Serious Consequences for Research Mistake - Sage Counsil Needed - Please

Parents Forum
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<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>So first, bear with me as I give you some background details about my problem. It's a long story, but worth the read if you want to know the worst case scenario of doing a research job, and I would really appreciate any advice.</p>

<p>I'm a current undergraduate student (junior) at a top 15 high-powered scientific research institution. I am pre-med. I began looking for my first reseach job/position this summer, to bolster my academic portfolio. I made contact with a high-powered researcher, an authority in his field who has prior experience in mentoring students like myself in the past. My first project involved data entry regarding various metabolic treatments and I was eager to prove myself.The researcher's team is literally made up of himself (the PI or private investigator) and one assistant, and together they oversee all these numerous projects and offshoots.</p>

<p>Now towards the end of my first project, I began getting pressure from the doctor to complete the assignment, and moreover, I had many questions about the various nuances of the experiments, which were always met somewhat begrudgingly. That week, I got seriously ill, mono or meningitis-like symptoms that totally ruined me (and there is plenty of documentation on this). But I couldn't just take it easy, like I said I really needed to finish this project. So I made the effort to go to research (I go twice a week for 3 hrs/session), to get the last bit of data from the books (all this data was stored in a composition book at the lab). Well, I was at lab, and it was a Thursday when I realized I was just too ill to work, so I had to leave early. And that's when I made my biggest mistake; I was not thinking clearly. With no malice intended, I stupidly took out two of the pages I was working on from the composition book, intending to finish it at home and bring it back immediately (since I could not just wait until after the weekend to complete a project that was imminently due), and I left. I guess I thought that the data would likely be on a computer file as well and kind of viewed the pages as regular notebook paper. Also, the lab assistant was on leave for the past week, so I couldn't just explain what was going on to him. And just as full disclosure, this was the first time I ever took work home with me, and I was not fully aware that protocol is against this. It came as a shock to me when later (after the Thanksgiving break), the researcher emails me asking where the missing 2 pgs are, since I was sure that I had already returned them. It seems they are not in lab, and I have no clue where they could be.</p>

<p>Losing data is the main issue, but there are other ethical violations being brought up against me at the moment that I feel are patently unfair, and so I want to bring those up now, since they are relevant to my problem as well.</p>

<p>I then started on the next project; by the way, the doctor ended up not even using my work, for reasons I still don't understand. In what way was the spreadsheet inaccurate I asked - 'there's just too many problems,' he says. This is the kind of lack of guidance and communication that has plagued this whole first-time research experience. Anyway, the second project is densitometry (more data input) and scanning blots. Fast forwarding, it was approaching thanksgiving break, and I had been working on the project for about a month. Later he tells me that was longer than he expected - well he gave me no deadline or rough estimate as to how long I was supposed to take. Well the Monday of thanksgiving break (starts Tuesday), I come in hoping to finish the spreadsheet. I'm not able to, so I ask the lab asistant, who has returned, if I could take the binder of blots home with me, so that I can try and finish it before I leave. He says YES, and given that I had been storing that binder over at a different lab for scanning for the past month, I figured it wouldn't be inconveniencing anyone. I work on it at home, but with the convulated nature of the data (duplicate batches, various time pt distinctions, formatting isssues, etc,), I'm still not totally finished, esp. with fact-checking what I have. I get an email from the researcher the day after, after I've already left, saying that he needed the spreadsheet done for a poster he's suddenly doing, and that he needs the blots returned. I can't do anything about it - I'm in Minneapolis already, and the blots are safely stored in my dorm room (obviously I wouldn't take them on a plane with me). [In hindsight, I realize it wasn't worth possibly inconveniencing the researcher by keeping the binder, however unlikely.] I come back that Saturday, and finally complete the darn thing.
The next day (Sunday), I rush over to the lab to return the blots, but of course even though the building is open and secuirty guards are there, they can't let me in to drop it off.</p>

