Time to Rethink Graduate and Postdoc Education

00:00:05.15 Hi, my name is Keith Yamamoto. I am a professor at the University of California, San Francisco.
00:00:13.06 I'd like to take a few minutes to talk with you about a specific aspect about graduate and post-doctoral education.
00:00:18.11 Turns out this is a good time to step back and rethink graduate and post-doctoral education right now
00:00:25.18 because the field is so dynamic and biomedical research is moving in a rapid pace
00:00:32.07 but our training has remained static
00:00:34.12 now what do I mean by dynamic, what's changing, basically everything.
00:00:39.10 Let me give you three biggies. One is that the field of biomedical research, biological research is moving from being a
00:00:46.23 descriptive one to being quantitative. It is adopting and using the concepts and methods
00:00:53.02 of the physical sciences, physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, computation
00:00:58.06 in order to carry out its work in a quantitative level.
00:01:02.03 Second, the ways that we learn things and what we need to remember
00:01:09.13 has completely changed because of the Internet
00:01:12.07 the capacity to search in three tenths of a second about all bits of information
00:01:16.04 about a given area. The ways that we do our research, taking on bigger problems
00:01:22.13 is increasingly seeking the involvement with teams of researcher with different expertise
00:01:29.04 These things are driving changes in the ways that we learn
00:01:33.16 the ways that we teach and the ways that we do our work
00:01:37.00 Third biggie, ways that out PhD training can be used moving on to full careers.
00:01:46.10 Now those first two that I mentioned of the move of biology to a quantitative discipline
00:01:52.23 of changes the ways that we learn, teach and work, our major issues that are really for another discussion
00:02:03.13 big things that will affect the composition of our training endeavor
00:02:08.25 the strategies that are used and so forth
00:02:11.10 So I want to talk about the third point, how do we use our PhD training
00:02:17.01 Now when I was a graduate student, it was a pretty simple equation
00:02:24.08 That is the biomedical training pipeline existed for the set of students that chose to go to
00:02:34.27 to take their bachelor degree and go to graduate school
00:02:37.22 They knew, we knew, I knew that we would end up as postdocs after graduate school
00:02:46.16 and then as assistant professors in some institutions.
00:02:50.23 So it was simple, a simple pipeline and that was the way that it worked.
00:02:56.21 Now, we have a different situation. We have an array of careers that biomedical trainees can undertake and occupy
00:03:08.19 Exciting ones, a big set of options.
00:03:14.14 This might be called a postdoc terminal if you look at it here
00:03:18.03 and there are many important options appeared that's exciting but comes with a catch
00:03:23.27 and the catch is that faculty who were trained along the pipeline
00:03:29.03 the linear pipeline, some of them at least have sort of held on to this notion
00:03:33.15 that the real value of training is in turning out academic investigators
00:03:41.18 principal investigators in academia. Yes, it's open up a bit
00:03:45.13 There is validity given to being an independent investigator in the industry, in pharma
00:03:52.13 or in biotech, but that whole linear route that they undertook
00:03:57.09 is the one that they still maintained, has the highest value and these other
00:04:02.27 occupations, well they are sort of secondary, they are alternatives so they are not as good
00:04:11.06 We are up against a very attractive platform one that's tilted
00:04:15.19 so that all things are not equal.
00:04:21.29 So that notion of a titled platform is further complicated by the fact that we have many more students coming into this pipeline
00:04:31.05 beginning to move down through what is now a network
00:04:36.27 And so it's good that our field is still attracting brilliant trainees
00:04:43.20 but this has generated a work force dilemma, kind of a holding pattern of postdocs that are floating
00:04:50.11 over this platform, looking for a place to land. The perception of that there are so many people in the workforce
00:05:00.21 it has pushed back into the PhD training period so that the time to degree
00:05:05.04 has extended as students worried about what their futures going to look like
00:05:08.27 and it has extended to the postdoc training period literally adding additional postdoc periods
00:05:15.23 on to that as I mean adds in this extra loop. The point that postdoc terminal threatens to become the terminal postdoc
00:05:23.11 So what do we do? All of this has produced kind of the workforce dilemma
00:05:31.11 that encompasses both the array they are out there and the number of trainees that are coming through the network
00:05:38.15 It looks the size and composition of workforces is an issue that many are concerned about
00:05:47.11 Now what I see is that many of the people that have begun to discuss and work on this problem
00:05:54.03 begin with an assumption, an untested assumption that the work force is too big
00:05:59.13 In a dynamic field that is still developing still adding on new things to do, new ways to do them,
00:06:07.02 I think it's risky to assume that we know what the size of the total work force should be
00:06:13.23 But those individuals that think this way begin the solution of this problem by thinking about ways to reduce the size of the work force
00:06:23.00 Now in a recent iBio presentation my friend Greg Petsko presented his economic solution
00:06:30.11 a hypothetical proposal that says let's double the postdoc stipend and that will lead to a reduction by half of the number of postdocs
00:06:43.22 This proposal may sound attractive, doubling salary for anyone sounds good
00:06:48.16 But I think it has multiple problems associated with it
00:06:54.09 One is that it assumes we know what the size of the work force is, as I just said, it's impossible to do in a field that's very dynamic
