Though we did venture out to the winter markets with Hayden bundled up deep inside Adrian’s jacket. It feels like winter has arrived, with a cold wind gusting through the bare trees and now with all the buildings lit up for the holidays.

Thank-you to Dr J and Dr L for their fun and beautiful baby gifts that Hayden was able to model today. He might not be rolling over yet, but I bet other babies don’t know the building blocks of DNA.

Adrian stood up and presented the figures to what was to become his first research paper, accepted and published in the best immunology journal in the world, Nature Immunology. I was impressed and intimidated. Even as a PhD student, Adrian seemed to be in his element. He would join the lab head and senior post-docs in asking probing questions during lab meetings, and would deliver scathing analyses of other papers during journal club. Even back then, he was an excellent mentor, improving thesis drafts or demonstrating the scientific method to undergraduate students, completing a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education to improve his teaching skills.

It was only later when I came to know him on a personal level that I learned how hard he had worked to reach this level. He had sacrificed every summer in his undergraduate degree to work in a research laboratory, running experiments and producing figures that would be published in peer reviewed publications even before he finished his Bachelor of Science.

He chose his PhD lab very carefully, interviewing at numerous institutions before finally finding one with the best opportunities. Here he worked every weekend, every night, designing experiments, talking to other scientists, and thoroughly reading the literature until he could keep up with the experts in his field. He made some great friends during that time, as he was always willing to talk over scientific or personal problems over a beer or two.

He knew that an excellent publication record was essential to succeed in academia. Every experiment was a figure in a paper. If he had to wait for some lab work to come to completion, he spent his time writing reviews and book chapters. At the beginning, Adrian never turned down an invitation to write a review – even if it was only a foreign print-only publication, he would still write a new and insightful manuscript on one of his areas of interest.

He continued in this manner through his post-doc, which meant that he was impressive enough to be awarded a start-up grant to create his own lab here in Belgium. I remember the first day he walked into the building – just an empty room – no furniture, no equipment, no staff. For the past three years he has worked tirelessly. He applied for every grant for which he was eligible, meanwhile recruiting staff and students, and setting up national and international collaborations. Knowing how stressful it can be to complete a PhD, he ensures that his students have every opportunity for success and fulfillment. They all have the opportunity to write their own reviews, and to have their own primary research paper as soon as possible. Plus he bought them a Nespresso coffee machine.

Today he received a letter stating that his latest research has again been accepted into Nature Immunology. However this time, nine years later, he is now the senior author on the paper. He has now been recognised as a leader of a world-class research laboratory conducting novel and cutting-edge investigations. I am so proud of him. Congratulations, Adrian.

4:49 AM: Hayden wakes up after 6 hours 35 minutes. I feed him and change him.
5:24 AM: Hayden goes back to sleep in the nursery without a fuss, I also go immediately back to sleep in our bedroom.
7:00 AM: Up time. Adrian fetches Hayden from the nursery and brings him into bed. We play and talk, and Hayden joins in with loud cooing “aaaah ooooh yoooo uuuuub”. He is becoming a lot more aware an interactive. It is fun. Pepper and Mint join us too, and I am happy that we have the whole family on the bed together.
7:30 AM: I pick out his outfit for the day and get him dressed and feed him again. I fill out his sleeping and eating notebook for the creche while Adrian gets himself ready and packs Hayden’s milk.
7:45 AM: I say goodbye to my two little guys and get ready for work.

8:00 AM: On the metro, I read through my work schedule on my Blackberry and work my way through the emails from have arrived from the US overnight.
8:30 AM: I boot up my laptop, and file all my emails out of my Inbox and into my @action folder, into subfolders. A subfolder that starts with 0 has to be done today, a subfolder that starts with 1 has to be addressed this week, etc.
9:00 AM: No meetings this morning, so I have time to get stuck into my projects. I compile a list of future data sources for 2012, give my comments on a systematic literature review protocol, read through the epidemiology section of a disease area review, and create a slide-deck that will be presented next week to the global team. Adrian sends me a photo of Hayden asleep in his pram.

10:30 AM: Pump.
10:45 AM: The publication officer pops into my cubicle to ask me about my plans for congresses and publications next year. I would like to submit an abstract for a congress with a deadline of mid-January, but it has to go through three review and approval cycles before it can be submitted, and I don’t think we’ll have time to do that as most people are taking of most of December for vacations (myself included).
11:15 AM: One of the statistical programmers sends me an instant message. The statistical analysis plan calls for a statistical test that seems inappropriate for that particular data set. We discuss various options and decide on a better alternative. I update the statistical analysis plan to reflect that change in design.
12:00 noon: Lunch time! Normally I go for the salad bar, but I treat myself on Fridays with the fish and vegetables. Today we have sole with mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, and ratatouille. The chef corrects my pronunciation of “ratatouille”, but I can’t hear the difference between the word I says and the way that he says it. I am sure that he can, though. I talk with my colleagues about their upcoming travel plans to the Ukraine, Mexico, and Romania.

