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Interview question for Dr. Swartz:
Why M. D. Anderson?
Dr. Swartz answers:
One of the attractive things about the Postdoctoral Fellowship was the possibility of collaboration with -- ultimately -- anyone -- because there are so many different research areas that go on here at M. D. Anderson. The other benefit that I had during the postdoc is that I loved having all the resources that they have here at M. D. Anderson, because I could branch out my knowledge base. Because there are presentations in almost anything that you can think of here. Which I -- you know -- at other institutions I didn’t see quite that same availability. And then -- you know -- as well as -- this institution is one of the top institutions, so I also suspected that having a postdoc here would make a position anywhere else easier to get.
Interview question for Dr. Swartz:
Tell us about your work.
Dr. Swartz answers:
My research interests are -- well, in general -- statistical methods apply to psychology applications. The current research that I started with the postdoctorate continued as an instructor, is developing computerized adaptive tests to monitor patient reported health outcomes. And at M. D. Anderson the patient reported health outcomes are very important because they monitor things like quality of life, and the things like pain, fatigue, nausea that are associated with cancer treatment and with the disease itself, that can sometimes make the patients a lot more miserable. And the Behavioral Science Department is focused on monitoring the other departments actually as well, are focused on monitoring and improving these quality of life variables.
Interview question for Dr. Swartz:
How was your postdoc experience?
Dr. Swartz answers:
I don’t know if my experience was particular -- I suspect not. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunities that I had, and I also found that this was one of the better places in terms of the benefits that I received as a postdoc -- and I don’t know whether I had specific fellowship that was set up to do an NCI grant. But, it offered me funds for travel, it offered me funds for research, it offered me -- and I got full benefits -- and I think this was particular to my fellowship -- it offered me full protected time for research. And, my mentors were actually -- because I’ve heard of people who work on fellowships where they are told they are going to have protected time, but they didn’t get it -- whereas my mentors were very good in that they wanted to focus on my development, so when I got the protected time that was offered me from this fellowship, the mentors respected that and I literally worked only on, either my research interests, or if there was a research project that I was interested in -- that maybe wasn’t fully related to the research for my fellowship -- because I was interested in it and if I cleared with my mentor, then -- you know -- I could do it -- whether it was specific for what I was interested in. And I really appreciated that. Plus one of the things that I love about working at M. D. Anderson is there are so many resources. That’s why I wanted to stay working at M. D. Anderson after my fellowship.
Interview question for Dr. Swartz:
Final thoughts?
Dr. Swartz answers:
Well, there is one more thing that I enjoyed about being here, and it depends on the level of involvement people want to get -- but there is a Postdoctoratal Association -- an active association here at M. D. Anderson -- and they have done some phenomenal achievements in terms of getting new benefits for postdocs.
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