How to be a good mentee

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. Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is an absolute pleasure to be talking with you today. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening. I'm excited to bring you today's episode titled, How to Be a Good Mentor. The title of the episode is, How to Be a Good Mentor.

1:22 The title of this episode comes from a recent conference that I attended. It's a workshop of like-minded individuals who want to advance diversity in clinical trials, and we had a session on mentoring, which is awesome. I'm really excited when conferences are dedicated to career development. She stepped up to the podium and she asked a question, how do you become a good mentee? And I remember when I heard that question, my heart sank and I had this weird pit in my stomach because I thought, I'm like, no, please, are you asking that question?

2:07 And so I do want to share just to give you full disclosure that no matter what you're thinking, this episode is not going to turn out exactly as you thought, because I have some thoughts about that question that I'm going to break down. But before I start it, if I start the episode, before I start telling you how to be a good mentee, or at least my thoughts about it, I need to first share with you my history. It's just going to be short. It's not my life history, but it's going to be short. I grew up as a goody two shoes. I don't know if you have ever met people like me. I am the kid who would study the landscape, figure out what the adults wanted, and I would do it to a T. I was the one everybody called a good girl.

2:53 I was just so good at it because, you know, adults were so easy to please. They would want a certain thing and I would just give it to them. And consistently, so in my culture, I'm Nigerian, the women, girls greet on their knees. And you know, we're kind of like, we don't, I think now in the 21st century, people don't really do that really much anymore. But there's like a kind of like an ode that we, let me say, like you genuflect in a sense, like you kind of like bob a little bit as like, oh, yes, this is how I greet. This is how I say hello. And so anyway, so now people culturally don't get on their two knees, for the most part.

3:37 But you know, there is kind of like a symbol of like, okay, I may not be getting on my two knees, but I'm coming down a little bit just to say it's a sign of respect. So you know, I'm Nigerian, but I'm originally Yoruba. So it's very specific to the Yoruba culture. Okay, so, but adults would get so tickled when I would go down on both knees, which is like, oh my gosh, this girl is so respectful. Oh my goodness. And so the first time I tried it when I was a kid, and you know, the adult I did it for, gosh, so much. I was like, oh, is this it? This is what makes them so happy. So I was the kid who would get down on both knees to say good morning and they loved me. I mean, I just, I was, oh my gosh, people loved me.

4:20 Anyway, I'm getting carried away by my goody two shoes-ness. But anyway, I think I say all that to say that at the end of the day, the adults were so tickled about me, but how did it move me forward? How did it move me forward in service to humanity? I developed a great people pleasing strategy. I would figure out what people wanted and I would do it. And I have to tell you that that's what I carried into my faculty career. I would figure out what the, you know, the senior people wanted and I would do it. And so that was me studying how to please people. And so I got very good at it. So when I am asked the question, how to be a good mentee, I will tell you that culturally and personally, I can do that.

5:03 I'm very good at it. And now I'm going to talk to you about my ideas about how to be a good mentee. So I, I'm not talking here about culture. I want to focus on how to be a good mentee. But what I want to tell you is that if you are somebody who's going to come and make a difference and make an impact, you don't ask, how do I please you? You ask, how do I advance in the thing for which I came to do? Okay. I'm going to say that again in a different way. If you're going to be someone who's going to make an impact in the world, you're going to transform the lives of patients.

5:45 You don't ask, what do I do to make everybody around me happy? Even if they're senior mentors who are doing excellently, you ask, what do I need to advance so that I can accomplish this? Now if you're in the academy just to get along, if you're in the academy just to have a good job, if you're in the academy just so you can check boxes, then please by all means study how to be a good mentee. This is not going to be the episode for you. And I have to apologize if my title misled you into this, you know, false sense of security that I was actually going to tell you that I value, you know, that question of how to be a good mentee.

6:27 So please accept my apologies and it's okay if you want to drop off right now. But for everybody else who's intrigued, you know, there are many times in life that we just go through the motions. And I want to say that the academic career is not the right place for going through the motions of life. It's just not. I want to say that it cost a minimum of 10 years, and that's not counting all the time you put in trying to get into medical school. It cost most of us a minimum of 10 years to go through medical school residency fellowship, for those of you who went through fellowship. And then some more. I have one of my classmates who probably spent like four or five years in fellowship. And so there's been a lot of investment in this career to become a clinician and a clinician scientist.

7:13 And if at the end of that journey, what you want to do is just make people around you happy, I want to say that that's probably not the greatest of goals. And I will also say it actually is the hardest goal. You will never succeed. Okay. As a clinician, you have many, many people, many bosses, right? You have the people in clinic who need your close charts, see as many patients as possible. Their priorities for you are different from your mentors who want you to succeed in research, who wants you to move their research program forward for some mentors who are very focused on still kind of like advancing their careers really early on. Their focus is on you doing the work.

