The Benefits of the Annual Review Conference

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 a pleasure to be talking with you today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today I'm talking about the annual review conference. And I want to say that if you are not having an annual review with your division director, chair, department chair, you absolutely should be, and even if they don't require it of you, you should do it anyway.

1:25 And the reason I'm saying that is because there are benefits to you of the annual review. It's not a day of judgment, though it feels that way. It's like, oh, judgment is coming. I hate this. But it really is a benefit to you. And I am here to talk about ways in which you benefit from doing the annual review meeting. And the reason this is a topic on my mind is because I just did mine. I did mine yesterday. And to be honest, it's always one of those things where preparing for it is the big deal. And it's like, oh, my goodness, what's going to happen? And then you have the meeting and it feels like it's anticlimactic. But it's really important. And really all the benefits accrue to you, the faculty member who is preparing for the annual review meeting.

2:06 So I want to talk about what those benefits are. I will tell you that when I sat at my review meeting yesterday, one of the questions my division director asked me was, well, what would you like to highlight? And I have to say I paused and I thought, hmm, you know, I don't know. I don't recommend that answer. And to be honest, in the past, I feel as if I would be so exuberant and say, well, I want to highlight the fact that I got this grant and then I got that grant and then I submitted this paper. But to be honest, in that moment, I thought, you know, I've done a lot of good things. And I think they're all obvious.

2:47 And you know, to be honest, they're not obvious and you should explain what they are. But it really was the frame of mind that I was in. I think I was just past the need for validation in that regard. But I do, you know, don't do what I say. Do what I say, don't do what I do. Yes, if somebody asks you, what would you like to highlight? Just bring out all the energy and the exuberance and just talk yourself up. Anyway, but the reason I am talking about this is because the AdNL review conference is really for you. It's not for your division director. It really is for you. And I want to talk about some of those benefits. So number one is that the AdNL review meeting is a chance for you to stop and reflect.

3:31 It is a chance for you to stop and reflect. I want to say that one more time. It is an opportunity for you to stop and reflect. And the reason that's so important is because if we don't give ourselves opportunities to stop and reflect, we keep going, going and going. And we don't take stock of what has happened. And it is so good and so important to be forced to stop and say, wait, what happened this year? What happened last year? Because to be honest, the way we work as humans is that we completely forget every good thing that's happened. And we tend to remember the things that we haven't done or the things we haven't measured up in.

4:11 And we forget all the things that we've actually done. And it's the same for when you take an exam. You only remember the questions you probably missed, right? You don't remember all the questions you got right. And that's why it always, always is a bad idea to stop after the exam and talk about it because you'll invariably remember everything you didn't remember. Anyway, so it's one of those things where we're people who are wired to forget the good things we've done. And actually, most of us are, some of us actually are good at always remembering good things we've done even when we haven't done them. But that's not the audience I'm talking to today. We are good at forgetting the good things we've done and focusing on the things that we have not yet accomplished. And that's why it's good to stop and reflect.

4:53 Whether you're forced to, or you just make up your mind to do it, it's really important because you're able to really say, hey, what happened this year? What did I do? What did I do? And so the one, the first, and probably the most important benefit of the annual review meeting is the opportunity to say, wow, look at what I did. The second benefit is that it is your chance to celebrate. Yes, I said celebrate. It is your chance to celebrate. And we are notoriously bad at celebrating ourselves and we wait for others to celebrate us and oftentimes they don't.

5:38 And that's one of the things about the annual review meeting. You're like on the edge of your seat and you're waiting for someone to say, well done, you've done so well. And they don't. Sometimes they do, but they rarely do because in medicine in general, we tend to be more critical, more judgmental than we are celebratory. And that's why, that is why the most important person to celebrate you is you. The most important person to celebrate you is you. And if for whatever reason, no one else has caught a clue, it doesn't matter as long as you celebrate you. And so the annual review conference is an opportunity for you to say, wow, look at what I did.

