I thought I was going to lose it

-or- at least be really mad

from JoeUser Forums
Seriously. I did.

Okay, well that may be a bit much. But as I walked into the lab this morning we opened up the most recent edition of The Journal of Urology and WHAM there it was. An article dealing with the same thing we have been busting our humps over. The MD I am working with and I just sat there, in dumb silence for a few minutes.

Then we went to work. We printed off copies of their paper and started reading. They were telling a very different story that we were, and we think they are wrong. So we dig some more, modify some of our figures, hunt for places where we erred. We find a couple, but not enough to invalidate our claims. We work some more, crunch more numbers, do more lit searches, polish everything off.

In the end this publication will actually help us. They have generated some buzz for the topic, and we can go in and say, well, they left a few things out, a few things that make a difference. So here it is.

Whew. We dodged the proverbial bullet there.
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3,121 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Wow! Had to be a great feeling to to realize that all your work will still be able to make a difference and do what you plan! Despite what others may say! Good for you!
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Oh man. I'm glad it worked out for you in the end--there must've been a couple minutes where you wanted to throw expensive vials and centrifuges (okay, whatever equipment you work with) across the room. I used to date a guy who was a microbiologist and he had a similar thing happen--a week or two before the project was complete, the exact same study was published with almost the same findings. Talk about throwing away a couple months' worth of work. ('Course, after we broke up, I didn't feel quite as sorry for him.)

Glad for you. Good luck.

*hands BlueDev a handkerchief so he can wipe his sweating brow with relief*

-A.
Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Phew! I guess you can let a sigh of relief here...
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Chiprj--Thanks for the encouragement. I was so sick to my stomach when we sat there looking at the title of the paper. All that work, potentially for nothing. Glad they didn't think it through quite as hard as we did.

Anglo--In our actual "lab" we mainly have computers, journals, and files (we are doing clinical research, no basic science). Thanks for the handkerchief, I needed it.

Island_gurl12--I sure can sigh now. Thanks goodness. Thanks for stopping by.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
This was I was refering to in my other reply in your previous related article. It always has the potential to happen when you are working on something current and 'hot'. Hasn't really happened to me yet. What has happened is that someone publishes something just as we were thinking of the same idea, or we were in the middle of researching it. There's at least time to shift a little.

>>In the end this publication will actually help us. They have generated some buzz for the topic, and we can go in and say, well, they left a few things out, a few things that make a difference. So here it is.

Glad it turned out to be a stepping stone.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
Glad it turned out to be a stepping stone.


Boy oh boy, so were we. We were nuervous (to say the least) for a while as we read their work to see what they were thinking. Abstract is off, we'll see what they say.