[jphoward]

In the field of medicine this is standard, at least in the UK. Many medical specialties expect you to have a PhD to get a good senior post in a teaching hospital. To get a good PhD grant you are expected to have a pedigree of publishing research, and the classic way to do that is join a research group on your days off/evenings/weekends.

I’m lucky enough to be on a good PhD programme so my 9-5 is now academia, but in my late 20s a typical weekend and weeknight would involve a couple of hours of academic writing which I would be doing “for free”. I’d be first or second author on the papers, but I’d be publishing under the institution of the group I’d tagged on to.

[r0rbit]

I like the idea of a research group. I did not know that the field of medicine this was a standard practice. Was it not too overwhelming?