6 ms·

Another bit of advice, see if the lab has had any suicides in recent memory. Also, if one or more occurs, gtfo before the stress gets you.

neolog 6y ago
Are there labs with more than one recent suicide?
- wiredfool 6y ago
  I’m a little hazy on it now, but my sister's lab had at least one while she was there, and it directly led to her death a few years later. It was ... not a healthy environment. Some warning signs would have been easier to see from the same coast, and some of them were obvious in hindsight.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    That's horrible. I suppose there's a poetic irony that even in places where you can really transcend people still find a way to hurt eachother.
  - marvin 6y ago
    So sorry to hear that.
  - totemandtoken 6y ago
    My deepest condolences, very sorry to hear that
- Balgair 6y ago
  My former lab has had 2 since 2012. I know of other labs at the school with more than that. I left, but not as the person I thought was going to leave when I started. The advice on talking to students is absolutely correct. And to be very clear, if you do not find any good labs in the schools you were admitted to: Do Not Go To Grad School At All. Reapply to other schools and wait. A year waiting is worth the 4 on the backend being a drone in a bad lab.
ColanR 6y ago
How would you check that? I remember there was a (rumored) suicide at my school while I was there, and it was hushed up really well so that even a lot of students wouldn't have heard about it. Far as I know, there isn't a searchable database of 'suicides per school'.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  Web search for obits. If someone dies young and the reason isn't clearly stated, it's suicide.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Or overdose.
- gumby 6y ago
  MIT does not cover the, up, to my knowledge. Quite the opposite. The only one I knew personally died for reasons unrelated to the Instititute— in fact it was one of his bright spots in some ways (though he suffered dreadfully from the imposter syndrome as well so in other ways it made things worse). However MIT can be a very difficult place and I don’t want to gloss over that. And I think the institute could do a lot to improve things.
- neltnerb 6y ago
  I suppose I can't say for sure but I remember plenty of them in the school newspaper, at least a few a year usually. Sometimes the reason was easy to deduce, sometimes it was ambiguous as is often the case in possible suicides.
MereInterest 6y ago
Divorces, too. A family member was applying to med schools, and during one of the visits there was a boast of a >100% divorce rate among students. Every married student who entered that program was divorced by the end, as were some who got married during the program. To have such a stressful program is bad enough, but to boast about it as a sign of prestige and dedication is even worse.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  That's scary because being married is positively correlated with success in professional school.
- waterhouse 6y ago
  > to boast about it What the actual fuck? Why would anyone who loves their wife or husband choose to enter such a program? (Best-case scenario: a few years of data produced this anomalous result, someone noticed it and decided to draw attention to it, and it has since scared away all married students, so that there will never be any future data points to contradict it.) Still, from what I know about medical school and residency in general, any place that periodically assigns 24-hour work shifts just because is ... perverse. Edit: Ok, it's not 100% "just because"; there are some rationalizations. https://www.ama-assn.org/residents-students/residency/3-tips-new-med-school-grads-facing-old-24-hour-shift https://www.ama-assn.org/residents-students/residency/3-tips...
  - jseliger 6y ago
    Still, from what I know about medical school and residency in general, any place that periodically assigns 24-hour work shifts just because is ... perverse. It's worse than you think: https://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-nurse-or-physicians-assistant-instead-of-a-doctor-the-underrated-perils-of-medical-school https://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-n... Once a person has taken on the debt from med school, it's extremely difficult not to continue. Residency programs know this.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    That was more or less my reaction as well. I could understand there being a few years of anomalous data as a result of small sample size, but to then boast of it rather than taking it as a sign of very serious issues doubles down on a bad sign. I agree that the 24-hour shifts are ridiculous. I could see some potential benefit for reducing the number of shift handoffs (e.g. 12-hour shifts expose patients to 2 shift changes per day, but 8-hour shifts expose patients to 3 shift changes per day), since shift handoffs have been shown to be the source of miscommunications. However, as your link points out, there is no decrease in standard of care resulting from removing 24-hour shifts, so that is not a reason to keep 24-hour shifts. Also, thank you for the link on it, though the tone of that article was definitely odd. It took the lack of effect of shift duration on patient care as a reason to extend shifts back up to 24 hours, rather than concluding that there is no reason to keep shifts at 24 hours. Similarly, it takes as a given that after a 16-hour shift, you only get 8 hours off, rather than treating that as another sign of poor shift scheduling. (From the article, “When you’re on a 16-hour shift that ends Monday at 11 p.m., you still have to come back to the hospital on Tuesday at 7 a.m.,” she noted. “When you’re on a 24-hour shift, you leave on Tuesday at 7 a.m., and you don’t have to report back for duty until Wednesday. That is a better arrangement. You have the rest of the day to do things.”)

