Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Addressing a group of faculty recently, I asked them to define contrarian. Some thought contrarians were “oddballs.” Others said “curmudgeons,” or people who “go against the flow.” I like to think of contrarians as finding opportunities that everyone else has passed by. They are the ones who discover the overlooked Van Gogh painting in the garage sale discard bin. Contrarians take the road less traveled, and that, as the poet said, makes all the difference.
I recall my own experience as a young faculty member, circa 1978, presenting results on digital radiography to an international radiology meeting. As with most meetings of this type, there were multiple scientific presentations going on in parallel, often in adjacent rooms. For my presentation there were more than 200 people in the audience. All the seats were filled, it was standing room only, and scores more were being turned away at the door. My topic—about using computers to acquire radiographic images, process and distribute them throughout the hospital—had a number of important potential applications, including moving to a totally “filmless” radiology department. There was a lot of excitement about this new technology and we were able to demonstrate some rather striking clinical results.
Next door, in a lecture hall identical to mine, was a presentation on another new imaging technology. The results were rather dismal, the images quite crude, and attendance in the audience numbered about eight people. Perhaps four of the eight were members of the presenter’s research group, and the fifth may well have been the presenter’s spouse. It was not exactly a hot topic.
If you were a newly minted Ph.D. in imaging science, or a young academic radiologist fresh out of training, which session would you attend? In fact, most would likely try to get into the presentation on digital radiography—a “hot” area with a lot of exciting initial results. Few will venture into the other room. While we don’t like to admit it, the herd instinct—so prevalent in fashion and on Wall Street—also dominates scientific research. We must be prepared to consider that gene therapy may be the medical equivalent of the dot-com craze. Both fields will have significant applications no doubt, but perhaps not of the magnitude nor in the time frame originally anticipated. Both have nonetheless attracted some of the best minds in the business to their calling.
But if all the bright people are working on one particular problem, what chance does a young scientist have to compete to get her or his ideas heard above the noise of the crowd? Better to find a forgotten or ignored area and see if you can apply fresh reasoning to unsolved problems. However, this takes courage and support from mentors. Encouraging contrarian behavior in our students is perhaps one of the most important attributes we can foster. But how?
I highly recommend Moneyball, an entertaining and informative view of how one contrarian transformed a poorly funded major-league franchise, the Oakland Athletics, into a consistent winner. This despite having to compete against teams like the Yankees, which have substantially greater financial resources. The application of logic and statistics—and a little bit of contrarian thinking—often yields surprising results.
Oh, as for the title of the unattended presentation in the room next to mine: “An Introduction to Magnetic Resonance Imaging.” Nobel prize-winning material, indeed. And digital radiography? Like the paperless office, the filmless radiology department is something we’re still dreaming about. One day it may yet come true.
As Yogi Berra said: “If you come to a fork in the road, take it!”
