How to find a mentor

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. All right everyone, welcome to today's episode. I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is such a privilege to be here talking to you today. Thank you for tuning in. I'm talking today about the problem you have with finding a mentor, how to find a mentor. And I want to tell you that you can succeed with or without a mentor.

1:23 And when I say that, I also recognize that there is not one mentor for you. And if you've come this far in medicine, you have so many mentors. You did not come here by yourself. And this whole sense that you don't have a mentor, I've talked about in an earlier episode, is that you do have mentors. And the question is, which one do you need? For what specific reason? And I want to encourage you that whether or not you have a mentor, I think it's helpful to get coaching to help you kind of navigate your mentoring relationships and to help you really negotiate your career. Because ultimately, whether you have the greatest mentor in the world or you have no mentor in the world, you still do need to navigate your career.

2:04 And so I am inviting you to our next master class, negotiate your first, next or current academic job, and that's happening for us August 21st at 6pm. Sign up on our website, clinicianresearcherpodcast.com. And if for some reason you have missed it, then just look out for the next one. But definitely come and see how we can help you think about negotiating your career and creating wins for yourself, whether or not you have the person you identify as a mentor. All right. So today I am talking about the challenges that people have with finding a mentor. And it's important because of an earlier statistic that I shared about a systematic review.

2:49 Actually, it wasn't even that recent. It was probably 20 years ago. But it looked at mentoring in academic medicine. And it was a startling statistic to say that when they looked at medical students, there were less than 50% of medical students who felt that they actually had mentoring. And when they asked faculty members, in some fields less than 20% of faculty members felt that they had a mentor. And as I shared earlier, women perceived that they had more difficulty finding mentors than their colleagues who were men. And I totally resonate with this statistic because I've always felt like the person who lacked a mentor. And it's interesting. I tell people now, I'm like, you have many mentors. Which one do you need?

3:30 But I was that person who had the sense of like, I don't have a mentor. I don't have a mentor. And I think if I boil it down now, I would say I didn't have someone I felt was a research mentor. And what was I looking for? I was looking for the person I wanted to become 20 years from now. And for most of us, we don't have that. I think we have the wrong picture about mentoring. We're looking for someone who's going to take us and make us who they are. Or maybe we have a different picture. But at least for me, it was that sense of this is who I want to become. Who's the person who's most like that? And I think that's a difficult way to look for a mentor. It's kind of like the perspective of I'm looking for the one. And the question is, what does the one look like? Like, what is their characteristic? Are you OK with their height? Are you OK with the way they look?

4:10 Are you OK with the way they dress? Like, be specific. Who is the one? But when we come into mentoring with this sense of we're looking for the one, and it's not very clear exactly what we're looking for or what we actually need, because we have a lot of the ones in our lives. But we're like, no, no, no. This is the one I'm looking for. Which the one are you looking for? Anyway, so for many of us who are clinician researchers, I think when we are talking about the one, we're really talking about a mentor who is going to help us in our research. And that's important to know, but also to recognize that you need more than one research mentor. And yes, there may be one person who's really leading the charge in terms of your research.

4:52 But in life and in research, you need more than one thing, because you actually have many skills that you need to learn in the course of being mentored. And so in this episode, I'm talking about three reasons why you can't find a research mentor. And I will tell you that I actually have five things to help you find a mentor at the end of it. And if this episode doesn't get too long, I will get to all of it by the end. But the first thing I want to talk about is just helping you understand how difficult it is from the perspective of a mentor who's getting someone who's like, help me succeed. And the mentor is like, in what way? And you're not clear as the mentee who's coming. You're just like, well, I need a mentor.

5:33 Will you be my mentor? I mean, it's just such a profound and deep question. Like, will you be my mentor? What does that mean? It's very deep. And part of the reason it's a deep question, deeper than maybe people recognize, is that when you are a clinician who has spent all of your clinical career, right, your traineeship has been in clinical medicine, not in research training, and you've missed a lot of the skills associated with being a clinician researcher. And I've talked about this in an earlier episode. It's not just the research methodology you need mentoring in. You need mentoring around scientific writing. You need mentoring around actually having writing structure where you consistently produce writing daily or regularly, consistently, routinely.

6:20 You need mentoring in writing manuscripts and shepherding them through the publication process. You need mentoring in writing research proposals and finding the right funding opportunities and submitting these proposals and analyzing feedback and using that feedback to create the next proposal. You need mentoring in establishing a research team, leading a research team, taking people off your research team, bringing people on your research team. You need mentoring in recruiting people to the research team as well, paid staff, and then unpaid people, and so trainees who could come into the program and help your research program. So you need mentoring on so many levels.

