Habits of a successful clinician researcher

0:00 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research program. Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

0:40 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is such a pleasure to be speaking with you today. So when I was in medical school, I got so caught up in all the studying that we had to do and keep up with that I stopped reading books that were non-medical. I just couldn't do it every time I picked up a book that was non-medical.

1:21 I got really anxious and worried, and I was like, wait a minute, my fund of knowledge is so poor, how dare I spend any time looking up any information that was not going to advance my medical career? So very short-sighted of me, but I didn't do much reading. And so when I finally finished all of my training, which really was 10 years after I began medical school, I finally had breathing space and I started to read books that were non-medical. And one of the books I read that really was transforming was, was a transformative experience was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. So I love that book, I always recommend it.

2:02 It's by Stephen Covey. And I thought I would share with you 10 habits of highly effective clinician researchers or clinician scientists. And so there's some of the seven habits in here, the seven habits of highly effective people in this 10, but clearly there's a little bit more that's kind of really focused on and connected to research that we'll talk about. So the first habit that I want to talk about is that they take ownership of their career. And so, you know, when we do our training and we start in medical school, there's a clear end. We know exactly all the things we're supposed to learn.

2:43 There's a curriculum, there are people who are guardians of the curriculum. By the end of four years, maybe five or six, you graduate. It's very clear what the end points are and people are shepherded through med school. Residency similarly, there's a list of things you're supposed to do, competencies you're supposed to acquire. And at the end of it, you get the certificate, you're done with your residency. And for those of you who finished fellowship, it's the same thing. You have this path, you complete all the competencies, there is a golden certificate for you at the end of the rainbow. But then when you get to a faculty position, all of a sudden, there isn't that clear end in sight.

3:25 It's like you're looking ahead at a 20, 30, 40 year career, and there is no gold watch at the end of the whole experience. And so then you have to ask yourself, so what am I doing here? What do I do? Now, some people will be lucky, they'll find a mentor who will take them under their wing and help them excel and do great. And then for most others, they won't find such a mentor. And then they struggle and they flounder and they're not able to figure out what to do because there are so many bosses and so many people ask them to do different things. And so you know the mark of a highly successful and effective clinician scientist by the fact that they take ownership for their own career.

4:08 Yes, they may have a great mentor, they may have a team of people that they connect with and get advice from, but other people are not leading them, they are leading themselves with high quality advice. They're leading their own careers. And I want to invite you to think about how you can effectively take ownership for your career because you really are the best person to lead your career. And the challenge with our medical training is that if we have gone to a great program, then we're probably disconnected from the things that help us have a clear sense of where we want to be.

4:49 We spend a lot of time practicing ignoring our feelings and our emotions or our bodily sensations. So we practice suppressing sleep and suppressing the urge to eat or suppressing the urge to go to the bathroom. And so no wonder we don't know exactly what we want out of our careers. That's where coaching can be a benefit. And so if you are an academic woman in hematology and you are looking for a coach, I am that coach that can be helpful to you. Let's connect via DM and see how I can be helpful to you. So gaining ownership of your career comes from knowing where you want to go and then recognizing the tools that help you get there.

5:33 So a highly successful clinician scientist takes ownership of their career. Number two, habit number two, is that they travel to the future to understand their end. And so someone who is an effective clinician scientist has gone to the future and they figured out that, wow, at the end of all of this, I go away. And so what am I going to leave behind? And so they have a good sense of what their legacy will be. They have a clear understanding of how it all ends. And because of that, it helps them be very, very clear about developing and creating the steps to get them there.

6:14 And so somebody who is going to be highly effective has a clear sense of what legacy they're building that at the end they're going to leave to others. A highly successful clinician scientist thinks about the end. Now habit number three is that they put first things first. Because they've gone all the way to the end, they know that this ends with them not being in the picture. They have a clear sense of their legacy, what they want to leave behind. And what they do is they put first things first. It means that they do not sacrifice their health just so that they can make this research thing work.

6:58 They don't ignore their families thinking, well, in five or six years, I'll have tenure and then I can be a family member again. They put first things first. They have a clear sense of what their priorities are. And they don't allow other people to drive their boats or to reorganize or reassess their priorities. And so someone who's going to be a highly successful clinician researcher has the habit of putting first things first. The fourth habit is protection. So they protect their most precious assets, their minds, their energy, and their time.

7:47 They protect their minds because they understand that their mind is the source of all good things, the source of their thinking, the source of their writing. They understand how important their minds are. And so they protect their minds so that they have clear thinking. They read high quality material that allows them to expand their minds. They look for experiences that grow their, grow their and expand their understanding. They really protect their minds. They get rest when it's needed. They are not spending days and days binge watching things on TV or on the tablet.

