An Independent ScientistAn Independent Scientist

One Friday afternoon in late April of last year, so tired I could hardly reach the telephone, I received a call from an editor of a Major Medical Journal. After the briefest of introductions, the editor explained that she wanted my long-time research partner, Melinda, and me to write an editorial to accompany a special article. Still perceiving myself to be a novice in academia, I was flabbergasted and struggled to maintain my poise. She explained a few details, then said something to the effect of, "Here's the bad news: we need the final version on May 12." Eighteen days. I experienced an anginal-like sensation, felt the opportunity start to slip away, paused, then tightened my grip. I blurted, "There is something I feel obligated to tell you. I am pregnant and my due date is in eight days, but I don't think it will be a problem." The silence that followed was painful; then she said in measured cadence, "Well, that's what coauthors are for."

I immediately phoned Melinda. Ideas for the piece started tumbling out. We acknowledged my pending delivery as only a minor potential obstacle. There could not, however, be mistakes or bad luck. I called my husband, Ron, with some trepidation. I had broken a sacred rule of our marriage by accepting a project without consulting with him to review its potential effect on our family. He was congratulatory, downright gleeful, even though he was keenly aware of the implications for us. After discussing the practical aspects of the project, we agreed that my parents would need to be drawn into the plans. My mother, true to form, was supportive but mystified that I had not chosen an easier life. Three hours by car, my parents arrived that night, after canceling their plans for golf and bridge and commitments to my sister and her four children. The next morning they spirited Dana, my 4-year-old, back to their home for a long weekend.

The word of my good fortune spread. Two secretaries and a coworker of my husband offered to help care for Dana, should I need time to write after the birth. A plate of baked goods arrived from the neighbors. Our friend Larry brought us a massive pot of matzo ball soup. Other friends and colleagues just asked how they could help. At my next prenatal appointment, Phyllis, my obstetrician, sympathized with my physical discomfort and assumed that I was anxious to deliver, only to find out that I was hoping to stave off labor for as long as possible. The need to finish the editorial became part of a boutique birth plan.

So close to delivery, I had respite from my clinical duties. Ron and I went out for dinner each of the next three nights and discussed ideas. Soon I had a first draft and Melinda attacked it. I reported my aches and pains to her several times a day. She and her husband bore the brunt of running the manuscript back and forth.

A week after I accepted the assignment, in the evening, my membranes broke. I called Phyllis. She asked about contractions, the fluid's color, the presence of blood, and the status of the editorial. I quickly packed an overnight bag. Larry, who had brought supper, agreed to stay with Dana. My parents headed back to Portland, and Ron and I headed for the hospital. Checking into labor and delivery, Ron carried my overnight bag. I carried a briefcase. At midnight I was still not in labor, and the nurse teasingly asked me if I wanted to work or to take a sleeping pill. I chose the latter. Twenty hours later, Alexandra appeared. Her sweet, good-natured disposition was quickly apparent: even she was going to be a good sport about this.

The next day at the hospital my husband and I traded Alex and the editorial back and forth. I was in my office typing a revision the following day. As Alex slept, my secretary played the heavy and limited viewing of the baby to two minutes. Two days later my colleague Melinda and I shared caring for Alex as we completed a draft that was then FedExed to associates across the country for review. Six days later, when the friendly reviews returned, Melinda came to my home. She and I sat at the head of a king-sized bed, Alex sleeping between us, Dana snuggled on my other side, reviews and manuscript pages spread about. We hammered out final wording as Ron, my parents, and Larry cleared supper dishes and visited in the kitchen. Over the next week the journal's editors talked with me by phone in hushed voices, as though they were afraid to wake the baby. When the editorial¹ was published seven weeks later, I was thoroughly settled into maternity leave. I completed a telephone interview for All Things Considered while nursing.

During that summer I tried to reconcile the convergence of Alex's birth and writing the editorial with an important value in academia, that of the "independent scientist." A week before my delivery, I completed my first year on my school of medicine's promotion and tenure committee. Finding an applicant to be an independent researcher was often crucial for promotion. Everyone on the committee seemed more knowledgeable about independence than I, but I began to pick it up from context. Publishing with the same group over many years was problematic. Principal investigator status from the National Institutes of Health was more independent than the same position on a grant from a private foundation, even if the amount of money was the same. Single-authored publications were definitively independent. Particularly illuminating, last-place "senior" authorship was really independent apparently because it no longer mattered where one was in the lineup. (I wondered if this argument would fly with Dana's preschool class queuing up to go for a walk.) Though I could not put my finger on why, I found this emphasis on the paramount importance of independence disturbing.

The year since Alex's birth has been rigorous. I have pragmatically passed up opportunities for "professional advancement." I rarely travel but when I do my entourage includes Ron, both children, and my parents. I share time-management tips with other "mom-docs"—wasted minutes at work ultimately come out of time with my family. Freedom is five minutes alone in the car singing loudly with a rock-and-roll radio station. But my passion for research remains and frequently gets me up at 4 AM for quiet time to think, read, and write.

When women friends talk about striving for balance, I experience humiliating memories of the gymnastic beam in high school. My goal is not to find balance, but to harmonize the worlds of work and family, without letting thoughts of one world unduly dominate the other. I am only variably successful. Even now as I jot these ideas, Alex tips over the Razzle Dazzle Rice Krispies and Dana dances in them, laughing wildly as she grinds them into the carpet.

A few weeks ago a fellow psychiatrist gently asked me how I might have professionally assessed a woman who checked into labor and delivery with a briefcase. I felt at a loss in explaining to him that those three weeks were exhilarating. Freed from a variety of everyday cares, surrounded by love and support, I knew that the barriers that compartmentalize my life were gone and I immersed myself in my two great passions.

Yet for me to claim to be an "independent scientist" seems a sham. As I reviewed successful applicants for promotion this year, I often wondered who made it possible for them to complete such prodigious amounts of work. I bemusedly imagined an alternate universe in which editors allow acknowledgment of child care providers and spouses on manuscripts, department heads frown on failure to include a junior colleague on a publication, promotion and tenure committees view publishing with the same group over time like society views a good marriage, and both interdependence and generativity are rewarded.