[Stanley Nickels]

I started doing medical research about two years ago, and HOLY **** DO I FEEL LIKE I DONT KNOW WHAT IM DOING. I study metastatic breast cancer (laboratory science has an APPALLING lack of [literal] hands-on experience, but I digress) and I can tell you that in science, expert is a tough term. If an expert is someone who understands biochemistry, then there are a metric shit-ton at any university. But if you define expert as "someone who has the answers", in cancer research there are none. Every day I learn something new about receptors or kinases, or G-coupled protein receptors, or chemokines, or even the behavior of mice. I'm a good lab tech, decent research assistant, but goddamn do some people at work make me feel stupid. My PI (lead investigator and owner of the lab) has an MS from Northwestern, a PhD from Harvard, and worked at MD Anderson Cancer Center for a decade. I might as well just be smashing bricks together when she talks to me.