In episode 9 of the Neural Pathways podcast, host Rana Ghafouri talks to Dr. David Mendes da Silva, freelance medical translator and host of PapaPhD. Listen to the full episode on Spotify and follow the podcast to never miss a new release.
Last year, Dr. David Mendes da Silva came across an article titled ‘Why You Should Start a Podcast in 2019’—and that’s exactly what he did! He was reminded of a thought he’d had while attending a career panel: many graduate students and post-docs still struggle with choosing a career for themselves. This inspired him to begin interviewing his graduate school peers on his podcast, PapaPhD, to showcase stories of individuals who have completed grad school and continued on to non-academic careers. The podcast has since evolved, offering episodes with valuable advice for a wide variety of job types. In addition to this passion project, David is the founder of Halcyon SciMed Linguistic Services, where he is a Scientific and Medical Translator. In this position, he is brought on by different companies to provide specialized translation services between English, French and Portuguese.
David completed his PhD research at The Neuro, as a visiting student from the University of Coimbra in Portugal. He studied the role of a receptor on the development and differentiation of cells in the olfactory epithelium. At the end of his PhD, he began looking around for job opportunities and came across IC Axon, a company based in Montreal which focuses on medical writing. This appealed to him because of his interest in languages and science communication, and after reaching out to a previous McGill alum about possible positions at the company, he was hired as a Medical Writer. After a few years of working there, he was offered a freelance job to translate medical materials for a company. This kickstarted his transition to working as a freelance Medical Translator, before eventually founding Halcyon SciMed.
David reflects on how much his time as a graduate student strengthened his resilience and his ability to persevere against obstacles and adversities. “People may under-evaluate how important it is in your professional life to have this skill,” he says. From his own experiences and what he has learned from his own interviews for his podcast, David advises trainees to take time for big-picture life planning and set long-term objectives to work towards that will inspire motivation. He believes that it is important to have a few different potential plans for the future, and imagine alternate universes for your career; some will naturally erase along the way and some you will have to choose from, but having different options will offer flexibility in times where things don’t work out as anticipated.
Acknowledging the periods of stress, anxiety and poor mental health that may be experienced during research studies, a final important piece of advice that David offers is to take advantage of McGill counselling services and support groups during difficult times. “Take care of yourself first and then you’ll be able to take care of your research.”
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