100 citations; another milestone unlocked + another imposter syndrom (or not)

I’m happy. I’m so happy. I’ve been happy for the last three hour-ish over this random announcement I found when I’m about to search an article. It said that my account on Google Scholar reached 100 citations. I’m surprised that I’m so happy about it. The first five minutes spent on thinking whether I should be happy over this, thinking while smiling, yet hesitating to share or post it with my friends and family because y’know, it’s not all that great and it’s not like I made a huge discovery or something. But still, I’m happy.

For those who know me long enough, you might’ve known that I never considered being a lecturer or a researcher as a career. I just want to do well working in hospital, doing marketing, making programs and packages, handling day to day operational thingy. But I’m no longer working in hospital anymore. This career shift that started as a random part-time job to cover classes for my mom and my supervisor as they became dean and vice dean has surprisingly became my permanent job (for now), as a lecturer.

I’m not that good at doing research as well, I’m not really diligent y’know, I don’t have great ability in either statistics or methodology, I don’t write too well, and I’m super bad at handling rejection (rejected by a journal hurts as much as rejected by a guy that I like for me). One of the most important thing, I’m a total noob at publication. I don’t have any article with my name stamped on it before going to my PhD. NONE. ZERO. First time I published an article was due to my PhD requirements. We need to publish the article to graduate, so I published it. I didn’t even published my master thesis as I made it for me personally.

Ah! I rarely talked about my master thesis topic, but it’s about my own hospital. I’m not doing it only because it’s easier for me to get the data (ofc it’s easier it’s my place), but because I need it. I need to research certain things to make sure that when I’m graduate and work there, I already know where to start the improvement. I thought its a good idea, as it’s the reason why I took MARS at the first place, to work well at my hospital, not to be an academician. One thing for sure, that thesis helped me a lot especially back in 2011-2014 as a guide on which aspect I need to focus on in my hospital. So I considered it as a useful and insightful research for me. Not for public, just for me. 😂😂😂

Anyway, up until now I don’t really considered myself as a researcher, let alone an expert one. But I do realize now after several years trying to do research that I’m good in finding good topics to work on. I’m good with supervising my students to make theirs. Also I’m good with delegating things to speed up the process. Simply put, I’m good at being the brain and the boss. Well, something doesn’t really change, does it? But instead of feeling bad about it, I optimize it well, that’s the reason of that 100 citations.

But the lingering feelings remain, as whether I deserve that, and whether it’s something to be proud of. But despite having that lingering feelings in the back of my head, I guess I decided that I want to be happy and proud about it. Even if I don’t really deserve it, I’ll work more to be deserving of those citations. So, all in all, I think I’m doing quite well with myself. Therapy is useful afterall. 😂😂😂

Cheers!