Sunday, June 06, 2010

[the world should have more people like you]

I was recently lamenting on how the doctors in my department were easily impressed by the work I've done, and because of that I wasn't feeling motivated because I wanted to be pushed further, and not complimented for the easy work that I do. Seriously, if anyone is impressed by my statistics, they are naive. Not only because they get awed by the tests that I can "come up with", but also because they are such newbies to research, giving them a few p-values for simple associations makes them happy. This career move certainly wasn't one where I could "excel further". But I guess I've excelled at using Stata the whole day without getting a headache everytime. Heh.

Nevertheless, yesterday during our usual Saturday meetings (about the only day of the week I definitely have to go into office), Dr W was chairing the meeting. I remember when I first came into the department he was the one who said "Oh Dr A told me they saw what you wrote and it was like magic that you were able to write about a new topic so soon and so well". **Grinz**. So during the meeting where each of us RAs give our updates, I mentioned the status of the three manuscripts I was working on. He replied with a "Are you a hepatologist?" so I was like errr... Then he added "..because the NAFLD paper, the HCC, the steatosis paper...wow..perfectly written, till there isn't much to correct. In a year's time you can be a full time hepatologist!" Lol. I heard a couple of MashaAllah's around the table (it literally means "Whatever God wills", often used when there is surprise in someone's achievements or good deeds). If I had a mirror I could swear I was blushing so while looking down at my notes I said thank you. Hehe.

Today after talking to my big boss, he commented again about how he was impressed I could catch on with the liver field so soon and write "brilliant" papers so quickly (seems they were worried initially about whether I could grasp it soon). He even said whatever paper I write from scratch I can be an author in...yay! (On another note, it seems that God sends me these little messages just when I need them. Only last week I was telling hubby how I feel thick skin to write my own name on the paper or ask if I could include my name...and voila, Dr A brought it up today.) Well, bottomline is, I guess it's always fantastic to have bosses who appreciate the work you do and give a compliment even when it's not due lol. For that reason, I really love my working environment. Now I'm having second thoughts about changing jobs (I still miss the lab!)...guess we'll see what happens... For now I shall revel in the fact that I've had pretty nice bosses in my short working life so far =)

5 days to go till I see Changi Airport again. Wee!


P.S. I'm not blowing my own horn, just stating how lucky I am to have positive people around me here :)

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