Jia Liu, Translational Lead of Early Phase Drug Development at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre, shared on X:
“Five years ago, I became a medical oncologist. I thought my job was to treat patients.
I’ve since realised that my job is also to ask better questions, build better systems, and help more patients than I will ever meet.
A fitting day to be invited by ESMO to speak at ESMOAsia26 on:
‘Building an academic career without protected research time’
Five lessons from the journey so far:
- Turn every clinical tension into a research question. Patients are our best teachers.
- Build a lab without walls. Collaborate across teams, disciplines, continents.
- Develop both disease expertise and methodological expertise and share both generously.
- Understand your chronotype and exploit it ruthlessly.
- Work with excellent people you genuinely like. Time is short.
Protected research time matters, but it is not always available.
A meaningful academic career can still begin with important questions, genuine relationships and the courage to nurture your own intellectual territory as a clinician.”
Other articles featuring Jia Liu on OncoDaily.