Identity is a weird thing. I guess I’m talking professionally here. I know what my clinical specialty is because I have a big badge that says my job title and I do work that pertains to a particular body organ. But subspecialty? I think I should be the kind of person who develops a subspecialty interest, but when does that happen? Here we don’t often get credential badges certifying our subspecialty interest. Do I just have to do loads of clinics in that specialty? I’ve done nowhere near enough of the subspecialty I want to be a subspecialist in.

How about academically? My doctoral thesis was a mishmash of stuff that I billed as "cellular and molecular medicine", but there was a bit of immunology in there, a bit of (really basic) systems biology. My appraisal is coming up soon and I’ve billed what I want to do as "computational immunology" but at the moment I only have funding for my salary and absolutely nobody has given me money to do any "computational immunology" although that’s what I want to do. Even if they did, when do I become a "computational immunologist"? When my first paper from that grant is out? When I have access to the funds? Am I even a "scientist" now? It’s taken months for me to be comfortable with calling myself a postdoc.

Just some fucking guy.