<p>Monday I meet with the doctor, and he's not pleased. I had not been able to give much though to the whereabouts of the 2pgs, and when asked, I panicked and said they must be back at my dorm - though in my mind, I'm thinking, I thought I had returned them already. Then he says I shouldn't have taken the blots, I say I cleared it with his assistant, he says NO!, he talked to his trusted assistant and he said he did no such thing [it might be worth mentioning English isn't his first language]. He says he doesn't like my finished work (spreadsheet) - I ask why - he doesn't have a solid answer. The formatting is right, but he doesn't like that there are duplicate batches. I say well look at your blots, there are duplicate batches, it's very confusing. And it's important that we both looked at the blots, b/c a couple of days later I am accused of essentially tampering with the blots. The assistant tells me the labeling on the blots were "erased." He's furious that all this work of relabeling has been created for him. I personally looked at the blots the Saturday before and both the researcher and I reviewed some of them in his office on Monday, and neither of us noticed anything wrong with the blots. Another tidbit, the assistant reveals that the doctor told him not to tell me about the blot incident, as he's yelling at me and getting the whole lab involved in this shame session. For the life of me, I don't know what to make of this claim, except that I don't believe I'm responsible for that. Then, the assistant tells me that unless I'm returning those missing 2 pages, I was forbidden from coming to lab by the doctor the last time I saw him, that he was there as the doctor essentially banned me from the premises. Well I believe that to be a lie - to my best recollection, he did not tell me I could not come back, he just said that I needed to return the pages immediately. Finally, he asks my why I'm there in lab in the first place on a Wednesday no less. I tell him that I've been frantically looking for the missing data, and cannot find it in my dorm, and I just wanted to make sure I hadn't already returned it to lab at some point, put it somewhere and just forgot about it. He views this suspiciously and accuses me of "changing my story"; I tell him, look there is no story, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't there.
And that was the last we left it.</p>

<p>I don't know what ethical violations the researcher will bring up, but as you can see, the issue is complicated, as I do admit that I made a mistake in taking and losing those 2 pages. He's already contacted my adviser/liason who has had to contact the Dean of Students. Moreover, I will be getting an Unsatisfactory for the credited course, which is itself a death sentence for med school applications. This seems like a disaster for me, since all I've set out to do is do the best job I can, and I'm so disillusioned that I'm thinking of withdrawing.</p>

<p>FINALLY, my question to anyone, preferably with a little expertise or experience with an issue like this, what can I reasonably expect to happen now and how should I treat this issue if it goes any further.</p>

<p>Speedy replies are greatly appreciated! Thank you for your help.</p>

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<p>The first observation in this somber story is that you’re dealing with some high powered egos (the research doc and his minion) and as such, trying to explain the entire story from A to Z is pointless. Right around C or D they lose you because they have their own idea of what ‘the story’ looks like.</p>

<p>Perhaps with involvement from the Dean of Students, you may be able to come up with a documented written timeline of events and actions taken and expected versus actual outcomes that is acceptable to both of you. Once that is established, then you can visualize any ‘deviations’ from normal, and their reasons, and see what the consequences are. </p>

<p>The next thing is to try to see what it will take to make this right, from your point of view, and what is the ‘exit strategy’. That is, an incomplete grade now, and satisfactory after all the work has been done - for free -. You need to acknowledge any mistakes / errors and work to correct them, and achieve buy-in from the deity doc and his minion.</p>

<p>The main thing to realize here is that many professors / researchers have huge egos, probably fueled by their academic successes over the decades - you can’t expect someone with an awesome GPA, 2399 SAT, perfect MCATs, professorship, and everything under the sun perfect (the academic 1%) to even begin to understand how the academic 99% functions no more than you can expect a 1%'er hedge fund manager to understand what it takes for his 99%'er house cleaner to function. </p>

<p>The main reason a lot of us career students did not stay in Academia after spending a decade+ in college was so that we would not have to deal with such egos… Consider it a lesson, tho a hard one.</p>

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<p>Speaking as someone who is very familiar with university laboratory research protocols, I have to say that your story has more than a few holes in it. Must be just me. Sorry. Post on.</p>

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<p>How certain are you that you returned the two pages? Is there any way you could talk to other students who may have worked with researcher or his assistant in the past? This might give you some insight into the problem and how to handle it.</p>

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<p>Family friend who has been doing high-level research since HS (is now in grad school) says that in every lab he has worked, protocol is clearly and explicitly defined. He helped write new protocols (as an UG) after some experiments were contaminated and a PhD student lost two years of work.</p>

<p>Your description reeks of sloppiness and inattention. It’s not about the egos. It’s about the reliability of the work product and attention to detail so that said research can be replicated by others. Your research is basically an instruction manual for the next round of researchers to build upon and verify your results.</p>

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<p>To put my response in context, I am a physics professor with an ongoing research program. I always have undergraduates in my lab and I try to teach them proper laboratory protocol.</p>

<p>The first mistake you made was to take pages out of the notebook. A research notebook needs to be maintained whole with no erasures and page removals. This is essential because any researcher who has grants needs to be ready to back up his/her research results with documentation from a non loose-leaf, dated lab notebook. at the most you should have made copies to take home and work on.</p>