12:30 PM: The head of the department drops by my cubicle to see how I am adjusting to being back to work, and reminds me that out of all my projects that I have to manage, Hayden is my most important. He talks about his children and about how his youngest has just learnt to walk.
1:00 PM: I meet with my team members and we do a practise run-through of our presentation to the global team for Monday.
1:30 PM: Pump
1:45 PM: I reply to emails, then complete an online training course to certify that I am compliant with the new Standard Operating Procedures that have just been implemented.
3:00 PM: 9:00 AM on the West Coast. The emails start flooding in from the US office. I have a teleconference with a US vendor to check on the progress of a new database that they are delivering to us.
4:00 PM: I have a teleconference with the UK office to discuss how I can support upcoming products in the pipeline and in early clinical trials.
4:30 PM: Pump
4:45 PM: Print out materials needed for Monday morning, make sure I have completed all my necessary tasks for the week. Water my plant.
5:00 PM: I leave on the dot so that I can get to Leuven by 6. I reply to more emails on my phone on the metro and then on the train.
6:00 PM: Arrive at the restaurant in Leuven for a friend’s birthday, joined by Adrian, Hayden, and a few other friends too. They all enjoy a drink, I have a Croque Hawaienne for dinner – a toasted ham cheese and pineapple sandwich, in which the pineapple must go on top of the bread instead of inside, for cultural reasons I do not understand. I feed Hayden and play with him, giving him lots of kisses until everyone else wants to hold him too.

8:00 PM: Hayden is sleepy so we head home. In his pram, Hayden plays with his kitten mittens, looking a little confused as to how his hands have turned into animals again. On the train we sit opposite a guy who is trying to study, but Hayden wants to talk to him and babbles loudly at him the whole time. Hayden is also really stinky.
9:00 PM: We arrive home, I feed Hayden and put him to sleep in his cot in the nursery. Adrian gives treats to Pepper and Mint.
9:30 PM: We put all his bottles and pump parts into the dishwasher, tidy up the house, and go to bed.
11:00 PM: I feed and change Hayden and pop him back into his sleep sack and back into his crib. He quietly sleeps until 6:00 AM the next day.

I feel very conflicted about returning to work. I do enjoy my job and I am looking forward to the feelings of intellectual challenge and productivity that come with it. However, when I think about being apart from my very little bear for so long, I do feel a bit sad. I don’t want him to forget who I am. Still, I guess this is part of what parenting is all about – letting them go, bit by bit.

Though afterwards I felt a little self-conscious tilting my seat 160 degrees to sleep with a quilted blanket and eye mask, when I knew that my boss and other business colleagues were sitting directly behind me, and then trying to talk with them a few hours later when I had terrible bed hair.

When he was in his 20s he worked with Macfarlane Burnet at WEHI in Melbourne to understand the incubation periods of infections such as smallpox, measles and chickenpox. After a stint at the NY Rockefeller institute, he became the first Professor of Bacteriology at the newly established ANU.

He successfully introduced the lethal myxomatosis pox virus into the overwhelming feral rabbit population, thus dramatically reducing the burden on Australian native plants and animals. When some members of the public were concerned about the risk of this virus for humans, he and his colleagues publicly injected themselves with myxoma virus to demonstrate its safety. In 1977, he was elected the chairman of the WHO Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication, and in 1980 addressed to World Health Assembly and declared that smallpox had been globally eradicated.

I have a signed copy of his book “The John Curtin School of Medical Research: the First Fifty Years, 1948-1998″ on my bookshelf, and I am grateful for the years that he and I worked as scientists together in the same building. He has left a lasting impact on all of humankind.

Now I have a permanent internal position with a pharma company. I have a laptop and blackberry and a corporate credit card. I work a 40 hour week. I have presented my findings at an international conference, and we have just learned that our paper has been accepted into a peer-reviewed journal.

My transition from an immunologist in academia to a pharmacoepidemiologist in industry is complete. I am so glad that I made the change.

Photo from JBird

My colleagues have been warm and welcoming. There is no strong siblinghood of shared difficulty that I found during my PhD, but everyone is kind and friendly. I look forward to the cafeteria lunch, where the French chefs cook up a diverse range of treats. Usually I stick with a soup and fruit-salad, much to the puzzlement of my European colleagues who treat lunch as the main meal of the day. However, the chef put on a special holiday menu, so I couldn’t help treating myself to scampi and scallop skewers followed by a quatro of desserts – chocolate mousse, panna cotta, jam poffertje and profiterole.

After Saint Nicolas’ day, we returned to work to find that someone had placed a selection of mandarins, marzipan, chocolate, and speculoos on the desk of every single person in the building. Such a thoughtful gesture, and very nice to have a little sugar boost to help me through the afternoons.

Soon after that we had a small forest of fir trees spring up in the lobby. Each tree was a different species, their needles slightly different colours and textures. So much thicker than the ones we get over in Australia, but they still smell like the holidays. Often as I passed by I would stop and sniff the branches, ignoring the quizzical looks from the receptionists.

I have just submitted my last essay for my last course in my Masters in Public Health by correspondence. As long as I pass this essay, I will have completed all the units and I will qualify for graduation. It has been very difficult to juggle everything over here, and not having constant assessments hanging over my head will be a great relief.

