After a
comment that I made this morning, I've decided to post the first diary I've done in nearly a year.
For the last seven years, I've been working toward getting a PhD in molecular virology at Ohio State University. According to the opinions of many, many people, getting a good education is now the key to employment in the U.S.
But that doesn't stop me from being any less surplus population then, say, a blue-collar manufacturing worker is these days.
Why, below the fold...
The main reason for this, I think, is very simple: I have a chronic illness, ulcerative colitis. Worse, due to various factors, I can't simply take drugs for the rest of my life to keep it under control. (And the factors range from lousy drug coverage to allergies). The illness destroys bowel function in both large and small ways; the symptoms range from uncontrollable diarrhea, to abdominal pain, to general malaise. "Accidents" are a frequent part of my life. A "good" day is when I use the bathroom 6 times. A "bad" day is when that number goes above 30. Maintaining a regular work schedule is an impossibility; making it through even eight hours (let alone the 10-12 that most grad students work) is a test of will. And every so often, I end up in an ER. Once, I was hospitalized 10 days with life-threatening pancreatitis, and another time I almost ended up with toxic megacolon, another life threatening complication.
I've managed, despite living with that the last 4 years, to come within a hair's breadth of getting my degree. My advisor here at Ohio State has been incredibly understanding, and because of his flexibility and the help of others in the lab, I still manage to move projects forward, and get things done. In the end, I may well have 4-5 publications to my name!
But when I graduate, what then? What then, really? I truly worry about that...I fear that one way or another, I will end up with a degree and no place to go.
The economy doesn't help. The beginnings of outsourcing in the scientific fields (and the insourcing that's been going on for decades) worries me as well. But in the end, it's all about health care. I've been given the modern Scarlet Letter: I have a chronic disease in my medical records. An expensive one. In an economy such that we are in, who is going to hire someone with an expensive, chronic disease, one that prevents me from working the schedules that virtually every employer in the U.S. demands?
With self-insurance increasingly prevalent among large employers, and when (at least from what I am told) poking into medical records is also increasingly common, what large employer in the U.S. would hire me?
Small employers are even worse. I could never work in a startup; to replace health insurance with, um, stock options would be a potentially fatal gamble. As would working as a temp, with no benefits. (I tried that once. And it was indeed very nearly fatal, but that's a diary for another time).
And what about foreign countries, the subject of past diaries? Well, as barbwires points out, preexisting medical conditions make you persona non grata in Canada and Australia, too, two countries I was seriously considering. (Not sure about Europe).
In the end, I fear that it all comes down to this: I'm High Maintenance. And that's a fatal sin in today's society -- after all, nobody likes, or wants, high maintenance slaves when there are so many "healthy" ones out there. I quite honestly believe not even being a virologist in today's bird-flu world is enough to overcome that.
And if a PhD in the sciences, supposedly in a field that everyone acknowledges is important, feels that he's been reduced to surplus population...what about the rest of us?
(On edit: Health is not the only reason I worry about my job prospects. Coming from a poor background -- which means no societal support and no contacts to "ease my passage". I also do not have alot of contacts in the virology field specifically. In otherwords, I'm a Nobody, and in science, that's nearly as fatal as being High Maintenance).