Shiny Epi People

Tim Lash, DSc with gems of advice and stories of wearing a screen door

December 12, 2020 Season 1 Episode 21
Shiny Epi People
Tim Lash, DSc with gems of advice and stories of wearing a screen door
Show Notes Transcript

Tim Lash, ScD is a cancer epidemiologist, editor-in-cheif of a major journal in our field, editor of the primary textbook in our field, and chair of an epidemiology department. He knows epidemiology! That's why I asked him to share his most important piece of advice for epidemiologists from PhD students to full professors. Tim and I talk about the huge social we put together for the 50th anniversary of our epidemiology society, and all of the hilarious prep involved in getting a band of 30 epidemiologists to play and sing at the event. Tim also tells stories of wearing a screen door, nearly failing college physics, his big college t-shirt collection, and more!

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Lisa Bodnar :

What do you have there, buddy?

Tim Lash:

Red wine. Who knows what I'll say if I start drinking Bourbon.

Lisa Bodnar :

Cheers friend.

Tim Lash:

Cheers, friend.

Lisa Bodnar :

Well, I probably have been around you when you were drinking red wine.

Tim Lash:

Probably.

Lisa Bodnar :

We've had a lot of alcohol together.

Tim Lash:

Chances are somewhere along the way, yeah.

Lisa Bodnar :

Hi friends. Welcome back to Shiny Epi People. I'm Lisa Bodnar. Thank you for supporting the show in all the ways. Listening, sharing, and donating via my Patreon at patreon.com/shinyepipeople.

Lisa Bodnar :

If you've recently become a patron, thank you so much. I will get around to thanking you individually and hopefully getting to the point where I can post patron only content bonus episode type things, but I'm a one-woman show here so maybe that will happen and maybe it won't. We are on Twitter and Instagram at Shiny Epi People. I put additional content about each show on the social media. So check it out.

Lisa Bodnar :

Today I'm talking with my friend, Tim Lash. Tim is professor and chair of epidemiology at Emory Rollins School of Public Health. He's also editor in chief of Epidemiology, which is one of the most important journals in our field. And he edits the textbook Modern Epidemiology, which I would argue is the authoritative text in our field.

Lisa Bodnar :

The newest edition of Modern Epi is coming out really soon. In this episode, Tim gives his best piece of advice for epidemiologists at each career stage from PhD students all the way up to full professors so get out your pencil and paper. His advice is so great, but you also get to see Tim's very funny and self-deprecating side, which I think will come as a delight to those who only know his name or have seen him give a scientific talk.

Lisa Bodnar :

Tim and I planned the society social event for SERs 50th anniversary celebration in Seattle. And we discuss this in the episode today. The music program for the social involved 30 members of the society playing instruments or singing on stage with Tim's band, Toasted Oak, at the Seattle aquarium in front of hundreds of their colleagues and friends. It was such a great night. And one that really fits with the themes of my podcast: epidemiologists are so much more than what you see professionally. To give you a feel for that night, which happened several years ago, I chose clips of three songs and wove them into this episode. With 30 songs performed by 30 epi folks. I could only choose a small proportion to highlight here. And I'm sorry if your song was not included. I really hope you enjoy this show.

Lisa Bodnar :

Hey Tim.

Tim Lash:

Hi, Lisa. Good to see you. Nice that you do this.

Lisa Bodnar :

Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Honest answer. Have you listened to any of the episodes?

Tim Lash:

No. I have not.

Lisa Bodnar :

But why have you agreed to do this?

Tim Lash:

It's a great thing that you're doing. I applaud the mission and I think I will listen to some, but I've been tied up trying to finish a textbook. That's been pretty busy.

Lisa Bodnar :

I get it. Tim, do you remember when we met?

Tim Lash:

I know the story you tell about when we met, but I don't remember it happening what you describe it.

Lisa Bodnar :

You were on my grant I think at this point, and I was like, "I need to meet you face to face." So I met you at the Boston SER and it was in this plenary room and everyone stood up afterwards and I saw you sitting in front of me and I was like, "Oh, there's Tim. I'm going to finally go introduce myself to him." You stood up and I'm not remembering this wrong. There was a pack of women around you, Tim. It was a sea of people.

Tim Lash:

Never happened to me in my life.

Lisa Bodnar :

I couldn't even get to you. I remember being like, "There's so many people." And I was like, "Tim I'm Lisa Bodnar." We were 20 feet apart and there were just so many people that were wanting your attention and your autograph and your photo and a selfie with you that I was just like, "Maybe that's the last time I'll ever see his face." And then I just left.

