I thought I was going to lose it

-or- at least be really mad

Published on October 14, 2004 By BlueDev In Misc

Seriously. I did.

Okay, well that may be a bit much. But as I walked into the lab this morning we opened up the most recent edition of The Journal of Urology and WHAM there it was. An article dealing with the same thing we have been busting our humps over. The MD I am working with and I just sat there, in dumb silence for a few minutes.

Then we went to work. We printed off copies of their paper and started reading. They were telling a very different story that we were, and we think they are wrong. So we dig some more, modify some of our figures, hunt for places where we erred. We find a couple, but not enough to invalidate our claims. We work some more, crunch more numbers, do more lit searches, polish everything off.

In the end this publication will actually help us. They have generated some buzz for the topic, and we can go in and say, well, they left a few things out, a few things that make a difference. So here it is.

Whew. We dodged the proverbial bullet there.

Comments

chiprj

on Oct 14, 2004

Wow! Had to be a great feeling to to realize that all your work will still be able to make a difference and do what you plan! Despite what others may say! Good for you!

Angloesque

on Oct 14, 2004

Oh man. I'm glad it worked out for you in the end--there must've been a couple minutes where you wanted to throw expensive vials and centrifuges (okay, whatever equipment you work with) across the room.

I used to date a guy who was a microbiologist and he had a similar thing happen--a week or two before the project was complete, the exact same study was published with almost the same findings. Talk about throwing away a couple months' worth of work. ('Course, after we broke up, I didn't feel quite as sorry for him.)

Glad for you. Good luck.

*hands BlueDev a handkerchief so he can wipe his sweating brow with relief*

-A.

island_gurl12

on Oct 15, 2004

Phew! I guess you can let a sigh of relief here...

BlueDev

on Oct 15, 2004

Chiprj--Thanks for the encouragement. I was so sick to my stomach when we sat there looking at the title of the paper. All that work, potentially for nothing. Glad they didn't think it through quite as hard as we did.

Anglo--In our actual "lab" we mainly have computers, journals, and files (we are doing clinical research, no basic science). Thanks for the handkerchief, I needed it.

Island_gurl12--I sure can sigh now. Thanks goodness. Thanks for stopping by.

Ravenblack

on Oct 15, 2004

This was I was refering to in my other reply in your previous related article. It always has the potential to happen when you are working on something current and 'hot'. Hasn't really happened to me yet. What has happened is that someone publishes something just as we were thinking of the same idea, or we were in the middle of researching it. There's at least time to shift a little.

>>In the end this publication will actually help us. They have generated some buzz for the topic, and we can go in and say, well, they left a few things out, a few things that make a difference. So here it is.

Glad it turned out to be a stepping stone.

BlueDev

on Oct 15, 2004

Glad it turned out to be a stepping stone.

Boy oh boy, so were we. We were nuervous (to say the least) for a while as we read their work to see what they were thinking. Abstract is off, we'll see what they say.

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!