Why to Balance Field Work and Lab Research in a Science Career - Clara Soh

In Chapter 6 of 10 in her 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, health economist and comparative effectiveness researcher Clara Soh Williams details how field work and lab - or bench - research offer complementary experiences in building a science career.

Soh shares the practical and variable challenges from field research across projects doing hurricane disaster relief and West Africa public health restructuring. These experience teaches her to develop more practical implementations and interventions. More scientific bench research provides her with an idea of what is realistic project expectations and timelines.

Clara Soh holds an MPA in Public Health Finance from New York University and a BS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: As a science and health care professional, why is it so important to balance field work with research work?

Clara Soh: I think it is important to have experience in both scientific research and in field work because it is again this idea of bridging different worlds and having the understanding of the challenges faced by each constituent group.

In the field there is never anything such as an ideal condition. You do not have standard temperature and pressure that you have in the lab. When I was a bench researcher I could control my little rotisserie oven by tenths of a degree. You never know what is going to happen in the field. It may be a tornado one day and a flood the next. I worked through a research project through Hurricane Katrina where a lot of my patients were very widely dispersed and just even trying to find them and follow up was such a challenge and that would never happen in a lab.

Having worked in both fields can help you understand how challenges in one area or another can affect outcomes. So, we would see, for example, decisions made at the WHO that would not necessarily translate into practical applications at the field. One of the challenges I faced as a Peace Corps volunteer was that the WHO had come up with these great infectious disease reporting forms. And they had asked the traditional birth attendants and community health workers to fill out these tally sheets. And it was a great idea – data collection so that you can empower local decision-making. And then they never really understood what the capacity at the field level was so when I showed up to the district health office, there were ten years of forms, stacked up, being eaten by termites, and no one had done anything with them.

So while in theory, in a nice air-conditioned office in Geneva it sounds like a great idea to collect information so you can make decisions, they never thought about what the capacity was in the field to do this kind of work. It wasn’t the fact they didn’t have the skills, it was that they were so overwhelmed with providing services to resource poor settings to an environment that was extremely challenging where logistics was a problem and no one could ever get around to actually looking at what the information was.

I think having that experience in the field can help you design more practical implementations and interventions. And then having worked at the higher-level headquarters at the scientific research level, you have an idea of what is actually realistic. Once you get to the field, everyone will ask for pie in the sky like “we need a cure for AIDS!” Having worked as a bench researcher, I know how difficult that is. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much money you throw at things. Science just takes time. You have to test everything at every temperature with every reagent and check how toxic it is and how it reacts with the body. You have a very narrowly scientific methodology you have to go through.

So while a lot of people on the ground and advocates are clamoring for a cure for AIDS or “Let’s cure cancer today!”, I’ve worked at the bench and I know you can’t just snap your fingers and invent a cure. People are working very hard and but it is challenging.

At the same time, having worked in the field, I understand how desperately people are looking for some of the answers from some of the scientists.