6:23 I did publish that paper. That was a good paper. Wow, I did submit these grants, even though only two got funded or zero got funded. I worked hard and I made it to the finish line. And it's a great opportunity to celebrate. And here's the thing, you really want to be celebrating all along the way. You want to celebrate every grant submission, every manuscript submitted. You want to just celebrate every milestone. You don't want to wait until the good news happens, right? The good news in air quotes, the good news of the grant being funded or the good news of the manuscript being accepted. Because that's not really, I mean, it's worth celebrating.

7:04 It's the easy thing to celebrate, but that's not where the hard work happened, right? The hard work happened when you met the deadline, your deadline and you submitted, right? That hard work happened when you made it to the finish line. Whatever happens after the finish line, it's great. But really the celebration happens when you get to the finish line. And whether or not the grant is funded, you are worthy of celebration for having gotten to the finish line. Whether or not the manuscript is accepted, you are worthy of celebration for having taken it all the way. And so if you haven't been celebrating all year, the annual career conference is an opportunity for you to stop and celebrate.

7:45 Now one thing I will say is that I know that our focus is on the things that didn't happen. And that's why number three is that the annual review conference is an opportunity to acknowledge challenges. And so yes, there are challenges and yes, there are some goals we had that we didn't get to or maybe we didn't even make goals. Maybe we just were floating. And now we realize that there are all these metrics that we didn't meet and we're like, oh, this is not going to be a good conversation. And I just want to say, hey, here's where we are. And there's no judgment. Where you are is where you are. And it's information. That's all it is.

8:26 It's information. Not to be used to judge you, not to be used to beat yourself up, but just information. And if you're feeling weird about the details before you, if you're like, wow, I only published one manuscript and I really plan to publish four, it's information. And if you're feeling icky about it, if you're feeling like, oh, this should have been different, that's information too. It tells you that you desire a different outcome from the outcome that you had. And so it's an opportunity for you to say, wow, these are the challenges before me and what is the plan that I want to set forth to be able to have a different outcome next year. And that's why number four is that it gives you a chance to plan for the future.

9:09 So best case scenario, you met all your milestones, the ones that I hope you set for yourself and not others set for you. But even if it was others that helped you set it or maybe set it for you, you hit your milestones, best case scenario, great. Doesn't mean you stop and stop planning, right? It says these, you have the opportunity to look back and say, well, these are the things that worked for me. Hmm, I should try these again. Or you might say, well, these are the things that didn't work. Perhaps you didn't make the best case scenario. Perhaps you were in the worst case scenario and you met no milestones or you met no goals. It's an opportunity to sit back and say, well, how can things be different next time and to plan the future differently and to say, well, if I didn't make it and I tried so hard and I still didn't make it, what resources do I want to bring to bear to help me make a different story or tell a different story or have a different outcome this coming year?

10:06 Tip number four is that it gives you a chance to make a plan for the future, whether you succeeded and you recognize the things that you're going to do again, or you didn't succeed in the way you wanted to and you recognize the places where change is needed. Okay, number five is now where we're looking externally and we're saying this annual review opportunity allows you to communicate your results in an objective manner. Now it's really great because when people ask you how you're doing, you're like, oh, I'm doing great or I'm not doing great, but it's not very concrete. It's like, what do you mean you're not doing great? Or what do you mean you're doing great? Like in what way are you doing great or not doing great?

10:47 It's a great opportunity to communicate your accomplishments. So now you can say, here are the seven manuscripts that I submitted and the two that were ultimately published, right? It's very concrete. You can say, hey, you may not see the results in the published manuscripts, but these are the number of ones that I submitted. And it shows that you're making progress similar to your grants. So you can say, okay, well, I didn't get any grant this year, but I did submit these three applications. And that's important because it's very objective, communicating that I made this happen. It may not have given me the results I ultimately hoped for, but here is the effort I put in it.

11:30 Similarly, you can say, hey, I taught these number of lectures to the fellows, or I participated in these committees for the School of Medicine. Whatever it is, you're able to put it in tabular format or even just in a list and just outline, I gave this lecture on set date. I gave it to this many students. You're able to just communicate that concretely. And that's why it's such a powerful exercise to do just for yourself, to see the sheer volume of the things you have done. Now what's not necessarily on there is how many patients you saw, which as long as you're a clinician, you're seeing patients usually, and that takes up a bulk of your time. As long as you're a clinician, you're seeing patients, and that takes up a bulk of your time, but it doesn't always count in the scholarly activity that you're recording.

