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology
During the medical school interview of the school I will be attending next Fall, my interviewer asked me to speak of a time in which I had failed or suffered an obstacle in my academic career. He laughed and said that I probably hadn’t even had one because of the numbers he had observed in my application. I rebutted and told him I very recently had faced difficulty. I spoke of this experience. Throughout my entire academic career, I have never really had to face failure. I was blessed with motivation and the capacity to excel and my grades consistently showed that. This one mistake was a rude awakening. The soleus and plantaris muscles of all of the mice were left outside of the freezer and thawed. When tissues are harvested from mice, we freeze them immediately to preserve the properties of living tissue. Thawed tissue is useless tissue.
Because these were the exact two muscles we hypothesized to see a significant difference in in comparing carnitine treated and control mice, continuing the project was pointless. Although it cost me over a year and a half of my work in a lab, a possible poster presentation and publication, these were not my greatest concerns. I was sick over the time my mentor and other lab members had spent working with me to make my project possible only to have it come to an abrupt halt with no reason or means to continue.
I am so sorry for what this failure cost my lab. I am so sorry for the many wasted hours a fellow lab member spent tending the mice. I am so sorry for not being able to publish the paper my mentor needed. I am so grateful for what this failure taught me. I know that the next time I fail, I will wake up the next morning. I will have a horrific pit in the bottom of my stomach but life will go on.
My medical school interviewer asked me what I learned from this experience. I told him that I learned the importance of moving on swiftly. The time I could spend dwelling, lamenting a loss, a failure, is truly time wasted. I must spend the time progressing, creating a new plan, growing.
I’m so grateful for this research experience I have had prior to entering medical school. I have been humbled by the difficult and meticulous work all researchers must diligently face to advance the current technology and treatments in the medical field.