I am very thankful that Adrian encouraged me to enroll in this course back in 2007. This extra qualification was enough to land me my current job as a clinical epidemiologist. Having a job that I enjoy makes all those essays and exams feel worthwhile.

Photo from joebeone

As soon as we decided on Belgium, I submitted my resume to a bunch of Belgian pharmaceutical and biotech consulting companies. In March, I was offered a job at one of these consulting companies (“Choice Consulting”). I would be employed by Choice Consulting, but I would work at a pharmaceutical company (“Federation Pharma”) for at least three months. I would initially have a six-months probationary contract with Choice Consulting that would transition into a permanent position if my performance was acceptable. I have just found out that Federation Pharma has just signed an agreement to continue my contract until the end of the year. This means that will earn a permanent position as a consultant with Choice Consulting. After my contract with Federation Pharma ends, they can send me to work anywhere within the Benelux region, but it feels great to know that I now have a permanent position and a little bit of long-term security.

What do I actually do at my desk? I work as a clinical epidemiologist at Federation Pharma headquarters. At the moment, I examine data from a vast database of health insurance claims from the USA. This database lets me work out patterns of use, treatment rates, co-morbidities, and healthcare costs that are associated with specific drugs or diseases. The data are already there, and I do not have to slave over the bench to generate them. I do not have to work with syringes of infectious diseases, there are no failed experiments, and I work 40 hours a week. I do not have the independence, camaraderie, or altruism of academia, but I have short achievable deadlines and minimal stress. I am a little uncomfortable working in a for-profit environment, but I am learning a lot more about the pharmaceutical industry that I would ever discover from the outside. Overall, I really like it here.

I noticed a strange feeling of freedom this weekend. Then I realised what what behind it – a few days ago I submitted my last assignment for my second-last unit of my Masters of Public Health correspondence degree. Ever since we arrived in Belgium I have been spending quite a lot of my time working through the “Clinical Biostatistics” unit, but last Monday I submitted my very last assignment. Next semester I will complete the course with the compulsory “Social Perspectives in Population Health”, and then I am all done. I can see the end.

Of course, I also start French classes in September…

Photo from paphio.

I think that’s enough to keep me busy for twelve months or so. It is a bit overwhelming to be faced with so many changes, but I realise how lucky that we are to have this opportunity, so the main emotion I feel is excitement. We had a great time in North America over the past two years, and while I think we are better suited to Europe, I am very thankful for all the happy memories that we have of the United States of America.

How strange it is, to be back in this country after 22 months of absence. Crossing the street is difficult, as I am still looking the wrong way. And the loss of my iPhone is almost crippling, as I am no long able to bring up an instant map of my location, or able to check my email anywhere, or find out where the nearest movie theatre or when the next bus is coming. The sign and smell of the local Starbucks elicits fond memories of all my hours curled up on the couches of that Seattle-bred coffee house. I miss the friends that I have made in Seattle, their stories about the intricacies of American culture, and their interesting perspectives on national and international events.

Still, it is refreshing to be back in Australia, and in a strange way it almost feels like I have never left. Very little cognitive effort is needed to get around. The supermarkets are filled with delicious and familiar delicacies. Our cupboard is filled with Aussie ingredients. I have been eating Weetbix for breakfast and vegemite and honey sandwiches for lunch (and sometimes also for dinner). My aunt and uncle generously welcomed us back to Australia with a spectacular spread that included vegetable pasties and beetroot – both items that are impossible to source in the USA.

I am enjoying my intense Masters of Public Health blocks – not starting the day until nine o’clock is such a luxury, and the other students are friendly and enthusiastic. We completed our first joint presentation on Friday, and I am proud of how well everyone pitched in to produce such a great seminar. I now have a bunch of assignments hanging over my head, but with no more 14-hour experiments to do, I feel quite confident that they will all be completed in time.

I am savouring the luxury of speaking the same language as the locals, of understanding the etiquette and the signposts, and of being so close to friends and family. Apart from the terrible storms, the weather here is generally warm and mild, and the days are full of sunlight. These are the comforts that I will miss in Belgium.

Wednesday, November 5 was my last day as a senior post-doctoral fellow at the University of Washington. We went out to Lydia’s Last Lunch at Serafina with current and past lab members. I had some delcious trout, and they gave me a lovely card:

“thank-you for all your help and for answering all my questions… thank you for teaching me awesome Australian words: arvo! I will miss you! You’ve always had a smile and a kind word to share. You know how to distract me when I’m nervous (i.e. you let me rattle on about my cats)… we’ll miss you.. We are sad to see you go!… I have enjoyed and learned a lot from our many conversations… Thanks for all your support to me, especially when things have not been going the best. Your positive attitude and kindness have been very helpful so many times.”

I may never again walk through the university library, watch the squirrels hide and recover acorns, see the mountain behind the fountain, celebrate a birthday with cake, or a paper with sparkling apple juice. We have made so many wonderful friends here in Seattle. Now I am leaving my career at the bench behind, and looking forward to a rewarding future in clinical trials.