78. How I Lost Almost Everything: Lessons in Redundancy

Ever lost crucial research data or samples and felt the sting of seeing your hard work vanish?

Tune in to discover how creating strategic redundancies can save your projects—and your sanity—from unexpected disasters. Learn from real-life stories and expert tips on building failsafe systems in your academic and personal life. Don't wait for a crisis to strike; listen now, take a first action step, and safeguard your success!

In this episode of The Academic Revolution Podcast, host Inga Hofmann, MD discusses the importance of creating redundancies to avoid potential disasters in research, academia, and personal life. She shares personal experiences and practical advice on how to implement backup systems to ensure the continuity of critical work. Learn how to identify vulnerable areas and take proactive steps to protect your valuable resources.

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Transcript

0:01

Alright, perhaps this happened to you before you had an important research project running and had Omondi is single experiment running or had precious research samples and they got. Last for whatever reason, freezer probe down, something happened into a holy book was lost. If that has ever happened to you. Number one, I'm super sorry. That really stings. But let's talk about how to avoid this by creating redundancies in your laboratory, in your research, in your personal life, in all the aspects, so that you feel like you'll, you have backup plans so important. So I'll stay tuned for after the music and we will be right back. Well, if I come back to another episode of the academic revolution podcast, I'm your host in the Hoffman. I'm so happy to add you joined us today. And this episode again is one of those things. That I just got inspired by thinking about problems that sometimes arise for people in the research and academic realm. I've entitled this episode creating redundancy is to avoid disasters. And this came out off. Remembering. Incidences, aware. I wished I had backup plans and I was also reading that others had some struggles with that, and it's really painful when we worked, where we long and hard on something. And then, all our workers lost. So this happened to me. I give you a practical example. Just one of the many where I had to learn the hard way too. create redundancies. Many years ago. I was in a difficult situation academically. I had to written my first K wait. At because my mentor left literally days before the review meeting. So I had to share that with the NIH. And that was also the same day. When I returned from maternity leave. So not the best returned from maternity leave at the time, it was really a rough time. And I needed to find other funding sources. I was really passionate about creating resources for rare diseases, which. I love to focus on pediatric MDs. In, at the time. That was a whole serious of grants. For coming all too. If you're old enough, you both remember the days of the challenge grants they were called. It was a million bucks for a research project. And so I was applying for one of those. So I wrote a grant for this. And I want a lot of obstacles along the way. But the key part was I was working from my computer and I was finishing this grant while then traveling to Europe to E. Pediatric MDs meeting. At the time. And somehow I don't exactly no. What happened? My computer basically either got stolen. That's my suspicion or. I lost it somehow on the flight. It's very strange what happened, but nevertheless, the laptop with all the information on the app with all the drafts, et cetera. Was gone. And I was now out of the country. I was not in the United States. I was traveling in Germany and in Europe to this meeting and basically the grant deadline was a few days away. And here I was with all my work, basically disappeared. And I was like, dang, I wish I would have had better backup options, like an external drive or something. Right. But you hope that everything will be good. And I probably had some drafts in my email somewhere on earlier versions. And that taught me a big lesson that I didn't have a redundancy in my workflow process. And now this caused a huge problem. And put me in a pickle to make that grant Thankfully the person that was mentoring me and reading my grant of wonderful, wonderful person. Really a treasure in our division at the time. Had saved the prior drafts I've given them bounced back and forth between her in these late editing stages to get the final draft together. So that was able to rescue some prior version and redo some of the edits. That I had lost. But still, it was super frustrating. And I learned at that moment, you better have backup copies. In many, many different ways. And then there was days it wasn't probably as easy as now when you have, you know, Google drives and all sorts of things where we easily have backup versions. So I learned the hard way that you need redundancies. And in that case I had to finish at was really crunch time to finish that grant. And I finished it. In a hotel. In fact, I finished it sitting in the bathroom on the bathroom floor. Off a hotel and Radha. I had time because that was the only place where number one, I could walk quietly. Why am I six months old was trying to sleep. And that was a sleeping disaster. And we also had internet connection. So it was by no means pleasant. And I learned some hard lessons that way. So what I want to share with you today, just some food for thought. I want you to really evaluate