Tim Lash:

Has never happened. Didn't happen. I would remember that but that didn't happen.

Lisa Bodnar :

I really got to know you when we were on the SER board together.

Tim Lash:

Yeah, those were, we had some good times. I think we cooked up the whole formal sitting at the bar in Dallas. Right?

Lisa Bodnar :

Yeah. You need to tell everyone about, because I'm sure a lot of people listening either maybe they weren't at the 50th anniversary of SER or they were, but they didn't know all the details. You should talk about what you put together. This was bananas. The amount of work.

Tim Lash:

It mushroomed at the the end. There's no question about that. You were in charge of the social for the 50th. We were sitting there having drinks and you were like, "Well, we should have music." I'm like, "Yeah, we should have a band though because I just not a big DJ fan." And then you said, "Well, we should have SER people play just like this jam session." And I was like, "That's not going to work. What you really need is to hire our band."

Tim Lash:

And the idea was the three of us would know the songs and get through it and it would sound good. And anybody that wanted to join in could join in. My greatest worry was that someone would volunteer to join who turned out not to be good because I had never heard any of these people play or sing.

Lisa Bodnar :

And you opened this up?

Tim Lash:

Yeah. It was posted on the website. And then I reached out to some people who I knew were players or singers. And we ended up with, I think, 30 people appeared on the stage with us in one song or more. And some of them were just outstanding players.

Lisa Bodnar :

Yes. You were sending MP3s of you guys playing this music out to everyone and having them practice to the MP3.

Tim Lash:

Right? We got 50 of those in June, and as we got closer to it we realized that we were only going to have a day or a day and a half to rehearse with these folks at all. So the three of us recorded MP3s of us and sent that out for them to rehearse against.

Tim Lash:

I had to talk with all of the 30 people who were going to be in this and find out what songs they wanted to do. And then there was this whole equipment or rental part, right?

Lisa Bodnar :

Yes. That was so crazy.

Tim Lash:

Which we spent thousands. We had like such a great stage. It was a dream come true. Sue Bevan nearly had a cow.

Tim Lash:

And we had to get all that moved into the hotel to rehearse and then moved out of the hotel over to the aquarium to get set up for the actual show. I don't know if you remember, but there was a guy from the equipment rental place walking around with this mixing board on his iPad. And I talked to him beforehand and said, "Look, if someone sucks, just turn them off."

Tim Lash:

But it didn't happen. It didn't happen. Everybody was really good. We did, not quite 30 songs, I think that night.

Lisa Bodnar :

Everyone was amazing. It was such a cool night to have these people whose papers you read and whose work you admire. And they are so talented in so many other ways. And to be able to see some of these people play instruments and sing, it was so incredible.

Lisa Bodnar :

I just remember people especially towards the end of the night, maybe because there was more alcohol flowing, but you can hear it in the audio that you've recorded. People are screaming and cheering. It was such a cool night.

Lisa Bodnar :

I know that you have tons of little tidbits and gems of advice to give people at all stages of their careers.

Lisa Bodnar :

Could you start from PhD students and give a couple of your gems and then go on up post-docs, assistant professor associate full.

Tim Lash:

Wow. That's hard. I don't know that I have these gems. What I've said to PhD students is read. That's I think the most important thing for PhD students. Read in your field, read the methods papers, read the general interest epi journals and read old stuff.

Tim Lash:

If you're reading a textbook and there's a citation to a paper where some of the details are worked out, go and get that paper and read it and follow that one back. I'm sometimes surprised when people stumble on some new methods idea and I'm sitting there listening to it or reading about it. And I think, Sandra, of course, Sandra, yeah, they published this paper in 1982. Right?

Tim Lash:

This is not new. We're an older science now than we were when I at least was a doctoral student. And I think that there is a tendency not to read some of the older stuff. And let me tell you those people knew what they were doing.

Tim Lash:

I was working on a paper with Hailey and Jay on the importance of specificity and exposure classification. And we had this whole outline worked out and I went and started looking at the literature that Kathy Flegal wrote the paper in 1988, it was exactly the same paper. We're like, "Okay, we're not going to write this paper because she already wrote it. And guess what? She did a better job than we were going to do."

Lisa Bodnar :

Okay.

Tim Lash:

Read.

Lisa Bodnar :

Let's go on up.

Tim Lash:

Doctoral students read, post-docs write. You got to churn out papers and finish the papers from your PhD. Figure out any little thing that you can do to turn something you did in your doctorate, into a paper. Just publish and write.