7:56 And then you have the education component, right? Their focus, the CME or the GME group, their focus is on getting you to help train as many trainees as possible. And they would love you to just give lectures every day, day in and day out. Well, just put those three things together, the research, the education and the clinical, and they're already in conflict with one another. You cannot please people. If you're going to be a good clinician, a good researcher and a good educator, you're going to have a lot of conflict in life. And I know this is the foundation of all academic medical schools that everybody has to be great at all things. And it's a fallacy, right?

8:36 You are great at one thing and then other things follow. They can be a close second and third, but you can't be great at so many things at the same time. Okay. I hope I'm not going off. I'm sorry, I'm a tangent. But clearly you can tell I feel a little bit strongly about this particular question. Okay. I want to talk to you about five things. If you're asking the question how to be a good mentee, I want to give you five things to think about, okay? I'm not going to answer the question about how to be a good mentee because I'm not sure it's useful, but I am going to give you five things to think about. Thing number one is that your job, if you're going to be a clinician scientist leading a research program that impacts patients, your job is not to be a good mentee.

9:24 Your job is to advance your career in service of humanity. Okay. I want to say that again. If you are a clinician who is transitioning to research or you're already a clinician scientist, you're owning your place as a clinician scientist, even if you have not done this before and you need someone to show you the way, your job is not to be good. It's not to be a good girl. It's not to be a good boy. It's not to accept anybody patting you on the head and saying, oh my gosh, you're so good. Even though it feels so good. It feels so good when they do that, but that's not your job. Your job is to advance your career in service of humanity because you know and I know we've both been in the clinic.

10:09 We've both been in the hospital and you know that there is so much further that we can go in healthcare. Yes, we've made many breakthroughs. Oh my goodness. Imagine life today without penicillin or antibiotics. Oh my goodness. Imagine life today with our cardiac catheterizations. Oh my goodness. Imagine life today without transplant surgery. We have made incredible advances in healthcare, but we know we are not done yet. I'm at a conference this week that talks about how do we close to the disparities in access to clinical trials. There's so much to be done. And so if you are going to move forward work that serves humanity, you don't ask the question, how am I going to be a good person?

10:51 How am I going to be a good mentee? How am I going to be a good mentee to my mentor? You ask the question, how do I advance this career that's going to transform the way we do healthcare? That's the question you want to answer. And if that's not the question you want to answer, then okay. It's okay. I'm speaking to a very specific audience today. I'm speaking to people who came to make a transformation. And so your job is not to be a good mentee. And if you are asking the question, how do I become a good mentee? You're asking the wrong question. Because becoming a good mentee can mean many things to different mentors. But does becoming a good mentee serve your purpose of advancing your career, making the kind of impact that changes humanity?

11:37 And I think the answer is no. Okay. All right. That's my first thought. My second thought is that your mentor does not exist to tell you what to do. So it's an interesting perspective. I sat through the mentorship program and so many people at the end were like, oh my gosh, I was so good. And it was good. I'm not denigrating it, please. I have a different lens, clearly, because someone who has struggled kind of in the area of mentoring. I think that people feel like mentors are these great people who have the answers, the key to all of life.

12:17 You know, like, you know, when you're looking for the elixir of life or the holy grail, like, okay, the mentor has the keys, the keys to the kingdoms. And if I just do well, if I just get to the place where at the end they can pat me on the head and say, hey, you've done great there and give me these keys that my career is going to be so much better. And I just want to say that your mentor is not God, could never be. And so don't ask mentors to be superhuman. Don't ask them to be gods. Mentors are just people. They're people who've gotten insight and knowledge that has really helped them advance their career and they do have insight and knowledge that will help you to advance your career, but they cannot give you, they cannot own your career for you.

13:04 They cannot tell you where you're going, you have to decide where you're going. Because where you're going is the sum of all the experiences you've had, the places you've been, the things that matter to you. You know, one of the panelists at this conference was asked, why do you do health disparities work? And she was like, what kind of question is that? My whole life. My whole life has the lens of disparities. It's the only thing I can see. So her experience is so different from someone who grew up in an area that was not diverse at all and they've never really understood why there are gaps in how people are treated. But her lens has been a lens of disparity since she was born.

