This this this everything about this. I have worked in ~academic medicine~ for the past two years, thinking that I wanted to become a clinical neuropsychologist. The labs that I worked for were almost solely populated by very wealthy White PIs who think they're championing DEI initiatives (lol!) by creating studies that try to uncover ~*social determinants of health*~... and I'm sitting in these meetings like, um, aren't these ~*social determinants of health*~ obvious, not requiring government-funded research grants to the tune of MILLIONS of dollars to uncover? What are we doing here? And when they're finding these ~*social determinants of health*~, why are they literally doing nothing of substance about them other than writing MORE grant applications to look DEEPER into these MYSTERIOUS DETERMINANTS? Such a "the emperor has no clothes" moment. I couldn't take it anymore and have doubled-down on my abolitionist work instead of pursuing academic medicine and clinical psych - I couldn't rationalize the current system of utter wheel-spinning and navel-gazing on a road to nowhere. Maybe someone has the patience to embed themselves to work towards dismantling it from within, but I'm not it! Best decision that I ever made. I am so grateful for your work and the community that you're building around this.
Oh my god this was soo good. I just got brutally fired tdy from my first ever job as a research assistant in a well-reputed uni in singapore for not being "objective" even tho i supported my writing with published theories and just wrote up the findings as they were and i have only been given the opportunity to write 1 paper draft in the past 1.5 years. The project was about participatory health communication/engagement with South Asian migrant workers in Singapore. They literally told me to not write about the structural problems and inequalities that migrant workers themselves cited as reasons for their poor health; while over-exaggerating the "success" of the project- and these are very well-reputed doctors. Just made me realise how fake everything is- how people can present a front of working for/with a community and use the right words and give just enuf to keep the employees and volunteers from leaving. I'm pretty sure I was the token minority in the team. Reading this was so healing; it made me feel less lonely and isolated amidst all the gaslighting and narratives of "doing good for the community" and "saving lives". Also, the elite need not only be white people, can also be the internal colonisers in each country (In the case of Singapore, it is english-educated chinese people).
Gosh, this is good. I worked in academia for a number of years and it was truly a cult. I still consider myself a scientist but I just love what you say about science and spirituality being two sides of the same coin—good science needs to be approached with intellectual humility which takes the stance of “knowing that you don’t know.” Thank you so much for this, Ayesha!!
Yes I love this!! Put in a way I didn't have the words for. It does make me wonder... how can we then make the argument to conservatives and COVID-deniers to listen to the science if we also say at the same time that science is subjective?
Thanks for the great article! Love we you're doing :)
This this this everything about this. I have worked in ~academic medicine~ for the past two years, thinking that I wanted to become a clinical neuropsychologist. The labs that I worked for were almost solely populated by very wealthy White PIs who think they're championing DEI initiatives (lol!) by creating studies that try to uncover ~*social determinants of health*~... and I'm sitting in these meetings like, um, aren't these ~*social determinants of health*~ obvious, not requiring government-funded research grants to the tune of MILLIONS of dollars to uncover? What are we doing here? And when they're finding these ~*social determinants of health*~, why are they literally doing nothing of substance about them other than writing MORE grant applications to look DEEPER into these MYSTERIOUS DETERMINANTS? Such a "the emperor has no clothes" moment. I couldn't take it anymore and have doubled-down on my abolitionist work instead of pursuing academic medicine and clinical psych - I couldn't rationalize the current system of utter wheel-spinning and navel-gazing on a road to nowhere. Maybe someone has the patience to embed themselves to work towards dismantling it from within, but I'm not it! Best decision that I ever made. I am so grateful for your work and the community that you're building around this.
Oh my god this was soo good. I just got brutally fired tdy from my first ever job as a research assistant in a well-reputed uni in singapore for not being "objective" even tho i supported my writing with published theories and just wrote up the findings as they were and i have only been given the opportunity to write 1 paper draft in the past 1.5 years. The project was about participatory health communication/engagement with South Asian migrant workers in Singapore. They literally told me to not write about the structural problems and inequalities that migrant workers themselves cited as reasons for their poor health; while over-exaggerating the "success" of the project- and these are very well-reputed doctors. Just made me realise how fake everything is- how people can present a front of working for/with a community and use the right words and give just enuf to keep the employees and volunteers from leaving. I'm pretty sure I was the token minority in the team. Reading this was so healing; it made me feel less lonely and isolated amidst all the gaslighting and narratives of "doing good for the community" and "saving lives". Also, the elite need not only be white people, can also be the internal colonisers in each country (In the case of Singapore, it is english-educated chinese people).
Gosh, this is good. I worked in academia for a number of years and it was truly a cult. I still consider myself a scientist but I just love what you say about science and spirituality being two sides of the same coin—good science needs to be approached with intellectual humility which takes the stance of “knowing that you don’t know.” Thank you so much for this, Ayesha!!
Yes I love this!! Put in a way I didn't have the words for. It does make me wonder... how can we then make the argument to conservatives and COVID-deniers to listen to the science if we also say at the same time that science is subjective?
Thanks for the great article! Love we you're doing :)