My Latest D.I.C. Moment

Last week I received a telephone call from a student in my work group to tell me that I was supposed to give a presentation at a meeting between the Chinese CDC and CICAMS next week.  I was a little unclear what my topic was but after some conversation she agreed that it was supposed to be about the survey I developed and which just finished collecting data in Shanxi Province, about how HPV screening and screening results affects women's emotions and their desire to get screening in the future.  I thought little more about it until I received an agenda for the meeting over the weekend, which listed me as talking about a different topic, one that I have never worked on, and in fact another student in the lab is doing for her phd project, in the same place in Shanxi Province. I thought that a mistake had been made, accidentally mixing up the two survey titles in Shanxi, since they were running at the same time and were approved on the same IRB application.

However, today when I told one of my bosses about the mix-up, I was told that no, in fact, I am supposed to talk about Knowledge and Attitudes about HPV among Chinese women, a topic that I know nothing about and have never worked on!  And she hadn't really thought about it until I asked her today, but all the survey results are in Chinese (not that I would be allowed to see the results anyway) and there is no translated version of them, even tables and figures.  She told me that she would send a Chinese powerpoint she made last year about the project to another student who would translate them for me so I could give the talk.  And this is supposed to happen in a week!

I feel uncomfortable giving a talk about something I know nothing about anyway, but it will really stink if the student whose project this actually is, is there.  She actually stood up and 'corrected' Adam's answer to a question at the last talk he gave in front of the entire room (even though his answer wasn't wrong), which was uncalled for and not very nice, so I am nervous what she will do when the talk is actually in her project area!  The results will be from the project that preceded her own, not her actual results, thank goodness, but still, she will know way more than I do about the topic, and it is a waste of my time to do a huge literature review for a 15-minute presentation next week.  Why they want me talk about this and not her is beyond me, although I imagine it has something to do with being the foreigner in the room.  Boo....D.I.C.!