Lisa Bodnar :

Do you think it matters what you're publishing? Is this quantity? I know you don't want to put out garbage, but-

Tim Lash:

No, you don't. It's your brand, it's your reputation. Be calibrated is what I would say. If you have something you think is important to some audience, write it up and submit it to a journal that's calibrated to the content and don't slice it thinner than it can be just so that you can have more papers, but it matters. Let's not kid ourselves. Quantity and quality matters.

Tim Lash:

Search committees are going to look, department chairs are going to look so yes. Write.

Lisa Bodnar :

First author papers?

Tim Lash:

Especially. I think it's very helpful. If you can get into an environment where there are other people and you can contribute to their papers and get middle author papers.

Lisa Bodnar :

Okay. Assistant professors?

Tim Lash:

Wait to teach. Wait until you teach. That's something that you can usually negotiate and it is worth your while to not have to teach until the third semester that you're there.

Lisa Bodnar :

Get yourself established.

Tim Lash:

Yeah. But teach. It's important and teach well, but you don't have to do it right away.

Lisa Bodnar :

Okay. Mid-career.

Tim Lash:

This is something that I've been talking with some of the people in our faculty about, I think that if you reach a point in your research trajectory, you have to decide whether you are trying to build an empire or you are happy with your mom and pop shop. I have always been happy with my mom and pop shop.

Lisa Bodnar :

I am quite happy with my mom and pop shop.

Tim Lash:

Typically how the funding that I need to support my salary and some students never had a large research staff and that's allowed me to do things like write the textbook and become editor of journal and also have cancer research funding and collaborations with Denmark and so forth.

Tim Lash:

But I've never had like a pile of money under me, grant funding. Other people have been very successful in building very large research enterprises. What you have to be willing to give up is the research projects are not going to be right next to you. There's going to be post-docs between you and the research or early career faculty in some parts. Staff, you have to figure out how you're going to manage that well because now you're really talking about a small business right in the department.

Tim Lash:

And you have got to be willing to let go. Some of it, right. And even the science and that I think is where it is really hard for some faculty. So we have, I don't know, eight faculty, maybe in our department who are in this stage of their career and who I've been talking with about being intentional about this choice and realizing on both sides of it.

Tim Lash:

What's the trajectory going to look like? For me, a concern would be well, if the well runs dry, it's not only me, but especially staff who are going to be left without funding support. And I would have a hard time with that.

Lisa Bodnar :

My K award mentor said to me, "Don't get too big too fast."

Tim Lash:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Lisa Bodnar :

She was big. She had an entire enterprise going on, but it was kind of watching her do that, that I was like, "Yeah, I don't want that kind of thing."

Lisa Bodnar :

I don't want to have a whole center that's mine. And I have to have four R01's all at once. And I just knew I didn't like the balance in life was not what I was looking for.

Tim Lash:

Yeah. You become as much a manager as a scientist. You're a manager of science, science enterprise, but the ideas are not all yours. You're not close to the day-to-day project management or publication or you just can't do it all.

Lisa Bodnar :

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tim Lash:

I think there are some people who found themselves with the kingdom and didn't want it. How am I going to manage this now? I can't keep track of all of this.

Tim Lash:

On the other hand, there are people who possibly wanted an enterprise, but the scope of their work is not sufficient to support it. That might become a frustration for them.

Lisa Bodnar :

All right. Full professors.

Tim Lash:

Early career full professors, or later career full professors?

Lisa Bodnar :

Early career. Let's start with people like me who have 20 years ahead of me to be at the same rank.

Tim Lash:

Well, again, I think you have to figure out what you value at that point. I think it's very important that you endeavor to meet the expectations of your institution, continuing to support your own salary by what one means or another is important. But you can also begin to have an influence on policy making, serving on guidance panels, study sections, possible leadership positions, directing graduate programs.

Tim Lash:

There are a lot of different outlets and you have to figure out which one suits you and what the path is to it. It can become mundane, your work. If you don't find ways to keep it fresh, that takes some effort. But I think it's worth it that. I think about my grandmother who worked peace time for 30 years, which means on a factory line at Timken Roller Bearing, and you have to keep up because the rest of the people on the line get paid less if you don't. And you get up every day for 30 years. And that's what she did. There was no room for advancement. That's what she had to do to put a roof over my father's head and food on the table.

Lisa Bodnar :

Boy, are we lucky?

Tim Lash:

Yeah. That makes you realize most people don't get to think about these things. What are you going to do to keep your mind fresh for the rest of your career? It's worth thinking about it and you've worked hard to achieve that position, but it is also privilege.

