キャリアニュース2020年２月26～３月4日

Six months after starting my first faculty position, I lost consciousness while speaking with my students and postdocs. I hit my head on a lab bench as I fell to the floor. A few minutes later, utterly bewildered, I woke up to see the unfamiliar faces of the emergency medical team, as well as the scared faces of my mentees. At the hospital, doctors performed a battery of tests, collecting my spinal fluid and scanning my brain. Later, they told me that I'd suffered a grand mal seizure; it was the first seizure I'd ever had. I was diagnosed with epilepsy at 34 years of age—and my career hasn't been the same ever since. > “Every seizure took my confidence in my ability to run a lab down a notch.” When I had my first seizure, I'd toiled in academia for 14 years, working my way up the academic ladder. I'd always been laser focused on the next step in what I imagined would be a very linear career trajectory—Ph.D., postdoc, faculty job, tenure. Then, less than 1 year after starting my dr