Two Cents: Grit, Ovarian Cancer, and Washing Dishes

“So what do you do?”

“I work in a lab to develop platinum based drugs to treat ovarian cancer”

Today is my official last day at the lab I’ve been working at for the last two years. It’s an odd feeling because this was my first “official” job and now that it’s over, I have no idea where I’m going to go next. 

I remember starting at the lab and the administrator saying “You’re not going to do ANY science in this lab, just wash the dishes”. And for 6-7 months that’s all I did: Get into work by 7:50, wash dishes, fill up the water tank, and take out the trash. 6 months later, one of the post-docs asked me if I wanted to learn some actual research for the last year I’ve been learning what cancer research is all about. 

Personally, cancer research isn’t as glorious as people make it out to be, at least where I work. It’s actually really mundane; a lot of it is running similar experiments and tweaking things here and there and trying out different methods. As an undergrad, you really don’t get to do much but it was cool to be part of the experimental process. But also as an undergrad, you’re often times overlooked. 

My time at the Cancer Center has taught me a lot about grit and success. I was listening to a TED podcast on success and how the key to success is not necessarily inherent IQ or talent, but the ability to pick yourself up from a difficult situation and persevere. I would be lying if I said I enjoyed every moment of my six month dish washing stint because it was all about the “grind”, that this was going to help me further my career, and by the end of the year I will be running biochemistry experiments. I don’t know about you but washing dishes at 8 am isn’t at the top of my wish list. There was so much crap and random weird things that I had to do, in order to build the trust and have a relationship with the team. But I’m glad that things happened that way. I realized that if I started off by thinking I was some hot shot sophomore who had a job as a cancer researcher, I would’ve never learned the skills I know today. I just had to put my head down and really resolve that there is going to be something I can learn from doing this. I had to accept my role as the scrub of the team, and just do the work ahead of me, not because it’s going to make me into a great researcher but because it builds character. Ultimately it’s going to be that character and mentality that’s going to lead to success, not just technical skills.

I can’t really label myself as a cancer researcher still, mostly because I don’t have letters at the end of my name, but I’d like to think being research assistant has still been a success. I’ve learned more about cancer research, can hold my own in academic circles, and it’s shaped my future career in medicine. 

Any last remarks as a cancer researcher?

I just hope I get a goodbye cake.