Hi Amir

My advice is to try and find something that plays to your strengths

I work with a medical registrar who is also a surgeon (doing MD), he's great at dissections etc so is quite handy for me as a scientist to work with.

Go for something as clinical as possible would be my advice, e.g working with donor human tissue e.g tumour biopsies or whatever happens to be relevant to your branch of surgery would be the best policy. This should give you the edge over other candidates as you have your surgical experience.

Good luck

I should also add that it may not be worth hanging on in there. I've often thought you see the bad side of people when the chips are down. As a result i'm not sure my relationship with my supervisor has really ever recovered, especially since i was blamed for having no results when i was really quite isolated in the lab (no postdoc to help out, and inherited a load of broken equipment to work with)

I very nearly left after a row with my boss, to an extent i think i probably should of. However, having made my decision to stay with it and being a man of (at least some) integrity i feel obliged to see things through. Think carefully about whether you really won't to go through with this

All the best

Hi Robber

I'd say i was in quite a similar position to you this time last year with my cell biology project. I had no data and my hypothesis did'nt really appear workable. I'm now approaching the end of second year and after a change of direction have generated sufficient data and am going ok, so it can definitely be achieved. Although it will be hard work.

As for the supervisor thing, they really won't trust you untill ypu generate them the one thing that they crave..... Positive results, don't take it personally that your boss had to do what he did to believe you

Hi Guys

I'm thinking from reading Picchu flower's post and a few other ones that PhDs appear to put an awful strain on a relationship, i must admit it also seems to be mostly the chaps who are at fault here. Just wondering if anybody apart from my Sister has managed to survive their PhD with relationship intact, or if it all really is as bad as it looks?

I'm curious being about 6 months into a relationship with my girlfriend and coming up to 2 years into the PhD as to what strains may be about to happen

Secondly,

What are your supervisors playing at? the fact that you can't get the experiment to work is as much their fault as yours. They apply for funding and have the idea. Your job is to execute that. As long as your execution is fine, you are still worth a PhD Even with a load of negative data. Doing a PhD is about learning to research, not how many papers you have.

If your supervisors will only accept positive data, they can't be very good at what they do, this also quite seriously encourages people to falsify data to give the supervisors what they want, which is a very dangerous thing indeed.

I would contact your union rep/ uni counselling service/ general welfare officer about what appears to be bullying from your bosses

Hi

Firstly, i must say that i am in a similar position. A cell biology experiment i've been trying to do since starting my PhD still does not work (never done before in human cells, has worked before with rats, published by other labs). I'm coming to conclude that things aren't that simple with the experiment i am doing, and there may be key physiological differences. You are not alone.