7:02 So in essence, you can look at it as a new clinician researcher is like a baby. Okay, so babies are really cute until you're like the mother or the parent of one, where it's like, wow, this baby totally depends on me for everything. And when you're a new parent, at least I will say what was my experience, it is so overwhelming because you are one person responsible for this one person who's totally helpless. They can't do anything and then they poop often and they pee often and you're in charge of handling all of that and you're exhausted and you've got your own life that you're trying to lead or live at the same time.

7:43 Well that's what it is for a clinician who's come through maybe 10 years of clinical training and they have no research training. And there's this laundry list of skills that come with building a research career that they don't have, totally helpless, totally dependent. And they show up and they're like, here, take me, be my mom, be my mentor. And literally that's what you're saying when you show up with no skills. You're like, be my mentor, teach me everything. And I have to say that you can trick someone the first time. You know, it's like, oh, I didn't know this is what it would be like to have a new baby. You can only do it the first time. The second time you're fully aware, you're like, I know, I know what it's like to take care of a new baby.

8:26 And yes, people do it again. Good for you everyone who's had a child and done it again a second time. But at least the second time you're aware, you know what's involved and you can prepare better. If you were not like me the first time, you would have prepared a lot and just known what you were getting into. But to be honest, it's very hard to prepare for this experience of being a first time parent. And I would say that's what the experience of mentoring can be like, because it's like, okay, you need everything. And I have a full life. I'm still building my own career. You need everything. And so you're coming like a baby. And the reason it's difficult to find a mentor is because it is like asking for someone to care for a newborn baby.

9:09 It's like, please take this newborn baby and throw away your social life for the next six to 12 months while just in totally being immersed in caring for this one baby. And that's what a new mentee, a new clinician who's coming out of their clinical training saying I want to lead a research program feels like, because it's like, wow, you need so much. And you're depending on me to do all of it. Wow, that's a lot of pressure. And many mentors don't want to do that. You know what they want to do? They want to take care of the older child. Like, oh, if I'm going to adopt a clinician, researcher, or baby, how about I take one who already is potty trained?

9:53 And that's why mentors who are very good, and all mentors really tend to be selective. They're like, well, what skills are you bringing already? What will I have to teach you? And then it depends on the stage of the mentor too. Like to what extent do they have an ecosystem that can take a newborn baby and have multiple siblings caring for them? For example, if you're a parent of nine children, you at least have the oldest child is at least 12, 13 years old, if not older, depending on how you spaced your children apart. And so yes, a newborn baby is a different kind of experience than, say, the parent of two young children under three. It's a different experience. And so for some mentors, they have this whole ecosystem where it's like, oh, we can take on a newbie because there is the graduate student in the lab.

10:41 And then there's a senior graduate student in the lab. There's a postdoc in the lab. And so there's a whole ecosystem that can take you on. And so it kind of depends. The mentors have different resources. But number one reason you can't find a research mentor is because it is like asking for someone to care for a newborn baby. Number two reason is that newbie mentors who are like, well, sure, I'll take you on, they may not understand how much is involved in caring for a newborn clinician or researcher. It's like, wow, you really have no skills. Huh, can I handle this? And so sometimes people get abandoned on the journey because a mentor enters into a mentoring relationship with you and they're like, whoa, this is how much I need to teach you?

11:26 And there are a lot of abandoned clinician researcher babies across the landscape of academic medicine where people have just not stepped up to pour in all the training that's needed. And you have to ask, it's like, well, is it our jobs as clinician, researcher, mentors to pour everything into our trainees? And sometimes if you're the parent of a child, they don't even appreciate the kind of effort that you're inputting into them. They have no idea how much it costs you to be a mentor. And the reality is that it does take a lot. And sometimes mentors start the relationship with mentees and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is too much.

12:12 Let's dial this down. And people feel abandoned, mentees feel abandoned. And so it's a very intensive process. And that's why it can be hard to find a mentor. The number three thing also is I alluded to this earlier is that experienced mentors are looking for people who are a little bit further along the way. And so when you approach a seasoned mentor, one of the things you'll appreciate is that they're asking you questions. So tell me about your writing skills. How many manuscripts have you been involved in? What is your research experience? Because they want to know what skills are you coming to the table with? What am I going to be able to resource you to do? What are you already coming with already resourced?

12:54 And that is why the more experienced and more senior mentors get all these amazing more experienced more senior mentees because they're due diligence in terms of who they're taking on versus who they're not taking on. Because mentoring can be very intensive, especially when it comes to clinicians who barely have any research training. And when they take you on, they're putting you in their research program and the goal is you're going to work on their projects to move their projects forward because it's a give and take in this relationship. And so it's important that the person who's coming into the ecosystem can actually support the ecosystem because at the end of the day, this is a research program that needs to stay funded so that it can continue to produce.

