The year is 1992. You've finally finished your Ph.D. and landed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. But as you get to know the postdocs in the neighboring labs, you realize that all fellows are not treated equally. Some postdocs get paid more than you, some get less. Others have to pay for their own health insurance, while yours is paid for by your advisor.

Fast forward to the year 2000. Thanks to the lobbying efforts of the Johns Hopkins Postdoctoral Association (JHPDA) and the cooperation of the administration of the School of Medicine, all postdocs will be paid at the new (October 1998) NRSA/NIH minimum-salary levels, following a three-year phase-in period. They already have paid health and dental insurance. Although the fellows will be treated equally on a benefits level, there are still inequities on the training level.

So how did we at JHPDA get even this far, and how are we working to improve the quality of training of postdoctoral fellows at Johns Hopkins?

In 1992, the administration was addressing the needs of graduate and medical students and medical residents on many policy issues, including parking and safety on campus, but no consideration was being given to the concerns of postdoctoral fellows. Recognizing that postdocs needed a voice, several fellows, led by Atul Varadhachary, took matters into their own hands. They sent surveys to all basic-science and clinical postdoctoral fellows and found that there was a great interest in and need for a postdoctoral association. (There were approximately 700 fellows in 1992, while currently there are over 1,000.) During the initial months of the association, the officers met with Levi Watkins, associate dean for postdoctoral programs, to let him know that the JHPDA was being established and what the major concerns of postdoctoral fellows were.

The first formal recognition of the JHPDA was the election of postdoctoral fellows to two administrative committees that deal with issues concerning postdocs. As Watkins said at the time, the JHPDA "now had a seat at the institutional table and things would move." However, "progress was extremely incremental," says Atul Varadhachary. It took almost two years for a subcommittee of the Advisory Board, a committee of all department chairs, to draft guidelines for postdoctoral training. These included minimum salaries based on NRSA/NIH levels, paid health insurance, and free off-site parking. More importantly, they also approved a budget for the JHPDA. The money for the budget comes from an annual fee ($8) paid by the investigator or department for each fellow, although the fee has not been increased since 1993.

Having made progress on the benefits front, we have recently turned our attention and efforts to improving the quality of postdoctoral training. In the spring of 1999, we presented the administration with a set of updated guidelines for postdoctoral fellows. In our proposal, we recommended that expectations for both postdoc and advisor needed to be clear. This clarity could first occur with a standard written contract or offer that would include dates of appointment, salary, benefits, and other policies. Additionally, we proposed annual evaluations to encourage an open, ongoing dialogue between advisor and fellow. Even with improved communication, grievances might still arise, so we recommended that a neutral ombudsman be appointed in each department. We also endorsed the idea of a career resource center that could provide advice for both traditional and nontraditional career paths.

Based on our recommendations, the School of Medicine administration mandated a six-year time limit for fellows, the establishment of departmental documentation regarding educational goals and objectives, and a departmental postdoctoral training committee. In addition, through the hard work of James Hildreth, associate dean of graduate student affairs, and with the support of the administration, a professional development center for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will hopefully be established in the coming year.

Throughout the years, we have found that it is an ongoing process, and sometimes a struggle, to get changes to occur and be implemented. In addition, the JHPDA must sometimes lobby on a continuing basis for hard-earned changes to stay in place. For example, as stated above, postdoctoral salaries at Hopkins are based on the NRSA/NIH minimum salary levels. However, when the levels were raised in October 1998, the salaries were not automatically increased. Instead, the JHPDA had to lobby for this to be adopted. The administration approved the new levels with a three-year phase-in period. As echoed by both the first president, Atul Varadhachary, and the 1999-2000 president, Daniel Zuckerman, the JHPDA is needed to be a "squeaky wheel," and only with our voices will the wheel be oiled and progress achieved.

The issues of increased benefits and improved training are also being examined across the country by fellows, advisors, postdoctoral associations, and institutions. They were discussed last fall at the Graduate Research, Education, and Training (GREAT) Group Meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges. In addition, the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy of the National Academy of Sciences will release a postdoctoral guide this fall. There are also several Web sites that focus on postdoctoral issues, including Postdoctorate.net and Science's Next Wave.

In addition, it might be useful to have a national organization for postdoctoral fellows. As postdocs, we are in training and in transition; therefore it is difficult to keep fellows involved in a PDA for more than a year or two. Additionally, although the PDAs provide fellows with a voice at their individual institutions, a national organization would allow them to lobby such important organizations as the NIH, the NSF, and Congress. As Daniel Zuckerman said, "The NIH is the de facto pacesetter for national biomedical research. We need to prod them to do a better job of setting standards for postdocs." As more scientists and policy makers hear and understand the issues that are important to postdoctoral fellows, our training will be enhanced, and we will become better scientists and mentors for the next generation.