<p>The second mistake that you made was to do the same thing with the binder, that is take it home.</p>

<p>Lying won’t help anything. I think that you just have to be as truthful as possible and deal with the consequences. The ego and arrogance of the professor and the lab assistant are more or less irrelevant to what your mistakes were. It will probably have a consequence as far as how severely they wish to pursue their charges. My advice is to stay away from the lab and discuss this with a trusted faculty member or the Dean of Students.</p>

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<p>“Your research is basically an instruction manual for the next round of researchers to build upon and verify your results.”</p>

<p>Which is hard to do when your rip pages from a lab notebook (an absolute no-no BTW), remove them from the lab (another no-no), and then lose track of them (sigh).</p>

<p>(cross-posted with xraymancs)</p>

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<p>^^^That was the main thing that was drilled into the kids at S1’s math/science HS program in their research courses, where lots of kids worked at NIH, UMD physics lab, NIST, etc. The lab notebook must be meticulous and not modified, and that was always a significant part of their research course and lab grades.</p>

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<p>what u did was highly inappropriate, and i think you know it. it’s time now to stop making excuses for really poor behavior, and accept whatever consequences coming your way with grace and dignity.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all your posts - they are much appreciated. So first I want to make clear that I know I made the one large mistake of taking the data pgs - I fully accept that I was wrong and am beyond sorry and regretful that I was in a state of mind to do that, mainly because I would never want anyone’s research and livelihood to be compromised by me. But as for the other claims, I’m simply telling it as it. Just because I’m guilty of one thing, doesn’t mean I should resign myself to being guilty of unrelated things. </p>

<p>But thanks to those who posts focused on what might happen and how to best navigate the consequences of this issue. They confirmed my worst fears, but at least now I know. Toledo, that’s a useful idea, because this is such a small, high-powered lab that it clearly has no framework for mentorship.</p>

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<p>The ethical violation you are facing is theft of intellectual property (data) and fraud. It is a very serious offense. Your action–regardless of why you did it–has major implications not only for you, but your lab and the PI. (And possibly the university, esp if they were fundng the research and/or have patent-able interest in the outcome of the research…)</p>

<p>I am a librarian at a small biomedical research lab. When I first started at the lab I had to take a half day of training just in ethics and quality control. I’ve had to re-train in QC and ethics every 3 months ever since. One of the things emphasized over and over and over was not to tamper in any way with a lab notebook. Nor may a lab notebook EVER be removed from the premises. Lab notebooks are <em>the</em> thing used to judge a researcher’s and a experiment’s integrity.</p>

<p>Lab notebooks are legal documents. (Provided they are intact.) Federal law, in fact, requires a researcher/his employer to indefinitely maintain these documents if the research was done using federal funds of any kind. (Hey, it’s part of what I do for living. I have a lab notebooks collection going back to the 40’s.) Additionally, lab notebooks are required supporting material when submitting a patent application. (Again, I know this because it’s part of my job. Additionally, my DH has 7 patents and his company’s attorney had to submit his notebooks because they are supporting evidence as part of the patent application.)</p>

<p>Without the intact notebook, your PI (and it’s PRIMARY investigator, not private investigator) will be unable to publish any portion of the experiment unless ALL work is replicated and he could lose his federal grant. </p>

<p>If the ethic charge sticks–and there’s a pretty good chance it might–you have far greater worries than merely getting an U or F for the research credit. An ethics violation of this type will get you permanently black-listed by medical schools.</p>

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<p>If there is any chance the missing pages are still in your possession, you need to find them. Have you really looked in every last notebook, folder and corner of your dorm room?</p>

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<p>The ego issues come in the response by the professor and his minions. I would not expect my supervisor to yell at me, accuse me of ethical violations, bring the Dean of Students in, or likewise, not unless there was serious intent to mess up the work, or documented prior history of performance issues. </p>

<p>I’m sure the potential is there for the prof to throw the book at the OP, or attempt to, at which point the OP should really be getting good legal counsel…</p>

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<p>For Heaven’s sakes you’re an undergraduate. Most labs don’t trust new graduate students with important data, let alone undergraduates. You made mistakes, but every detail of your work should have been closely monitored and supervised by someone. Something is definitely missing from this story. Are you claiming that the only thing you have done is data entry? You didn’t actually do any experiments yourself? Regardless, the failures you describe reflect poor supervision and guidance. You should have an opportunity to tell “your side” of the story and perhaps negotiate a resolution that doesn’t permanently mar your record.</p>

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<p>Turbo93, i have to agree with you. I greatly respect the researcher, but it wasn’t easy communicating and getting help from him.</p>