Lisa Bodnar :

Good advice. Tim Lash, a beacon. A beacon in this dark time.

Tim Lash:

Yeah. Right.

Lisa Bodnar :

If you weren't an epidemiologist, what would you be doing?

Tim Lash:

Well, I started my undergrad as planning to be an electrical engineer. Possibly that.

Lisa Bodnar :

There must have been a reason that you've diverged?

Tim Lash:

That's called physics. I couldn't-

Lisa Bodnar :

Couldn't pass it.

Tim Lash:

Talk about a marker. In my first semester of physics as an undergrad, I took an exam and I got a 15 out of 100.

Lisa Bodnar :

Wait, no, you didn't. A 15%?

Tim Lash:

Yeah. The professor wrote on the top, "Your answers show no understanding of physics." I may have been confused by the 15. Right.

Lisa Bodnar :

It wasn't just silly, silly mistakes. It was 85 silly mistakes.

Tim Lash:

Yeah. He made sure that I understood that in case I was not clear on my understanding based on the 15 that I did not know what the hell I was doing when it came into physics.

Tim Lash:

That was part of why I changed to biology. I don't know, possibly that.

Lisa Bodnar :

Biologist?

Tim Lash:

Yeah. That was the plan. The plan was take a couple of years off and go back to graduate school in molecular biology at some time, possibly virology. Then I got this MPH and the last class of my MPH was the first time that Charlie Poole taught modern epidemiology at BU and I'm like, "Oh, this is actually really interesting."

Lisa Bodnar :

That's really cool.

Tim Lash:

It made all the difference.

Lisa Bodnar :

I honestly believe that his class is the reason that I'm doing epidemiology.

Tim Lash:

Is that right? So we share that in common. I think it's important to say that out loud because I think people say teaching's not productive and when people like you and I can attest that this one person and their one class made all the difference.

Lisa Bodnar :

It did.

Tim Lash:

That's productive.

Lisa Bodnar :

If someone entered you in a hot dog eating contest, how many hotdogs do you think you'd be able to eat? And would you drink the bun water?

Tim Lash:

I would not even try.

Lisa Bodnar :

You wouldn't?

Tim Lash:

Nu-uh. I was doing an ice cream eating contest in college and-

Lisa Bodnar :

Were you?

Tim Lash:

And we intentionally ate our ice cream very slowly so that we would have all the ice cream left to throw at the other teams at the end of it, which worked, their ice cream was all gone. And we were the only ones left.

Lisa Bodnar :

That's brilliant. How did you fail physics with a mind like that?

Tim Lash:

I did not fail physics in the end. What I realized was that the questions all were exactly the same as the questions on the problem sets and if I just memorize the solutions to the problem sets, I would pass, which I did with no understanding of physics.

Tim Lash:

Then in the second semester of physics they tell you about Einstein's laws and all this stuff and it turns out the whole first semester was just an approximation anyhow. So I'm like, "Now who doesn't understand physics?" Quit teaching me approximations and I would've done fine.

Lisa Bodnar :

Do you have a story about meeting an epidemiology celebrity when you were just a baby epidemiologist?

Tim Lash:

Yes. I was in awe of Ken who was on the faculty at BU and every time I, even once I was in the doctoral program, I ran into him. I would introduce myself to him. At the Christmas party one year, he said, after I introduced myself to him, "Tim, I know who you are."

Lisa Bodnar :

Yeah.

Tim Lash:

I never presumed that he would actually remember who I was.

Lisa Bodnar :

It was three years ago, maybe? I was at SER and he said hello to me, but with my name. And I was like, "Oh my God. He knows who I am. How is that possible?"

Tim Lash:

Yeah.

Lisa Bodnar :

And so then we sat down and we had just the loveliest chat and I took a photo with him and I posted on Twitter and I was like, "I'm fan-girling. Ken Rothman."

Tim Lash:

Ken was a wonderful person. Delightful guy.

Lisa Bodnar :

Yeah, it was great. Where do you stand on the great pop tart debate?

Tim Lash:

Blueberry frosted.

Lisa Bodnar :

Yeah. You're a fruit frosted guy. You're in my camp. I like it.

Lisa Bodnar :

What about your t-shirt collection and how it illustrates your OCD tendencies?

Tim Lash:

Do I have OCD tendencies?

Lisa Bodnar :

Yes. I've been in your house, Tim. There is not one thing out of place. Not once.

Tim Lash:

You haven't been here lately.

Lisa Bodnar :

Well now that you have a five-year old.