13:46 And that's what she said. She said, I was born this way. And so how can she have a career that's going to look the exact same as a mentor who is absolutely well published, probably has a Nobel Prize or two, but has never had that same lens? And so if she goes and she goes to her mentor and says, my job is to make you happy, guess what she's going to do? She's not going to be able to serve her desperate need to move forward research, science that advances that closes the disparity gap. And so your mentor does not exist to tell you what to do. Your mentor actually serves as a platform for you to realize and achieve your career dreams.

14:32 And so I want to say that if you are having conversations with mentors about your future, your job is not to say what projects do you have to work on so that I can work on those projects. Your work is to first of all, clarify for them where you're going. Your job is to first of all, clarify for them where you're going so that they can tell you what tools they have within their program that serves your need. You are not there to serve your mentor. Your mentor is there to serve you. And if we flip it around, we think about the whole parenting thing. So either you have been a kid or you have kids, either way you've experienced parenting to some extent, either on the reverse side or on the side of being a parent.

15:14 You recognize that kids are not there to make their parents happy. They're not there to serve the needs of their parents. Parents are there to serve the needs of their children. And then you consider that when it comes to mentoring, your mentors are there to serve the needs of your career. It is not the other way around. They are the platform upon which you launch your career. And to be honest, as they are the platform for you to be launching, for you to launch your career, it is such a rewarding thing for mentors. It absolutely is. And any mentor who says it is burdensome to be a mentor is a mentor who does not care about that mentee to the same extent as they care about other mentees.

15:58 And it's just the way it is. It's hard to care about other people's kids in the same way as you care about yours. And the difference between your kids and other people's kids is just that you own them, right? You may not have birthed them biologically, but you're like, I own these kids. It's my own. That's all you have. That's the minimum, minimum qualification to be a parent. It's like, I own this kid, right? Whether you adopted the kid in whatever way the kid came to you, you say, I own this kid, right? But the kids you don't own, you don't have to make an investment. You can be like, oh, such a burden to care for this kid, right? So if you're a mentee and your mentor is like, this is so hard. I'm just too hard to care for you. I just need you to recognize that that's a red flag.

16:40 And you should find mentors that actually want you to succeed and do not think it's a burden to serve your needs. OK, I'm going to come down from that. I feel very strongly about this. Can you tell? OK. Number three is that until you understand your destination for your career, your interaction with mentors will take you to the wrong destination every time without fail. I'm going to say that again. Until you understand your destination, your interaction with mentors will take you to the wrong destination every time.

17:21 It may be a beautiful destination. You may be on an Alaskan cruise. You may be in Hawaii. Maybe you're even on the Galapagos Islands. But if it's not your destination, it is not your destination. If somebody who is interested in health disparities research is partnered with a mentor who doesn't, want to have any disparities focus in their research, you are going to have great publications. You're going to even have a grant or two. You're going to have plenary sessions at major meetings. And you're going to be miserable because you didn't come to serve a population that doesn't have health disparities.

18:02 You didn't come to have a research program that doesn't help close the gap because of the lens through which you look at the world, because of the lens through which you look at the world. And so you'll get to some incredible destination. And I see people all the time. They're like, oh my gosh, I'm so successful. I have all this grant funding and they are so miserable because they are so far from where they really want to be. And that's why you don't start with a mentor on what they have. You start with you and where you're going. And you're going to find who allows you, who you allow to get on your boat to help guide you to your destination.

18:42 Okay. Number four is that your job is to take the time to understand your destination. And I won't tell you that this will be the hardest thing you will ever do. And the reality of it is that it is a longitudinal journey. It takes time to figure out where you're going. It absolutely takes time. And your job is to figure it out. And I will tell you that coaching is the strategy that has really helped me and has helped so many people. And I would say that every clinician and every clinician who's making the transition to lead a research program really needs to have a mentor. I really feel that strongly about it.

19:25 Every great player has a coach. You may have raw talent. You may have learned the game of, you know, since you were a child. But no matter what, everybody who's ever achieved greatness in sports, greatness in a game, greatness in tennis or in soccer or in football had a coach. And I don't know how anybody feels like they're going to be able to really achieve their game without someone to help them kind of like maximize their talent. Yeah, I feel personally about this. And clearly I'm a coach, right? But I also experience coaching like weekly. Actually, honestly, if I put it all together, it's probably daily coaching.

20:08 And I'm not even kidding. I know. I know you're like, no way. I have a peer coaching group. I have a peer mentor that we connect with. I connect with regularly. I have an executive coach that I work with. I even now have a health coach. I am that big on coaching. Anyway, so if you're looking for a coach, you should reach out to me so we can talk. But anyway, I don't want to digress, but I want to tell you how hard it is to figure out where you're going. And it's going to take you some time. And you know, there's some of us who know from the beginning like, oh, no, no, no, no. I came to Madison to solve the problem of health disparities. You are so clear. I just am so excited for you. Kudos to you. But for people like me, remember my people pleasing background.