<p>Planestate, you’re right. His assistant did show me the basics of cell culturing, lysing and preparing your own gel for Western blotting, BUT I never ended up actually doing any laboratory work. What’s more, I forgot to mention this, there was a minor contamination issue in the incubator at the very beginning of the semester based on the N2a cells I was working on - but I must stress that the assistant not only supervised every step I did, but actually did most of the procedures for me (since I sadly have little practical experience in this respect). Nevertheless, I got blamed for it (what foreshadowing!). the doctor subsequently told me there were other contamination issues in the past.</p>

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<p>It is PRINCIPAL Investigator.</p>

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<p>I think you should go for a walk and breath in cold air and see the stars – or the clouds and keep perspective with the universe. Several bits that are structure for the next steps:</p>

<p>1) Vow that never, ever, ever again will you work when ill. Nor will you expect it of others. Terrible events unfold that would not happen if you were feeling well. And when I write “ill”, that includes drunk, hungover, sleep deprived or in any other way not bodily functional. </p>

<p>2) You’ve started a record of events. Now sit down and finish it. Write in dates and print off emails. I suspect it is unlikely that all this will end up in court or in front of a disciplinary committee, but a complete record of events put together in a binder will be your ally if it should turn further sour. Also, your own thinking will clarify as you move through making this record. As events continue to unfold, keep a diary of each phone call, conversation, etc. – include notes on profanity and snottiness. Again, this is part of your defense and organization for future careful steps. </p>

<p>3) Don’t accept the U as a death sentence. It’s a U. Schedule an appointment with the Dean and take that binder full of detailed notes with you. Make your case that you worked very hard (maybe a list of hours you contributed?) and that the assistant was the one who muddied the waters on the blot stuff. Accept and own your error on being sick and losing 2 pages (truly repent and talk about how sorry you are). </p>

<p>All this and argue for an Incomplete. (basically a Gentleman’s Agreement that this all stinks). </p>

<p>4) Resolve to be more careful in your next internship. You have just learned some huge lessons in life. Big names and big projects can be the siren’s song that leads you into nasty situations. Next time around you’ll know to ask lots of cheerful questions so you get a handle on the personalities (and things like level of English, quality of management). Tip: next time you’re up for a lab job, paste a smile on your face and ask the secretary if you may please buy her lunch. It is well worth $40 (nice lunch!)and an hour of your life to get the temperature of the place. You don’t say “tell me all the good gossip” because that is unprofessional. Ask questions that draw out long answers like "Tell me about the lab work. What do you see as the hard parts? "</p>

<p>Go for another walk. And another. You are the junior here. They’re letting the shxx run downhill. Protect yourself with detailed records of what you did when and your own meeting with the Dean of STudents. This is important. You may find that the Dean is well aware of problems and you are the third or fourth student who has run into trouble in this sloppy lab (sorry, but the fact that you hauled stuff away on two occasions – and when it was the only copy – says this is a very sloppy operation). </p>

<p>Don’t freak about medical school applications just yet. Plenty of interview panels are actually glad to see a student who has some “seasoning.” Believe me, they’ve seen and heard worse. </p>

<p>You have paths here to improve the ending. True, you’re not going to come out looking like a rose, but you can move from roadkill to “hard working student who hit some bumps” and that smells a ton better than roadkill. </p>

<p>Hang in there. And build that record of dates, hours, and so on.</p>

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<p>Although his actions may seem harsh, the PI has followed protocol in the things he has done regarding the loss of the two pages from the data book. You have given him good reason to believe you have taken something that is important to the project. He should report it, and not just to your advisor. Pending investigation, he should not use any data that you have had anything to do with (in case you have tampered with it) and he should not allow you into his lab. </p>

<p>While we can say, from reading your post, that what happened was a silly mistake, the loss of data like this is treated very seriously. People have been known to ‘lose’ data when they are trying to cover up findings they don’t like or when they never had the data in the first place. While it may be nicer if he did, and I think perhaps many people would, the PI is not really supposed to make a judgment call on whether you made a silly mistake or did something far more sinister, he is supposed to follow the rules that are in place for when data goes missing. The PI has ultimate responsibility for the project and the lab, and he has to cover his back on this. If the project has to be abandoned, it could have severe consequences for his career and that of his assistant. Funders do not give their money to people who are known for not keeping their data safe.</p>

<p>The second situation you mention seems… odd. I think you need to find out exactly when the PI has reported to your advisor and Dean of Students. Has he reported this second issue at all? Is his complaint that you were a poor worker who wasn’t up to the job and made costly mistakes? Or has he accused you of serially sabotaging the work of the lab? Are you accused of scientific misconduct? Theft?</p>

