Current status: 4th year of full time PhD in clinical pathology
Scenario: prof treating as technician and delaying PhD

Research progress :
In my view: although i am a average researcher but i have given many good results to my supervisor. Even if i get 50-60% of that work, i can fillfull the gaps within this year and graduate.
In my prof 's view: as he has designed all those experiments (for almost all my research accomplishment in past 3years). As phd student i must design on my own and only that i can put in my phd thesis.
Prof's expectations: yesterday he asked me to work on proteomic side (i have limited knowledge can only clone n express proteins nd mutant proteins) and design my knock out mouse experiments. This all will take another 2 years atleast (if i am lucky enough)
Prof's remarks: you will get your degree when you will finish your work

Financial problems: Since last year, i am getting half the promised stipend. this year our lab moved to another city the living expenses are 3 times more expensive than the previous place. My parents are partially supporting me financially.

#Solution????
Can i be deprived off all the research work i have done, just because i have not designed the project at first place?????

Is there anyone else being your second supervisor? You need to first quietly explore what are your options and after that act accordingly. Ideal would be that you have another supervisor or anyone close to that function and openly talk about it.


I just cannot believe how many bad supervisors exist in academia, not just exist but thrive. Of course, someone could jump in and say "hey there are a lot of good supervisors that's not true", sorry but I have passed the phase believing there is a good number of them. I am in academia for 14 years and do you know how many I can tell were good in these 14 years? 2, yes, two!! (Sorry I just had to vent here but your story reminded me of so many people having so many problems with supervisors who were never even properly evaluated if they would be a good supervisor, I don't know why to become PhD student you need lots of interviews and all kinds of preparations but zero investigation if someone is able to be a supervisor or not, only how many papers he/she published and that has NOTHING to do with supervision, treating humans and influence their future, academia is disaster).

Are you in the UK or USA?

South Korea

I don't much about South Korea or their university system, so this advice may not be relevant.
I disagree with your supervisor, in that you don't need to design very experiment in your thesis. I think doing the labwork, analysis and writing should be enough. However, convincing your supervisor otherwise might be difficult. Talking with your second supervisor or another member of the faculty for their advice would be a good idea. Maybe that is the standard expectation in your university or that your university has clear procedures on how to deal with it. If you do have to do the extra experiments you should be explicitly clear that you want to finish and will only do work that will be included in it. He will stop treating you like a technician when you stop letting him do it.

Thankyou for your suggestion. I hope i can get over it