20:50 It's very hard for us to step away from the people pleasing to say, what do I really want? And that is one of the most important things that you will do on this journey to becoming a clinician scientist. So please pause. Stop going around looking for mentors until you're very clear where you want to go. Because only when you're clear about where you want to go, can you now be ready to ask someone to show you how to get there. OK. The fifth thing I want to tell you is that once you've figured it out, and you don't have to wait until you figure it out, once you've figured out, well, you don't have to wait until you figured out the whole piece, right? As long as you have a couple of things that you feel certain about, then you can go looking.

21:34 But when you go looking for a mentor, you're not now saying, well, which mentor is successful? Take me to your success destination. Now you're going to say, what is it with this mentor that serves my purpose? What is it that this mentor has that will help me get there? And it may be that you don't know, because sometimes some of us make decisions about mentors just based on people we like, or people who look like us that we resonate with, somebody who smiles at us. You're like, well, none of the attendings have smiled at me, but this attendee actually smiles like he cares about me, sure. Why don't I connect with them? So yeah, many of us start that mentoring journey with just somebody who would give us the time of day. And it's OK.

22:15 We find mentors in different ways. It's like love. You just never know where that next connection will come from. It's the chemistry. What can we say? And so for some of us, there's the chemistry that leads us to the mentor. And then for the rest of us, sometimes there's a formal program, like, OK, I'm connecting you to this person. But whatever way you get to your mentor, the first conversation you should start with is not what projects are you doing that I can jump on, but to really start with what you want to do. And that is one of the most important conversations you have. And what you want to get out of your mentoring program. I hear people talk about establishing mentoring contracts.

23:00 And it's a good idea. I do laugh because if contracts were the answer to all things, then nobody would ever be angry enough to sue anybody in court, right? Because contracts can be broken. And at the end of the day, humans have to make the decision to commit. And contracts don't necessarily enforce that commitment. I mean, it can force people to do things they don't want to do, but it can't force them to do it well. Anyway, so but even the idea of the contract, I think, is reasonable in thinking about, like, what do you want to get out of this? And that is, oh my goodness, it's the most important question a mentor can ever ask you. What do you want?

23:42 And I want you to be wary of any mentor that doesn't ask you that question. I really do. And in reality, and this is my experience now as a mentor, is that many clinicians just don't know what they want. And it does break my heart. Because it's like, oh, you don't know what you want. But it's not a thing of judgment. It's just a thing of, like, well, you spent 10 years of your life, at least, not knowing what you want, just doing what you're told or doing what is necessary. And now to come to a place where you get to choose, it's very hard for many of us. It was hard for me, and so I don't judge it. And I do think that your journey and your journey of mentorship is to clarify. Because sometimes when mentees don't show up, when they don't deliver, it's not because they're not reliable.

24:31 It's because they don't resonate with the work. And I think it's important to recognize that and to set people free. I will tell you, I'm one of those mentors. I don't force you to do what you don't want to do, because this is not about you just moving work forward. It really is about you coming into your destiny. It's about you coming into your own. It's about you having a career that really feels tangible, like really feels satisfying to you, fulfilling. Because I want to see clinician scientists thrive. I do. And so you want to identify what part of your mentor serves your purpose.

25:12 All right. Those are five things I shared with you. So yes, it was a bait and switch. I told you I would answer the question of how to be a good mentee, and then I turned around and gave you five things to think about, about why you should not be asking that question. And the first thing is that your job is not to be a good mentee. Your job is to advance your career in service of humanity. Number two, your mentor does not exist to tell you what to do. They are the platform to launch your career. Number three, until you understand your destination, your interaction with mentors will take you to the wrong destination, even if it's a beautiful one. Number four, your job is to take time to uncover your direction, to uncover your destination, to uncover where you're going.

25:56 Number five, then you can meet with a mentor to identify what part of them you want to take with you. What part of them will serve your journey. All right, controversial topic. You probably have some ideas about it. Please share them with me. You can do it in three ways. Number one, you can send me a DM through social media. I am on Instagram. I'm on Facebook and on LinkedIn. You can send me a podcast voicemail through our podcast website, clinicianresearcherpodcast.com. And number three, you can send me an email, info at coagcoach.com. Let me know what you think. I'd love to share your thoughts in a future episode.

26:41 It has been a pleasure talking with you. Now, if you have ideas for episodes that I should record, please share them with me. I'd be happy to record an episode especially for you. All right, it's been a pleasure talking with you today. Thanks for taking time to listen. Enjoy your day. 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. If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

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