From the Deputy Director for Intramural Research

Fare Thee Well

Those of you who regularly read this column in the NIH Catalyst already realize that I am not shy and am almost never at a loss for words. I realize that some think that is a good thing and others, not so much! I do not know any way to lead other than to make what I need to say, and what I need those I lead to do, absolutely clear. As many of you know already, my last day as an NIH employee is September 30. So, at this moment when I write my last column for the NIH Catalyst, there is something I need to say that relates directly to something I need to urge you to do.

What I need to say is this: Thank you. I know there are those who will think I say this because you have hung in there and kept NIH doing what it does best through difficult times despite unique versions of survivor guilt, through augmented workloads born of denuded org charts, through implementation of plans for cost-cutting that came before elaboration of alternative plans for getting the work of NIH done. I guess that is part of it. But what I really want to thank you for is your support and questioning and partnership in effecting change, and for making NIH a much better place than it was just shy of 10 years ago when I began planning the federal part of my career.

You see, for me (and I know I am not alone in this), the most challenging part of recent days has been the assumption by many that those of us who work at NIH have long thought it perfect and have insisted on maintaining the status quo. It seems to me, it would not take much homework to realize just how much change for the better and for the good, and for the welfare of the people we serve, has taken place in the almost eight years I have been working here. And why would anyone want to be a leader in a place that was perfect? There would be nothing for them to do! Instead, we have been relentless critics of our own recruitments, training, salary structures, interpersonal skills and approaches, and decisions around involvement of animals, humans, and cellular and computer models in research. We have rethought who is empowered to imagine and effect change and what it means to be a good leader or manager or scientist or mentor. We have remade our award and reward systems and created ladders of growth and advancement for people who had been stuck in one career place for a decade.

It is, at best, challenging and, at worst, distracting to know that some people assume that intramural NIH has resisted or been oblivious to the need for change. But you cannot be distracted, and above all, you cannot be diverted from the mission and vision of the NIH. We have been on a path that has elucidated new insights, created new treatments and cures, and mentored the next generation of physicians, scientists, nurses, and administrative leaders. You cannot stop now.

That is not to say that NIH has now reached perfection—it would be truly dangerous for you to even think that. We, both inside and outside NIH, must get better at telling the people we serve our story. We must get better at listening to the stories and answering the questions and needs of those people. We must enhance the diagnostic and therapeutic indices of everything we do by increasing the ratio of good to harm in every discovery and invention. This is best done by engagement, not edict. And that brings me back to my thanks to you. Engagement is not a solitary or self-serving exercise. Engagement requires humility, partnership, and, yes, gratitude.

I am thankful I have not been making this challenging journey alone. I am intensely proud of the legacy I leave at NIH both because of and in all of you. I will be championing NIH from the academic arena as I did for 32 years before I came here, and cheering for all of you from the extramural bleachers!

Godspeed…