<p>So I think your first step is to talk to your advisor or the Dean of Students. Find out what has been reported, and to whom, and ask them what is likely to happen. If it’s not going to go any further, you may tactfully ask whether there might be an opportunity to improve your grade and/or keep the ethical violation off your transcript. If it looks like things are going to be taken further, do not be panicked into trying to respond at that meeting - when the PI asked where the two pages were, your panic led to you basically accepting all responsibility for losing the pages, even though you don’t believe you did. Don’t get in that situation again.</p>

<p>It is possible that this will go no further, as it is in no-one’s interest that it does. If this is considered a serious breach of research ethics or if there are concerns that the integrity of the project has been significantly, fatally, compromised, then the case may be referred to whoever in your college deals with research ethics. In my college there is a Committee especially for this. If it is referred to Committee, you must take this very, very seriously - the potential consequences for you go beyond having an unsatisfactory grade and not getting in to med school.</p>

<p>If it does go further than it has, you will need to find out exactly what you are being accused of. If possible, you should get a detailed list of each individual action of yours that is being questioned. Then you should go through the list, and write down the date when each event occurred and the bald facts of what happened with no extraneous detail. This is a document you may be able to submit to whoever the situation gets passed on to, so it should be clear and coherent:
Removal of pages from the composition book - [Date] I removed two pages from the composition book and took them to my dorm room. [Date] I returned the pages to the lab. [Date] [Assistant name] emailed me to say the pages were missing. I responded [x]. [Date] [PI name] asked where the missing pages were. I said I thought they were in my dorm room. [PI name] said I must return them immediately. [Date] [Assistant name] informed me that I would not be allowed in the lab until I returned the missing pages.
If you have also been accused of something to do with the second project, you should do the same thing for that. </p>

<p>Once you have done that, you can write a concise description of your ‘mitigating circumstances’. This is not a place to detail your personal issues with the PI or to suggest he might have been doing anything dubious. To put it bluntly, if it’s got to Committee stage now is the time to make nice. However unknowingly, you did do something wrong, and getting into an emotional he-said-she-said argument with the PI will only make you look like you are trying to minimize your responsibility and blame the PI. In a marginal or unclear situation, the college will always have a greater interest in protecting the integrity of a member of their staff than it does in your aspirations of attending med school - it has to have.</p>

<p>You want to convey the following:

  1. You were committed to the success of the project. When you fell ill, you were concerned about the impact it would have and wanted to do everything you could to ensure that the project was completed on time and in a satisfactory way;
  2. You thought that the best way to do this was to work in your own time. You were unaware of the protocols about taking data from the composition book out of the lab (If you truly were not aware - You say you were not “fully aware” of the protocol - why weren’t you? What did you know?). Such was your ignorance that in the intervening period (if I am correct with your timeline) you asked to take some data from another project out of the lab, and believed you had permission to do so (Unless they specifically accuse you of tampering with the data in the second project, I would skip over anything else to do with it - it is not in your favor to dwell on ongoing issues concerning your competence and reliability);
  3. You believe that you returned the pages to the lab, however you accept that by removing the pages in the first place you contributed to a situation where they could become lost. You were afraid and upset to think that you might have contributed to this loss of the data and the problems it would cause for the project, so in the hope that you would be able to rectify the matter you told the PI you had the pages. You accept that this too was an error;
    Finally, 4) You fully understand the severity of the situation. You know how important abiding by the ethical code that governs research is and of the justifiably severe consequences imposed on those who commit scientific misconduct. It was not your intention to violate these codes, your sole aim was to make the best contribution you could to the project, and in your attempts to do so, you made what, with hindsight, was a bad decision without being fully aware of the consequences. Whilst you would stress that you were wholly unaware of the implications of your actions, you are truly sorry that this situation has arisen. You apologize sincerely for any damage you may have inadvertantly caused to the project and for any problems experienced by [PI] and [Assistant] as a result. If it is acceptable to them, you would appreciate the opportunity to rectify the mistake by assisting them in any way that you can (to replace the lost data?), however you would understand if they do not feel this is appropriate.</p>

<p>It’s likely that it will not go any further than it already has done, but it’s important that if it does, you have everything clear in your mind so that you can convey your situation clearly to people who are going to making decisions.</p>

<p>Oh, disclosure: I am a PhD student and one of the co-opted graduate student members of my college’s disciplinary committee. I am not a scientist.</p>

<p>And I apologize for writing such a long post.</p>