13:40 And so people coming into the ecosystem need to contribute to that production capability of the ecosystem so that it continues. It's like a business that needs to be profitable. Otherwise the business shuts down and nobody has a job. Okay, so those are the three reasons why it can be very difficult. Number one, it is like asking someone to care for a newborn baby. Number two, newbie mentors who may not know what they're getting into can abandon people and to be honest seasoned mentors can abandon people too. Mentees are feeling abandoned, seasoned mentors are feeling like, oh no, I cannot do this person. So there's a lot of abandonment going on because sometimes it becomes clear just how much work is needed and it feels overwhelming to mentors. Number three, experienced mentors are really looking for people who are kind of full grown.

14:24 They're like, well, you're experienced already. And that does kind of drive the landscape of sometimes who's accepted into mentoring experiences. And so it can be difficult to find a mentor. Okay, I'm now going to tell you five things to help you find a research mentor. Again, I want to remind you that you are not looking for the one. There is no such mentor. Actually, maybe there are. They're very rare and if you are looking for them, if they exist, someone's already taken them. And this is why most people can't find them. What I'm encouraging you to do is to consider that you need multiple mentors and I'm going to give you five things to help you find a research mentor. Number one is to recognize that you're a newbie, like you're a little baby, you're a research baby.

15:10 You're a newbie in the mission and most of your training has been just clinical training, no research training. You're really like a newbie and you have a lot of needs. And many mentors would be overwhelmed to try to meet all your needs within their research program and many mentors actually don't have the resources or the time actually because mentoring activities are not supported or they're not funded. And this is an ongoing conversation in academic medicine. But if you are a newbie in the research world and it's important for you to recognize that you are and figure out how can you get nutrition that doesn't come all from one space.

15:53 Okay, we've listed a long list of skills you need and I won't go through them again, but there's a long list, a laundry list. Which ones of those skills can you get that's not from one source? Who can teach you proposal writing 101? Who can teach you manuscript writing 101? Who can teach you shepherding manuscripts through the publication process 101? Where can you get resources so that you can offload whoever it is who's going to be a research mentor so they don't have to give you absolutely everything? And I would say that the number one thing you do to do that is to go to trusted sources to get your basic nutrition.

16:33 Now if you're a faculty member at an academic institution, usually there are all these career development programs to help you succeed as a research leader. And these programs are so awesome because they help you get basic skills so you don't have to depend on one person to give it all to you. And if it's not at your institution, it's at another institution. And so where are the programs available that you can go to and get the skills that you need so you're not depending on just one person to help you make it through? Okay, that's number one. Go to trusted sources to get your basic nutrition so that you can be a full grown baby, toddler baby by the time you're looking for a mentor who's going to help you grow in your research capabilities.

17:16 Okay, number two is to find safe spaces to make mistakes. So if you're a baby, a clinician baby, you're going to make a lot of mistakes because babies they poop and they pee a lot. That's just what they do. And actually all people do. Just FYI. And babies are not good at cleaning up after themselves. They just don't know how to do that just yet. And so as a clinician researcher, you're going to make a lot of boo-boos. I said it. You're going to make a lot of boo-boos. And some mentors can be like, sure, I'll clean that up. Another time mentors are like, I will never clean up another boo-boo like that again. But what you've got to do is make sure you have a safe space where you can make mistakes and it's okay.

17:57 What are the communities that you go to as a clinician researcher and you're safe? And I want to say that in the academy, people have different experiences and the experience of people who are underrepresented in the academy is different from the experience of people who are not underrepresented in the academy. And I would argue that there may be more safe spaces for people who are represented well in the academy versus safe spaces for those who are not. And I would say wherever your perspective is, whatever angle you come from, make sure you have safe spaces where you can make mistakes and you're not vilified for your mistakes. Many mentors are great, great at showing you research methodology, but they're not very patient and it's okay.

18:39 That mentor doesn't have to both show you the research methodology and clean up your boo-boos. Find safe spaces where you can make mistakes so that you don't have to rely on one mentor to both be the person showing you the ropes and also cleaning up after you. Okay. Number three is to acquire the basic habits of a clinician researcher. Acquire the basic habits of a clinician researcher. So I have a future episode talking about the seven highly effective habits of a clinician researcher and some of the habits are being someone who's consistently productive. So you have a writing structure, you show up consistently, you have a sense of your research direction, and because of that, you choose your projects wisely.

19:21 So there's some habits that you need to have as clinician researcher and to be honest, you don't have to depend on a mentor to show you. It is so awesome when our mentors can show us good habits to establish as clinician researchers. There are some effective strategies that are empirically tested, they're not new. Where can you go to find these resources? One resource I'm going to just shout out right now is the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity. They've got a great number of resources for just good habits to sustain as an academic faculty member. So you can go and acquire the basic habits of a clinician researcher without even yet having to depend on your mentor to do that.