neolog 6y ago

Are there labs with more than one recent suicide?

wiredfool 6y ago
I’m a little hazy on it now, but my sister's lab had at least one while she was there, and it directly led to her death a few years later. It was ... not a healthy environment. Some warning signs would have been easier to see from the same coast, and some of them were obvious in hindsight.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  That's horrible. I suppose there's a poetic irony that even in places where you can really transcend people still find a way to hurt eachother.
- marvin 6y ago
  So sorry to hear that.
- totemandtoken 6y ago
  My deepest condolences, very sorry to hear that
Balgair 6y ago
My former lab has had 2 since 2012. I know of other labs at the school with more than that. I left, but not as the person I thought was going to leave when I started. The advice on talking to students is absolutely correct. And to be very clear, if you do not find any good labs in the schools you were admitted to: Do Not Go To Grad School At All. Reapply to other schools and wait. A year waiting is worth the 4 on the backend being a drone in a bad lab.

ColanR 6y ago

How would you check that? I remember there was a (rumored) suicide at my school while I was there, and it was hushed up really well so that even a lot of students wouldn't have heard about it. Far as I know, there isn't a searchable database of 'suicides per school'.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
Web search for obits. If someone dies young and the reason isn't clearly stated, it's suicide.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Or overdose.
gumby 6y ago
MIT does not cover the, up, to my knowledge. Quite the opposite. The only one I knew personally died for reasons unrelated to the Instititute— in fact it was one of his bright spots in some ways (though he suffered dreadfully from the imposter syndrome as well so in other ways it made things worse). However MIT can be a very difficult place and I don’t want to gloss over that. And I think the institute could do a lot to improve things.
neltnerb 6y ago
I suppose I can't say for sure but I remember plenty of them in the school newspaper, at least a few a year usually. Sometimes the reason was easy to deduce, sometimes it was ambiguous as is often the case in possible suicides.

MereInterest 6y ago

Divorces, too. A family member was applying to med schools, and during one of the visits there was a boast of a >100% divorce rate among students. Every married student who entered that program was divorced by the end, as were some who got married during the program. To have such a stressful program is bad enough, but to boast about it as a sign of prestige and dedication is even worse.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
That's scary because being married is positively correlated with success in professional school.
waterhouse 6y ago
> to boast about it What the actual fuck? Why would anyone who loves their wife or husband choose to enter such a program? (Best-case scenario: a few years of data produced this anomalous result, someone noticed it and decided to draw attention to it, and it has since scared away all married students, so that there will never be any future data points to contradict it.) Still, from what I know about medical school and residency in general, any place that periodically assigns 24-hour work shifts just because is ... perverse. Edit: Ok, it's not 100% "just because"; there are some rationalizations. https://www.ama-assn.org/residents-students/residency/3-tips-new-med-school-grads-facing-old-24-hour-shift https://www.ama-assn.org/residents-students/residency/3-tips...
- jseliger 6y ago
  Still, from what I know about medical school and residency in general, any place that periodically assigns 24-hour work shifts just because is ... perverse. It's worse than you think: https://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-nurse-or-physicians-assistant-instead-of-a-doctor-the-underrated-perils-of-medical-school https://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-n... Once a person has taken on the debt from med school, it's extremely difficult not to continue. Residency programs know this.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  That was more or less my reaction as well. I could understand there being a few years of anomalous data as a result of small sample size, but to then boast of it rather than taking it as a sign of very serious issues doubles down on a bad sign. I agree that the 24-hour shifts are ridiculous. I could see some potential benefit for reducing the number of shift handoffs (e.g. 12-hour shifts expose patients to 2 shift changes per day, but 8-hour shifts expose patients to 3 shift changes per day), since shift handoffs have been shown to be the source of miscommunications. However, as your link points out, there is no decrease in standard of care resulting from removing 24-hour shifts, so that is not a reason to keep 24-hour shifts. Also, thank you for the link on it, though the tone of that article was definitely odd. It took the lack of effect of shift duration on patient care as a reason to extend shifts back up to 24 hours, rather than concluding that there is no reason to keep shifts at 24 hours. Similarly, it takes as a given that after a 16-hour shift, you only get 8 hours off, rather than treating that as another sign of poor shift scheduling. (From the article, “When you’re on a 16-hour shift that ends Monday at 11 p.m., you still have to come back to the hospital on Tuesday at 7 a.m.,” she noted. “When you’re on a 24-hour shift, you leave on Tuesday at 7 a.m., and you don’t have to report back for duty until Wednesday. That is a better arrangement. You have the rest of the day to do things.”)