In a recent post, That Is Not What She Said, I explained what an MRI coil was, as I deal with them regularly in my other line of work. In addition to that vignette, I had another coil-related story that I wanted to share…
Tale 2: Or Is It ‘Dear Future Doctor President’?
A nice perk of being a professional scientist is going to exotic locales for conferences and meeting exciting new people. It’s a chance to network and really move one’s career forward.
For example, the first big MRI conference I got to attend was in Melbourne, Australia. At the time, I was a postdoc in Hawai’i with Vandy,1Almost his real name. You may remember him from Paging Dr. Mix-A-Lot. the closest science will ever come to having someone like The Dude from The Big Lebowski.
Another nice perk about these conferences is that the companies that make MRI magnets like to use them to connect with their loyal users. And by “connect with their loyal users” I mean “ply current and potential buyers of their multi-million dollar machines with free food and alcohol.”
So one night of the conference, I found myself with a few of my colleagues at what I recall to be a fancy Australian Museum of Natural Science, or something of the like. Being a true aficionado of free shit, I was very much so indeed enjoying all the consumables Siemens AG had made available for our bribery.
Now I had thought that I was doing a good job of balancing the ratio of food to drink that went down my gullet, but you know how easy it is to lose track of these things when you’re socializing and taking in museum exhibits.
In short, I was feeling good in the neighborhood.
Towards the end of the evening I had met up with Vandy to split a cab back to our hotels. We just so happened to run into one of our collaborators, “Harry,”2Not quite his real name. who was the head of a rather large and prestigious MRI lab at Harvard.
As Vandy was taking the opportunity to introduce us to each other, I decided to take the timeless strategy of connecting with him by referencing something we had in common. In this case, our commonality happened to be the custom-built head coil that the Harvard team had promised to send to us in Hawai’i…over a year earlier.
Shaking his hand, I channelled my inner Vandy and gracefully blurted out:
Where’s our ----- coil?!?
An enthusiastic, yet inebriated, Young Scientist
The next day when I saw Vandy, I could tell he was Duding his best to abide. Half-laughing, half-incredulously, he exclaimed “What the hell was that last night?!? I am so embarrassed! I can’t trust you with anything.“
“Fortunately for you, though, Harry has a pretty good sense of humor and he got a good laugh out of your antics…”
You may be shaking your head as well, but a mere two months later,3Okay, okay, I can’t remember exactly how long it was…Vandy, if you’re reading this, maybe you can fact check this? guess what mysteriously showed up at our lab’s doorstep?
That’s right: our ----- coil.
Since then Harry has continued to do well for himself in the field of MRI. In fact, just this last year he was elected el presidente of our entire (rather large) scientific community.
So if you ever find yourself attending one of our annual MRI conferences, be sure to hang out wherever they’re serving free alcohol. Listen closely, and your bound to hear some drunken jack-ass proclaim:
…and then I said to him, “Harry”–yes, that Harry–I said, “Harry, where’s our ----- coil?!?” True story…true story!
Scientist Reliving all the wrong highlights from his career
The point of the story is sometimes all you need is a little alcohol with a dash of youthful ignorance of who the Big Dogs are in order to “speak truth to power.”
The counterpoint of the story is, on the other hand, you might just end up embarrassing your boss, never to be entrusted with confidential information again.
Either way, I recommend embracing and proudly owning what may very well be the apex of your scientific career. After all, while not every one of us is destined to grow up to be President of the MRI world, you can grow up to be That Guy Who Dropped the F-Bomb on him…
Content created on: 26 February & 4 March 2020 (Wednesday/Wednesday)
Footnotes & References:
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