HUMOR

Everything I Need to Know I Learned on NIH Study Section by Lloyd Fricker
Posted April 28, 2000 · Issue 77

Study section is sort of like kindergarten. In fact, one could argue that study section is even a better learning experience than kindergarten, despite what Robert Fulghum seems to think. Most of what I really need to know I learned on an NIH study section. While it has been argued that kindergarten taught the essentials, there was more sand than wisdom in the sandbox. There were also a few mystery items in that old sandbox, and the really wise kids kept their distance. Here's a comparison of what I learned in kindergarten vs. NIH study section:

In Kindergarten, we learned:	On study section, we learned:
Share everything	Share everything, except the stuff you learn from reviewing grants since this is confidential, and cannot be shared with your pet goldfish without upsetting the Scientific Review Administrator.
Say you're sorry when you hurt someone.	Say you're sorry when you hurt someone or they may take revenge and reject every single one of your grant applications and papers that they review for the rest of their life.
Take a nap every afternoon.	Try to sleep every night for at least a few hours except when you have a grant deadline, at which point a few minutes sleep per page is fine.
Be aware of wonder.	Be the first to write the paper about it.
Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up, and nobody really knows why.	Nobody still knows why, but you can't write an NIH grant application on this because there is absolutely no health significance.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die.	So do we - that's why grants on apoptosis are hot stuff.
Cookies and milk every afternoon is great.	Cookies and gallons of coffee are even better.
Most importantly, when you go out into the world, stick together and look out for for traffic.	Most importantly, when you go out into the world, stick together and look out for disgruntled applicants with Uzi's.