20:03 Okay. So acquire basic habits and don't necessarily depend on a mentor to give that to you. Okay, that's number three. Number four is have a plan for where you want to go. Okay, it is very difficult when you show up in front of your mentor and you're like, be my mentor and they're like, great, what do you want to do? I don't know. I'm interested in many things. And they're like, well, what things are you interested in? Well, breast cancer, colon cancer, hematology, oncology, and GI. And that's great. I mean, you've kind of narrowed it down because medicine is much broader than that, but it's not very specific and it's not clear. And it's very hard for mentors to do anything with that because it's like, where can I fit you within a research program that doesn't have anything to do with breast cancer or colon cancer or GI?

20:48 Like, where can I fit you? And so it is important for you to know where you're going. The reason it's important for you to know where you're going is because if you don't know where you're going, then you can't ask for directions to get there. You're going and you're really asking people for a destination. But here's the thing about clinicians. They actually have a sense of where they want to go. And many times when mentees come and they say, I don't know where I want to go, what they're actually communicating to me is that I haven't done the work of figuring it out. Help me figure it out. And I have to pause and just say that is a lot to put on a mentor to give you your sense of direction in life.

21:28 It's just not a mentor's job. Some mentors are able to do that. Many are not. Many don't have the bandwidth to sit down with you and help you process your life and think about the experiences you had and which ones have been most meaningful and where you want to contribute. That's really work that you need to do on your own. And this is why I advocate for coaching because it is important work that needs to be done. But until you figure out where you're going with your life, what you really want to do, the academic and scholarly contribution you want to make, the area in which you really want to contribute as a clinician researcher, people can't help you get there. They can help you move forward because any mentor will be able to pull out things for you to work on, any mentor can do that.

22:09 But is it what you want to work on? And as mentors get savvier, they resist more people who don't know where they're going because it's too costly. You end up putting in all-nighters and putting in all the stuff to help people succeed and then they show up and say, oh, no, that's not what I want to do. And it's a lot of investment to potentially not get anything out of it as a mentor. And you could argue that mentoring should just be selfless and everybody should sacrifice and you may be correct. But at the end of the day, every research enterprise is like a profitable business. If the business doesn't make profits, then the business shuts down and it benefits nobody.

22:51 So any research enterprise that does not produce consistently and cannot be funded is a research program that's not going to last very long. And that's why it's important for you to have a plan for where you want to go. Don't ask a mentor to give you that plan. Sit down and think about your life and develop that plan. And if necessary, do it with a coach. Let's talk about it. Send me a DM. OK. Number five is to tell the mentor how they can help you get there. So you've done a lot of work already. Now you're ready. Now you're ready to talk to a mentor and you're not going into your conversation and you're like, please mentor me or please be my mentor. You're going into the conversation with a very clear sense of direction.

23:35 I believe that I want to do GI and I'm specifically interested in patients who have hepatitis C and understanding their response to antivirals for hepatitis C. OK, not in GI. I just made that up. But you're very specific. And it helps the mentor because the mentor can say, oh, the greatest and most important tools are XYZ. I don't have that in my lab. You should talk to this other mentor who has all these latest and greatest tools to help you move forward in that way. It helps mentors see where they can step in and help you. And then they can direct you. They could be like, oh, I might not be the right person for you, but this other person would be so awesome because look at all the tools they have that could help you really shape that.

24:19 Or it could be that you're like, no, that other person doesn't exist. It is just you. And what then you can help the mentor to see is what do they have within their program that supports the work you want to do. And that is so helpful. So that if you boil down all my recommendations into one, it's really get specific about where you're going. You have the tools as much as you can on your own. And then be very clear about how the mentor can help you get where you're going. OK, let me summarize the five things to do to help you find a research mentor. Number one, go to trusted sources for your basic nutrition. Go to trusted sources, get basic nutrition. Number two, find safe spaces to make mistakes. Number three, acquire the basic habits of a clinician researcher.

25:02 Number four, have a plan for where you want to go. And then number five, tell the mentor how they can help you get there. And remember I said, you don't need just the one mentor. Stop looking for the one. But you want to be very specific about how the particular person before you can help you. OK, so this week I want you to find an area in which you need skill building and find a mentor who can help you bridge that gap and go talk to them about where you're going, how they have a skill that's so admirable to you and tell them how they can help you bridge that gap. And if you do that, come tell me about the conversation you had.

25:43 All right. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear about how to find a mentor and I'll see you on the next episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast. 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. Someone else needs to hear it. So take a minute right now and share it.

26:24 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 health care.