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The first time I entered the Cornwall lab at Boston University School of Medicine, I was overwhelmed. Racks of electronic equipment filled the room. Microscopes, chemicals, and optical gear bordered every open space, while wires branched through the lab like roots seeking water. Dr. M. Carter Cornwall, the PI (principle investigator) and my future “boss,” was giving me a tour of the lab. He was telling me something about one of the monster microscopes, but I wasn’t listening to him. All I could hear was my own inner voice, saying, “I don’t belong here; I am completely inadequate for graduate-level research.” Despite my straight-A record, full scholarship, and other academic accolades, I was convinced that I was an imposter and that BU had somehow made a big mistake in accepting me into the Ph.D. program.
Dr. Cornwall apparently sensed my apprehension and reassured me: “Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything you see here I can teach you. It’s simple when broken down to its fundamental parts. You can learn all of it.” And true to his word, when I joined the lab a few months later, he walked me through every bit of it, teaching me with enormous patience and humor.
He spent hours in the lab with me that first year as I fumbled my way through experiments, teaching me a technique that involved about 50 steps, each of which depended upon the success of the previous one. The goal was to record tiny electrical currents from neurons isolated from the retina of a model animal (usually salamander or toad). The experiments were conducted under a microscope and in complete darkness, with a night-vision type of apparatus. It was like trying to fly to the moon, and I spent my first year in the lab failing at it over and over again. I had never failed so much in my entire life.
Dr. Cornwall knew exactly when he needed to step in and teach me and when he just needed to let me struggle. But all the while, he was completely committed to my success. He told me that while in coursework failing means you’re not learning, failing in research means you’re making progress.
Maureen Estevez earned her Ph.D. in 2007 from the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM). She is currently a postdoctoral research and teaching associate in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at BUSM.
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