Really need help with Research Year

[Nfish1]

So I am working with a PI from my home institution, and what started off very promising has turned pretty frustrating very quickly. She told me we have this huge database of patients with a condition, but none of our projects revolve around using that huge database, yet I have to update it which is extremely time consuming(which isn't even the main issue).

The more pressing issues are things like my name was not added to any of the IRBs despite having communicated that my name needs to be added multiple times. Our projects all seem in disarray, I figured out a bunch of our patient's scans were not imported properly and therefore this project might permanently be dead. Two other project she told me about haven't even gotten IRB approval. What's worse is that she doesn't seem to have boundaries, she calls me whenever she wants expecting me to pick up, and be ready for impromptu meetings. The other day I had to leave the gym for a meeting she organized with a lower level admin at our institution, but when I got in contact with that admin that person already had another meeting planned, and had no intention of meeting me. And when I tried contacting her she didn't even respond or message me back.

As it stands it seems that I have 3 concrete projects with this person, and even then I don't really know where they will go. Whats worse is I am looking at the projects the previous gap year student did, and none of them have even been submitted to a journal. I am truly afraid I am going waste a year working with this person, and that it will negatively impact my application.

My options:
I don't want to ruin my relationship with her, but I am considering reaching out to another PI in our department to work with. I was going to frame it as "I want to use this year to explore as much of ophthalmology as possible, and while you are still my main PI, I was hoping to also experience research with this other person, and if you feel that this is negatively impacting my work with you then I will stop"

I also wanted to post here and see if any of you knew any research opportunities at other institutions that I could reach out for. I am pretty desperate and quite afraid about how my year will turn out. If any of you know any goof PIs or places please let me know.

I really feel like an idiot, because everyone told me not to take a research year, but I felt too burnt out to continue, I thought I would be able to recuperate a bit this year, but honestly at times working with this person feels worse than third year.

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[newby000]

Sounds very frustrating, sorry you are going through this.
I probably would still try to get the most of out this year and do research with this person as much as you can. I would likely look around at your institution for other projects such as care reports, series, review articles, or retrospective research projects. You can always think of a project (retrospective chart reviews are easier to implement) and offer it to a different PI.

 

[linevasel]

You are in a sticky situation. By this point, you probably know if you have a nose for these things or not. If you can extricate yourself from this mess without it hurting your application you should. If you can't, you need to do what newby00 says. You sacrifice the year. Sometimes the projects are wack and the papers aren't forthcoming, but your PI writes a crazy letter for you that helps you go the distance. Some people get great projects and a PI who won't go to bat for them. In otherwords, the situation is s*itty, but it can get worse. You can salvage this by just making sure you keep PI happy so that at minimum you get a great letter. Then you need to make sure you publish/submit a very clinical project. Find a young hungry attending with a clinic focus that interests you and put together a project. Work on it in secret so your PI doesn't feel slighted. There is soooo much low hanging fruit yet to be plucked that you can still make a go of it. Good luck!