12:18 But did you give a talk at a patient organization, at a support group? All of those are things that you can put there. Let somebody reach out to you or make certain referrals to you. You're able to outline those as well. So it's really an objective way of communicating your efforts. Instead of looking and saying, well, zero grants means zero progress, being able to say, no, I submitted this, I submitted that, I started this new collaboration, I started this new project, and being able to just list that. And it allows you to communicate how hard you're working or what progress you're making or what steps you're taking to your division director or your department chair, or whatever it is you sit down to have these conversations with.

12:58 Number six is it's a beautiful chance to level set expectations. And so you go into these meetings with your division director, and perhaps all is good, and they say, wow, you did so awesome. Wow, it's a great opportunity to say, well, thank you. In what ways did I do well? So that they can be very explicit about the things that they actually appreciated that you did. What are the things that they're focused on, given your promotion track or given the metrics by which you are evaluated? And perhaps for you, it's really along the lines of grant submissions, or maybe it's more along the lines of publications. For most of us who are pursuing the clinician scientist path, it really is about grants and publications.

13:43 And so if you have perhaps your division director gushing over one area, you want to know, like, okay, this is important to you, got it. Or if they're disappointed that one area is not as robust, it's good. It's say, oh, okay, so I submitted seven grants and you think I didn't do a great job. What is your expectation for me for the upcoming year? Right? So it's a great chance to ask questions because you are there. And I mean, it may be a virtual meeting, maybe in person, but you're able to see your division director or your department chairs expressions or see how they respond to the data that you've presented before them. And it gives you an opportunity to then level set those expectations.

14:27 Okay, I see that submitting four manuscripts doesn't seem to you like enough. How many manuscripts are you hoping that I would submit next year to allow you to have a conversation about what's realistic, what's not realistic? You might say, oh, oh, your hope is that I would submit 10. Okay, well, what do we do about the fact that my Wednesday clinic is an all day affair that also spills into Saturday and Sunday? How can we get me help so that I can focus on the productivity I need to focus on? And this is me now actually coming into number seven, a chance to ask for what you need. Because the moment you sit down with the objective metrics of what you've accomplished and you are able to get a sense from your division director or your dean or your chairs voice, right, from their minds, what you're able to get the expectations from your division director or other leader, then you know what's expected and you know, okay, this is where I need to go.

15:26 Well, this is what's debarring me from getting there. Or maybe you've been successful. And it's an opportunity to say, do you see that I've been successful in this area? Great. Now, in order to continue to be successful, this is what I need. And it's just a great opportunity to ask for exactly what you need. So number seven is that this annual review gives you an opportunity to ask for what you need. All right, I said seven things. Number one, it's a chance to reflect to stop and reflect on the prior year. Number two, it's a chance to celebrate every accomplishment. Number three, it's a chance to acknowledge the challenges. And then number four, plan for the future.

16:07 Number five, it allows you to communicate your accomplishments in an objective manner. Number six, it allows you to level set expectations. And number seven, it gives you the opportunity to ask for what you need. Look, this annual career conference is about you. It's about supporting your career development. It's about allowing you to win. It's about allowing you to seek the support that you need. It is not a time of judgment. It is not a time of beating yourself up. It's a time to just acknowledge what's happening. And honestly, you being the person that you are, you've done a lot of good things. And so it's important for you to take stock and celebrate the great things that you've done. So I hope that you do that. I hope that you recognize that the annual career conference is for you.

16:51 Even if your institution does not require it, I ask you to please, please, please, please, please require it for yourself because it does you so much good. And it allows you to communicate in a way that other people are able to understand. All right. That was a great opportunity to talk to you. Thank you so much for listening to me. And I look forward to talking with you again next time on the Clinician Researcher Podcast. Thank you for listening. 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.

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