Tim Lash:

Yeah. I have a college t-shirt collection, which whenever I go anywhere, vacation or invited to give a talk or wherever I find myself, I try to go to the local university and get extra large t-shirt. Cotton, of course. No one would get polyester, right?

Lisa Bodnar :

No.

Tim Lash:

School colors. Name of the university. No mascot. That's all.

Lisa Bodnar :

Okay. But that's not it. That's not just it. Talk about how you wear them. This is where it's really anal.

Tim Lash:

It's not. It's sensible. There's a rotation. They're just in the drawers in order. I wear one every night and that keeps them from wearing out unevenly. Right. Because otherwise I would wear my favorite ones all the time.

Lisa Bodnar :

But what would happen if you did the laundry, you folded the shirt and then somehow it got that t-shirt that you just wore a week ago got somehow put on the top of the stack. Would you be in a tizzy?

Tim Lash:

How would that happen?

Lisa Bodnar :

You would be in a tizzy.

Tim Lash:

I could never let that happen.

Lisa Bodnar :

All right. Now do you do this for Zachary?

Tim Lash:

Zachary does have college t-shirts, yes. Wherever I get one now I get one for him.

Lisa Bodnar :

But it's like whatever his age is at at that point. He's not wearing extra large adults?

Tim Lash:

No.

Lisa Bodnar :

How many do you have?

Tim Lash:

140. That's the last time I counted. That's a lot. Right?

Lisa Bodnar :

Wow. Remember we went to Carnegie Mellon and I was like, "I don't know, dude-"

Tim Lash:

That was the worst bookstore ever.

Lisa Bodnar :

It was. We had a terrible time there.

Tim Lash:

Sorry Carnegie Mellon folks, but your t-shirt selection sucks and your bookstore does too.

Lisa Bodnar :

It sucked. It really sucked. We went to Carnegie Mellon and you almost tried on a kilt.

Tim Lash:

No. That's not true. Now you're just making stuff up. Why would I try on it kilt at Carnegie Mellon?

Lisa Bodnar :

I have a photo of you next to a mannequin in a kilt. It's true.

Lisa Bodnar :

Have you ever found a potato chip resembling Sander Greenland?

Tim Lash:

Where did you come up with that? No. No, I have not.

Lisa Bodnar :

All right. What's something you're embarrassed to have done? Anything.

Tim Lash:

Well, I don't think I really embarrass that easily.

Lisa Bodnar :

That's why I tease you so much because you just are fine with it.

Tim Lash:

Right.

Lisa Bodnar :

You just don't care.

Tim Lash:

Don't care. One time I was embarrassed was at Ken's house. There was a doctoral student faculty beginning of semester party that he very kindly hosted. He and Nancy. Everyone was there. All the students and faculty were there and the food was inside on the dinette table. And then everybody was pretty much congregating outside.

Tim Lash:

Barbara Mann and I were in getting some food and Pete's Wicked Ale, I think is what we were drinking, and walking back out onto the deck to go down to the patio and the sun was shining through the window and I walked straight through Ken's screen door.

Lisa Bodnar :

Wait, did it fall backwards?

Tim Lash:

No.

Lisa Bodnar :

Or did you go through it?

Tim Lash:

I was wearing it. I tore this thing off the side of his house. It sounded like I tore the side of the house off. So, I'm standing there on his deck with my plate of food and my Pete's Wicked with his screen.

Lisa Bodnar :

Was it stuck on you?

Tim Lash:

Yes.

Lisa Bodnar :

You were just in the screen.

Tim Lash:

It was wrapped around me, dangling from me. Everybody is turning around, looked at me standing there with my food and beer, the screen door swaying around bouncing off the railings and stuff.

Tim Lash:

First of all, how do you get this thing off you at that point, right? I got my hands full and I don't really, I've never disrobed a screen door before but that was very embarrassing.

Lisa Bodnar :

Yeah. I'm sure you wanted to crawl into a hole.

Tim Lash:

I did.

Lisa Bodnar :

But you couldn't because you were wrapped up in a screen door. Thank you for doing this.

Tim Lash:

It's been fun. Thanks for inviting me and good luck with it.

Lisa Bodnar :

Thank you.

Tim Lash:

And then we had a great after party.

Lisa Bodnar :

We had a very fun after party.

Tim Lash:

In a firetrap let's just let it be said that if that place is-

Lisa Bodnar :

Was going to go up in flames.

Tim Lash:

It seemed like it was going to go up in flames and an entire generation of epidemiologists was going to be wiped out.

Lisa Bodnar :

Right.