Worried about leaving research project on bad terms

I suppose your PI could reach out-nothing would otherwise stop him/her to do so. Was he/she one of your letter writers? Did they write a glowing letter for you?

That said, I think that if you've spent considerable time with the research group (say more than several months), I think you're entitled to leave as you see fit. But, if you had a short stint would them, I think a school could see this more as a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

Gotcha. Makes sense. Yeah in that case, I think you're allowed to leave and if you're worried about leaving, you could say that you'll stick around for a month or something just to make it a little less crazy. Truth is they should know better given that they were going to lose you to med school (and even if you weren't doing medicine, you could be going to grad school even) when they wrote your letter. Also, one thing you kinda have on your side is that you've been there for 2 years. If you did some legit work and your PI wrote a letter for you, it would look embarrassing to the PI for them to complain about you if you've been there for two years and they couldn't let you go to med school. Its her job as a PI to retain their staff and recruit people as well, not just writing grants.

huskybulldog said:

Currently accepted at my top choice school and am planning to quit my clinical research job in 2 weeks...however, I'm worried about the management of my project after I leave and for being blamed for project shortcomings by my PI.

Briefly, the project has been struggling with recruitment and retention and while I've been documenting this, my PI is not very understanding and can be vindictive. Is it possible for my PI to reach out to my accepted school and let them know about the project shortcomings after I leave? I've put a lot of work into the project and care deeply but I'm worried I'll just be remembered for what went wrong.

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Admissions Deans do not give credence to disgruntled exes in whatever form they take.

Don't tell where your PI where you're going, either.

Good news: once you start medical school you won't care about this anymore. At all.

I've worked in clinical research for over 20+ years. The FDA requires that all PIs sign the 1572 form. This outlines the obligations under the code of federal regulations pertaining to human subjects. The PI is required to take responsibility, not you. Even if you screw up, its still the investigator's responsibility.

huskybulldog said:

Thank you. She frequently blames our team members for projects/studies not going well (“You aren’t friendly enough to patients”) and holds it over our heads (“We’ll lose funding and you’ll all be out of jobs if we don’t recruit more patients”) so it’s created an uncomfortable environment. But I suppose dealing with that would be a thread in and of itself.

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Sounds toxic. Leave with a smile and never look back.