where are they are critical things in my, either my laboratory research and my clinical research, perhaps in your clinical workflow or even on the Homefront. Where are there? Things where things could fall through the cracks. For example or specifically, are there systems in place that I have that if one system fails, I have a backup plan. I have a. Backup generator, so to speak. So for example this happens sadly quite a bit. People have precious research samples that they collected either over the years, whether it's cell lines, whether it's sampled, stay obtained through various research projects. Primer you patient samples. All those things that were hard to get that either cost a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, or are just non replaceable primary patient samples. That you will never get back. And you take wonderful K off them, and then you freeze them away. But you don't have backup to your liquid nitrogen or your minus 80 or whatever. Those samples are stored. And if the system fails and Goldstone, You don't have any back up and you're at risk of losing. Perhaps even a decade of work. So in that case, we leave. Think through what can you do? If you have samples where you have multiple aliquots, you can store them in two different places that are independent in terms of. You know, power and those type of things. So I'll have backups somewhere else. Obviously. Have alarms on your freezers, into your tanks. That go to a responsible person. The soul that, you know, when your liquid nitrogen is low or freezer, power goes out, whatever it might be. Make sure that you have. All of those processes. Well documented. Do you have. Processes documented what will happen in event of scenario, ABC? What are you going to do with it? Like for example, if a freezer products don't what's, the process was going to go in and take care of that. And I know we often, this is a tendency we all have, right. And we're waiting for the shoe to drop, and then we figure this out. Because we feel we don't have time in the moment to be proactive, and then we learn the hard way. but I will challenge you. That it is much wiser. And a cost much less time to think about redundancies and processes and backup systems ahead of time. So the same is true for, you know, electronic copies of grants and manuscripts. For example, or whether it's clinic processes that. Might be a very specific list for you. So are we, they wanted to think about where are our critical things. If you kind of just take a moment and think. Check down some notes and think. Wow. If this would break down, I would be really in trouble. My work would be jeopardized. Whether it's clinical, where research or even stuff at home. That is really important. And then look at what are the redundancies you could create to avoid them. So never rely on just one thing to. Do all the work for you never rely on just one process. Or one person, but have redundancies in place. We have that in the clinical setting. For example, if and this happened not too long ago, right? Hola systems broke down because of. Whatever I'd Boyce in the end, whether it's a cyber security issue or something. With the whole medical record system broke down for many, many hospitals. And that can happen. Of course. And it's a disaster when that happens. Why? And then hospitals have backup procedures, right? We usually go back to the good old fashioned. Handwritten orders, if you're old enough to remember, and you know what that process works, some of it is not as convenient. Some of it it's actually much faster. And so that is a great example. We have to have those kinds of redundancies and backup systems in place for all the critical steps. What I encourage you to do is just think about, as you go about your day, what are some things that are really need some redundancies for. Whether it's reagents, whether it's samples. And your laboratory. Whether it's Clinical type of workflows where you're like, oh, I always rely on. Let's see my templates, but now my template is down because. The system. Whatever epic chewed up all my templates stuff disappeared. And I lost all my work. Do you have backup copies and aboard document? For example? So think about these things, make a list and then, you know, occasionally tackle them as a little project. It might sound like a lot of things now. And again, these are not emergency issues, but you don't want them to become emergencies. So think about bay, you need redundancies. Then think about an alternative to the process you're currently using, whether it's human or automated or systems. And then pick a date when you take out some of these projects so that you don't have situations. But you have to learn the hard way and say, oh no, My whole grand writing disappeared because I didn't have a backup copy. On another computer or in another folder. Google drive or whatever it is. So I'll hope this served you. I hope. This will help prevent some disasters in the future. You have a wonderful day and talk to you soon./ Thank you so much for listening to the Academic Revolution podcast today. If you've gotten value from today's episode, I would love for you to share it with your friends and colleagues and help create a movement that changes the future of academic medicine forever. Also, don't forget to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn and visit ingahoffman. com for more information on how to work with me. Links are in the show notes. Until then, be well and see you on the next episode of the Academic Revolution podcast.