00:07:03.19 You will be embarrassing if a decade from now, there was a shortage of trained PhDs in the biomedical sciences
00:07:11.00 because we decide to step back at this point. The second is that is assume that
00:07:18.16 there is a linear relationship between the size of the current stuck today postdoc stipend
00:07:25.05 and the number of postdocs that would be trained. And third this proposal
00:07:31.23 would price out of the market, postdocs except for the most experienced
00:07:37.21 and highly-funded laboratories. Changes in the demographic of our community that I think is just simply unattractive
00:07:45.25 So those problems are there and what I would like to do is just a different approach
00:07:53.26 A change in this diagram that appears first to be very simple.
00:08:00.23 That is to change the postdoc terminal to a PhD hub
00:08:06.22 A hub with the PhDs at the center and career options spokes radiated outward
00:08:15.15 Now you recognize that all I did was to move that up from the postdoc to the PhD
00:08:23.24 But that move comes with two important points to be made. One is that it has an
00:08:31.02 obligation that, it instills an obligation, to the academic community
00:08:35.23 to be able to provide to graduate students during their graduate training
00:08:40.18 enough familiarity with this array of career options that they are able to make a choice
00:08:50.12 that a PhD trainee that they gets their PhD can confidently choose one of these spokes that entails further training
00:09:00.16 to move down, to move into an occupation of her choice.
00:09:05.07 The only way that you can do that is for graduate programs to take on the responsibility
00:09:10.23 which I would say is up till now virtually all have abdicated to find ways to familiarize students
00:09:20.14 with this wonderful array of options. The second consequence of moving the hub from the postdoc to the PhD
00:09:33.02 is that is more appropriately places the position of making those choices
00:09:39.10 There are many those occupations that around this array that in fact don't require postdoc training
00:09:45.15 or can very well use the kind of expertise, the thought processes and problem solving approaches
00:09:51.17 that come with PhD training. So it would have trainees go all the way through postdoc before making that choice
00:09:58.17 is wasting their time and energies in ways that we really should not be doing
00:10:04.28 Finally, that move of the hub for the first time, presents an opportunity for the postdoc training to have a specific mission
00:10:17.18 So the overall goal is to inform and empower graduate students with information to allow them to make choices with confidence
00:10:27.10 about the ways they are going to make their career and the secondary consequence that's also
00:10:31.26 very desirable is that for the first time, the postdoc itself would have a specific training mission
00:10:38.22 This would be the time, just as the other occupational arrays require for the training,
00:10:49.02 This would be the time for the PhD trainee to become a really independent, a truly independent investigator
00:10:56.04 able to develop, and design, and carry out a research program stem from her own imagination
00:11:05.09 That's also a time of course for them to learn lab management skills, to be able to carry out these practices of research
00:11:13.03 so that the research is carried on with responsibility and with good efforts
00:11:19.06 So the postdoc would finally have a real goal
00:11:24.04 So I am confident that the students will actually get it right, that the students will be able to right size and right focus
00:11:33.03 our training community. And when that happens, we will end up with a happier workforce, a trainee force,
00:11:42.09 one that moves more quickly through their training period because they have an end point in mind
00:11:47.24 right information that they have an end point in mind and they will be more successful
00:11:52.03 when they occupy their final career missions. More over this is the time when we
00:11:59.05 have an opportunity to make this the century of biology
00:12:03.19 a time when we can fill occupations in ways that will enable us
00:12:11.06 not only to use their knowledge that we discover in out laboratories
00:12:15.11 to push forward the frontiers of discovery
00:12:19.12 But also to address society issues, urgent societal issues
00:12:24.18 societal issues that don't have solutions right now
00:12:27.07 in areas such as health, environment, energy and food.
00:12:32.18 If we were able to do that, to address these issues, we are going to need people
00:12:37.01 that are occupying each of these occupational opportunities
00:12:41.29 in order to help society, to work within our society
00:12:46.08 to undertake these wonderful challenges ahead of us
00:12:50.16 So I think the students would be able to get it right
00:12:55.05 and we will be able to fill these niches both inside and outside of our laboratories
00:13:00.15 Thank you

This Talk

Speaker: Keith Yamamoto

Audience:

Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Researcher
Educators

Recorded: February 2014

Talk Overview

Life science graduate training programs today seek predominantly to produce independent investigators in academia or industry. Not only is securing such positions intensely competitive, but we are in a time in which we need highly trained life science Ph.D.s occupying a broad array of careers outside of that restricted niche. In his talk, Keith Yamamoto explains that it is time to rethink graduate and postdoc education and suggests that instead of preparing graduate students for what he calls the “post-doc terminal,” institutions and graduate programs should be responsible for creating a “Ph.D. hub,” familiarizing trainees with the array of career options during graduate school, and placing high value on those options, thus empowering students to make informed, confident decisions about their careers.

Speaker Bio

Keith Yamamoto

Keith Yamamoto

Professor, Cellular & Molecular Pharmacology; Vice Chancellor for Science Policy and Strategy
University of California, San Francisco Continue Reading