Saturday 2 September 2022
Woo hoo! I finished my Master’s degree in neuroscience. It will be fully three months before I get my official results, and longer still before I graduate, but I feel pretty good about having completed the presentation of my thesis this week as the final element of the one-year course at King’s College London.
It feels like a long time since I retired from my previous corporate career last summer to chase a crazy dream about entering the world of neuroscience. Could I really succeed in my mid-fifties at repurposing myself to do research into neurodegeneration? Could I complete a degree then make a meaningful transition into the competitive academic world? Could I, in some small way, actually make a difference?
The jury’s still out on the last question, but it’s looking good so far. The degree has gone pretty well and has been super-interesting. I plan to do a series of posts over the coming months about some of the things I’ve learned and some of my ideas about Parkinson's.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been figuring out what to do next. The obvious thing was to apply to do a PhD, the standard route to acceptance in academia. But a PhD comes with pressure, stress and intense work, things that are incompatible with the mid-stages of Parkinson’s. I also questioned the value of spending three, four or even five years working in some distant corner of neurodegeneration research, publishing a couple of papers in obscure journals, and barely moving the dial forwards. I concluded a PhD was not the best way to spend my remaining productive years.
Instead I had a series of conversations with organisations like Cure Parkinson’s and ACT-PD in the UK, and the Michael J Fox Foundation and Critical Path for Parkinson’s in the US. It’s early days but it looks like I’ve secured a number of advisory and small consulting roles, leveraging both my status as a person with Parkinson’s and my work and academic experience. Fingers crossed this turns out to be the perfect set-up: Flexible, part-time work in the Parkinson’s research community, time to pursue my own research ideas in the background, and a shot at making a difference.
Exciting times ahead
as I embark on the next stage of my journey into the wondrous world of neuroscience.
I hope my brain will hold out for the ride…
