The researcher’s path includes days when you feel so low because your grant or paper was rejected or even both within a very short time frame. It happened to me a couple of weeks ago. At this point, I felt helpless sarcastic and non-motivative reading reviewer’s comments. One reviewer mixed up neuroblastoma with a brain tumour, so their comments were not relevant. Another just found no time to read through, the sentence was very short – ‘not a priority or interest‘. One more went to their area of expertise asking to fulfil it rather than comment on the actual focus of the study. Such comments are so common that any submission of results or a proposal could be considered as a draw. It has been neither my first time not the last. More to come.
At that time a friend of mine shared the reflection by a breast cancer survivor and now volunteer patient advocate at Europa Donna Ireland – The Irish Breast Cancer Campaign.
“Lastly, I would also like to say that research makes a difference to my life in another way, a less concrete but equally important way: it gives me hope. To know that excellent, focused research is happening in this country, to think that even I might be able to contribute to the success of this work, even to imagine that my daughter might grow up without fear of breast cancer – this gives me enormous hope.” (The full story can be read here)
These words make a big difference for me as a researcher. They motivate to go further and make the difference for little patients.