8:33 They protect their minds. The second thing they protect is their energy, and so they don't let people diffuse their energy by being worried and anxious about things that they're not able to control. Instead, they conserve their energy so that they can focus it on the things that are very important to them and that they value most. The third thing they protect is their time. And so because they're highly effective people, people are always reaching out to them, asking for things to be done, asking for them to sit on committees or do uncompensated projects that don't advance their own work.

9:17 And because of that, they are very careful about protecting their time. Whether the institution protects it for them or not, they take steps to make sure they have the time that's needed to advance their work. They protect their most precious assets. Habit number five is that they have a plan for their research and writing. And so they don't leave it to chance. They don't wait until the opportunity comes to write another manuscript. They create a plan that creates the opportunities for them. They have a plan for their research and writing. As a scientist, one of the most important things you do is to communicate the science that you do.

10:02 It is so important that you're constantly in communication with your science, about your science, but to others in regards to where your science is going. And so they have a plan for their research and writing. They have a one-year plan. They have a three-month plan. They have a weekly plan and they certainly have a daily plan. And because they have a plan for their research and writing, they're able to do habit number six, they write consistently. I also think about that as they produce consistently. They have a plan for their research and writing, so it's not left up to chance.

10:42 Because they have a plan for writing daily, they produce writing consistently. Now, again, as a clinician scientist, your job is to communicate your research. You communicate your research to your funders so that you can encourage them to write you more checks. You communicate your research to the scientific community so that people understand where your science is going and how it fits within the greater context. You communicate your science to the lay public so that your patients have a sense of what impact you're making. And you're always in constant communication with the literature to make sure that your science fits within the broad picture of what is being unfolded in the scientific community.

11:29 And so they produce consistently, they share their work through presentations, but they have a plan. And because of that, they're able to produce consistently. They don't do the thing that a lot of people did in college and still take through their research careers is binge writing, where you wake up one day and you vomit pages and pages of work. What they do is they write consistently so that the quality of their work over time is excellent. The seventh habit is that they have a beginner's mind. They're always interested in going back to the basics, going back to the fundamentals and making sure that they have mastered the basics.

12:13 And so they've mastered the basics of creating a strategic plan. They've mastered the basics of creating a weekly plan. They've mastered the basics of creating a daily plan. They've mastered the basics of writing. And then they're not afraid to go back and revisit the basics. They're not afraid to go back and learn more new things. They have a beginner's mind. They're always teachable, always coachable. Habit number eight is that they collaborate for synergy. And so they recognize that great science comes from a diversity of minds coming together to make science possible. And they recognize and are careful about their collaborations so that their collaborations move them forward in synergy.

13:00 And so they make investments in relationships that allow them to do work that is bigger than they are, that's bigger than their own scopes because they collaborate for synergy. Habit number nine is that they think when, when. They do not allow other people's work to get ahead of the work they do. They have a plan for their own work. And so they're always working to advance their own science. But when they do work with others, they recognize that their science must be advanced while the science of others is being advanced as well. For that reason, they're constantly thinking about how best to structure things so that everybody wins.

13:45 When they work with mentees, they work hard to make sure that the mentee wins and they win. They work hard to think when, when. Instead of thinking scarcity and narrowing the pie and fighting over it, they think, hmm, there is abundance. How do we expand the pie so that everybody gets what they want? And so one of the habits, habit number nine, is that they think when, when. Habit number 10 is that they invest in themselves. And so clinician scientists who will be successful know that they need to do more beyond what is being given. And so some people are waiting for their institution to give them permission to attend a career development workshop.

14:33 Where they say, well, if there's no money in the budget, I'm not doing that self-development project. But someone who is a successful and effective clinician scientist says, whether you invest in me or not, I will invest in myself. And some of that investment looks like investing in skills to improve your writing. Whether your institution supports that or not, whether they're going to give you funding to do that or not, you recognize that as a writer, you make investments in your own writing. They recognize that they make investments in their own growth, especially opportunities to grow exponentially.

15:16 So they read books. They are open to experiences that transform them. Another thing they do is that they work with coaches who will help them get better at their craft, who will help them play the game bigger and better, who will help them play the long game. Now, if you are an early career scientist and you're looking for a coach, please DM me and let's talk about how we can work together so that you are able to establish the habits of a highly successful clinician scientist yourself. And that starts with investing in yourself because you are your most important asset in this journey of academia.

15:59 So that's all I have for you today. If this episode has been interesting and something you find useful, please share it with somebody else who needs to hear about it. Share it with a mentee if you're a mentor. If you are a mentee, share it with your mentor or share it with your peers. But get the word out so that other people can find us and also have the opportunity to learn what you're learning. It's been a pleasure to talk with you today. I look forward to the next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

16:50 If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself. Someone else needs to hear it. So take a minute right now and share it. As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.