Although I’ve been working in Dr. Ji’s lab for over a year, I didn’t know very much about him at all. Although he was incredibly friendly and welcoming, there was a part of me that was fairly intimidated: I was an undergraduate student and he was a highly distinguished PI and professor! I’m not sure when I would have gained the confidence and initiative to have a full conversation with Dr. Ji, but this week’s blog forced me to step up to the challenge. However, once we started talking, it stopped feeling like an impossibly intimidating task and I found myself immensely grateful to have stepped out of my comfort zone.
I knew that Dr. Ru-Rong Ji’s research interests include anesthesiology, pain research, and neurobiology, but I had no idea why he chose those areas. With the specificity of his work, I was incredibly curious about how he ended up studying the things he did, and his answer was surprisingly simple: acupuncture. When he was in college, he became extremely interested in acupuncture and how it relieves pain, which set him on the course that led to his current position as a Distinguished Professor in Anesthesiology and Chief of Pain Research. When I asked him why he chose to go into research and how he got to where he is now, he gave me some advice that has been echoing in my thoughts this past week. He told me that the three most important traits you need to have to go into research are commitment, passion, and curiosity. Looking back at everything he told me about his life, it is easy to see that these three traits have been a recurring theme throughout. I left the interview a little overwhelmed, but extremely excited to really think on what I learned and how it might apply to my plans to become a biomedical research scientist. More than anything though, I am so grateful for the opportunities I have to talk with experienced researchers and to participate in a community focused on curiosity and hard work here at Duke.
