When you say the paper was published without your consent, do you mean your supervisor submitted your work without your name on it, e.g. they have plagiarised? If so I would think your university would have procedures for serious misconduct like that, so it might be better to speak to someone there before engaging a lawyer at your own expense?

If your name was on it, this seems a bit of an over-reaction -- especially if you would have consented if you had been asked, and are just so angry about not being asked that you're prepared to throw away a publication credit you would otherwise have wanted. Losing the publication will probably hurt your career more than your supervisor's (as will taking legal action against them).

I had similar with my supervisor, to the point where I wondered whether she was obstructing my progress on purpose (though more likely she just didn't care). Things like not turning up to planned meetings, ignoring emails, failing to complete paperwork/write me a promised letter of recommendation meaning I missed out on a conference bursary and other opportunities, delaying for months and then years over edits on a paper draft that never got submitted in the end, and finally flatly refusing to read my thesis.

With hindsight, I wish I'd done something about it instead of trying to struggle on and hoping for the best (ended up with revise/resubmit verdict for my thesis). I can't say whether you should quit or not, but I know these 'toxic supervisor' situations can happen and it can be incredibly difficult to make progress. Maybe explore other options for support first as Tru suggests.

If you feel like you need more training in certain lab techniques etc, then I think it would be fine to raise that with your supervisor and discuss the best way forward. Sometimes there are short training courses you can go on (often focused on safe use of equipment, admittedly) or they might suggest a postdoc or a more senior PhD student who could show you informally.

But I agree with the above comment that you need to be pro-active about getting any training you need, not sitting back and waiting to be taught (postdocs have their own research to do and will not usually see teaching as a major part of their role).

I wouldn't complain to your supervisor about the postdoc apparently 'doing nothing', it's not really your business. If they're really doing nothing in the lab (and therefore producing no results) your supervisor will surely become aware of it before long!

Oh no, really sorry to hear this is still dragging on for you. It's unbelievable that they can't give you a decision after all this time. There really should be some regulations governing what to do in the case of a disagreement, and for how long the process can be drawn out - not to mention better communication with the candidate who is having to put their life on hold for months or even years and deserves to at least know what's going on!

Can you maybe ask for a time estimate of when there will be a result? Then you can justifiably chase again (and escalate to head of department etc) if that deadline is not met?

I really sympathise with you. I have many of the same issues with my R&R, around poor supervision, lack of communication, one obstacle after another... some days I can't see how it's possible I will ever get my PhD. But we can't give up hope.

It might feel daunting right now, but actually you're lucky to have such a detailed list of corrections - this way you know exactly what's required to get your PhD. Just do exactly what they ask and you should have no problems.

My PhD has felt a bit like this, as though nothing is ever straightforward and everything that could go wrong does go wrong. Some of it is my negative thinking habits and depressed mood though... I guess a PhD is not supposed to be easy...

Maybe check out the final year support thread at the top? It can be a struggle for lots of people.

What kind of things are they saying that are so upsetting? If it's anything outright racist or abusive, for example, you shouldn't have to put up with that. But if it's just people being weird and over-compensating for their own insecurities, I agree the best thing is to just ignore and focus on your own work as best you can.

As well as what type of job you're looking for, I wonder where you're looking -- I mean, geographically -- and if you could broaden your search? I've never had any difficulty getting a suitable job in a London or the Midlands, for example, but in my home town in the North East it's all but impossible to get any job at all, as there are almost no opportunities and on the rare occasion an opening is advertised it gets hundreds of applications because so many people in the region are unemployed.

I don't see what you have to lose by applying, you can always try again in a few years if you don't get any suitable offers this time?

Having a good supervisor who you get on with and who will actively support you to publish etc is a huge advantage, and in the end your publication record will count for more than the ranking of the university when it comes to applying for post doc opportunities.

I went to a high-ranked uni but had a poor supervisor who in the end didn't even bother to read my thesis, never mind any papers...

It's true that you should have cleared up the broken glass immediately (and asked someone if you didn't know where the sharps bin was) instead of leaving it while you took a phone call... but even though you were in the wrong, there's no excuse for a staff member yelling and swearing at a student like that. He could have reminded you of the importance of lab safety without doing it in an aggressive and inappropriate way.

I encountered someone like this too - he actually started doing weird things like loosening the caps on my centrifuge tubes while my back was turned (supposedly to check whether I'd follow the correct procedure of double-checking them before putting in the centrifuge - fortunately I saw him doing it so I wasn't fooled!). This person wasn't my supervisor or anything to do with me, he'd just got it into his head that I wasn't fit to be in the lab after seeing me make a minor mistake on my first day. I would sometimes get to the lab and stand outside too scared to even go in, and just go back home feeling sick with anxiety.

Unfortunately you get people like this in academia, and it's very difficult as a student to do anything about it, especially if they're an academic who brings in lots of funding (or support staff who've been there for 20 years or whatever). So I have to agree that the only way sometimes is to keep your head down and avoid him as much as possible. But it shouldn't be that way :(

Do you mean will it be a problem that your Masters is in a different subject area? I don't think so, unless a Masters in dentistry is specifically required for the PhD or job you're applying for.

It would probably be a good idea to have an answer prepared in case they ask you in interview about why you chose that particular masters. Also if there was material you learned or experience you gained during the masters that would be relevant to a dentistry career (I'm sure there must be some overlap between dentistry and public health?) it might be helpful to highlight that in your application.

I would prepare a short talk (a few minutes), as even if they don't want you to do a Powerpoint presentation, they might ask you to give an overview of your PhD at the start of the viva. Not all examiners do this, some like to jump straight in with their questions, but it's good to have something prepared just in case, so you can get off to a confident start.

I went through my thesis making sure I understood all the examples from the literature I'd mentioned, and making sure I could clearly explain everything I'd done and the results I'd got, and that I could justify all the decisions I'd made (including experiments and analyses I'd decided NOT to do). I found a few minor mistakes so I noted these down so that if the examiners mentioned them (they didn't in the end!) I would be able to say I was aware of them and what the correction should be.

I found the questions were generally very specific to my work, so not sure lists of generic 'viva questions' would have been particularly helpful in predicting what they'd ask, but there's no harm having a look through such lists to get you thinking critically about your thesis and how someone else might view it.

You won't fail because of some typos, and there will be a chance to fix the errors before you submit the final version. I agree with making a note of any errors just in case the examiners bring them up ( though they may not even notice).

I know how depression can make everything seem hopeless, but it's probably not as bad as you think. Sorry you had such a struggle during your PhD. I had similar and got an R&R in the end, but there's every chance you will pass with minor correction. Good luck!

I haven't heard of this happening, but I would think that to be considered for a PhD you would have to be registered for a PhD and submit your thesis with the appropriate paperwork?

However, if you think you might have done enough for a PhD after all, could you talk to your supervisor about the possibility of submitting your thesis for the PhD instead? Probably the worst outcome is that the examiners think it's not quite enough and award you the MPhil instead, which is what you were planning to submit for anyway.