Why you should take advantage of external career development activities

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. Well hello everyone. Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it's just an absolute pleasure, absolute pleasure to be talking with you today. Thank you so much for listening. I'm excited to bring you today's episode about the benefits of career development activities outside your institution.

1:22 I believe I've done an episode that's a little bit similar in the past, but I want to focus today specifically on the AAMC mid-career faculty meeting. Now some of you may say, I'm not mid-career, this must not apply to me, but I want to tell you that I also attended the AAMC early career faculty career development event when they did that early. Oh gosh, it's been about eight years or more since I attended. So I am speaking from the perspective of both the early career and the mid-career. So I want you to understand that this is not necessarily focused on mid-career. So I hope you'll stay with me throughout the period of this particular episode, because I think that what I have to say will apply to you.

2:03 Okay. So I will say that if your institution is a member of the AAMC, then you're probably always getting things in your email inbox about what the AAMC is doing. However, if you are not, you can simply go to the AAMC website and search for career development activities. And you'll find out that they have a series of they do. They have ones that are targeted towards underrepresented minorities. They have ones that are targeted towards women. There have ones that are open to everyone. And in the current climate of whether it's okay to support equity and diversity efforts, I think it is still important for us to acknowledge that women have different experiences in the academy and people who are underrepresented have different experiences in the academy, because the academy is not explicitly set up to support women and their needs or underrepresented faculty and their needs.

3:00 And so I love that AAMC is still very focused on meeting the needs of faculty at different points in their career. And I will say that however you identify and whatever group of people will support you in your career development, AAMC likely has a program that will help you. All right. Let's talk about why this is a program that would benefit you. Number one is that the AAMC program, and I don't want to focus on still on AAMC program, but I will, is that they understand faculty and their needs. Now what does this mean? Well, the AAMC stands for the American Association of Medical Colleges.

3:43 I think that's what it means. Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what it stands for. And that means that they kind of are concerned with the needs of academic institutions offering medical services all over the country, all over the United States. And so they are thinking about how do we develop the workforce? How do we meet the needs of the American population in terms of healthcare needs? And so they're interested in developing faculty. They're interested in making sure that faculty have longevity within the academy. They're interested that the diversity of the clinician workforce matches the diversity of the American population.

4:23 And so it benefits AAMC when faculty succeed. And it especially benefits AAMC when faculty are diverse because institutions do well. Institutions do well when we have representation of men and women and people who are from every race and ethnicity and in different experiences. And so I think that the first thing is to recognize that AAMC wins when institutions do well. And so many of these programs are really focused on helping faculty do well. And so they can meet your needs in a way that you may not get going to a career development program that's not necessarily specifically targeted toward academic medical faculty.

5:13 As physicians, we can benefit from career development activities that are across the spectrum. So it doesn't have to be just for academic faculty. But I do think that the needs and the desires and the climate of academic medicine is different enough that it's important to be able to target the program that's specifically focused to your needs as an academic faculty member. So I think the first thing I'm saying is that AAMC is concerned with academic faculty and they're able to support you in a way that a program that's not necessarily targeted toward academic faculty may not.

5:55 They're able to support you differentially. So recognize that that is a huge strength. So that's number one. Number two, number two is a little bit more generic and not necessarily specific to the AAMC. It's like it is always helpful when you want to really think about your career and how you move forward to get away. And so interestingly, one of our faculty members who's attending is just from across the street. So we're in DC for this meeting and this faculty member is a faculty member at the University of Maryland. So clearly, University of Maryland is not in DC, but it's close enough. And so this person is driving away to be part of this experience.

6:36 However, what this person is doing is staying at the conference hotel. So actually we're meeting at the AAMC building, but we're in a hotel that's about maybe a 30 minute walk from the venue. And there is value to leaving your daily life, your home activities and being away for a number of days, just focused on your career. What are my strengths? What are the gaps? What are the things I still need to do? How should I be thinking about my next steps? And so the whole idea of breaking away from your usual activities to think about you, to think about your career is so powerful. And I want to say that if you have such an opportunity, and again, I'm very specific, this is an external opportunity and it's really important that it's external.

7:24 And actually that may be number three. So let me hold that for just a moment. But I want to say that the importance of breaking away from your routine activities to come to a place where you are just super laser focused on your career development is so powerful and it's so important. And I want you to consider how this, it may be helpful if you've not done this before, if you've not done this recently, for you to take that time away. Now many faculty members are having to do it differently. We have one faculty member who's here with her baby and her mom. We have another faculty member who's here with her husband and her children. You got to make it work the way you can make it work.

8:07 We're all at different phases in our lives, but don't say, I just had a baby, I can't come. Don't say, oh my gosh, the kids won't do okay without me. Don't say I don't have time on my schedule. You got to create the time. And opportunities like this give you an excuse to say, hey, this is an opportunity to grow in my career. You want me to grow. You want me to be the best faculty member ever. Absolutely get me this opportunity. Or I'm taking this opportunity because no one's giving you anything. You're taking it because it helps you grow and it helps your institution as well. So that's number two. The real power of taking time away and being in a place that's just dedicated to helping you grow as a faculty member.

8:52 That's number two. Number three is the importance of the fact that it's external to your institution. That is so powerful. Now I bet your institution has many great career development programs that I hope you've taken advantage of or you're going to take advantage of and that's great. But here's the thing, your institution is your institution and you guys kind of think alike and I'm not saying that you all have the exact same thoughts as really your institution, but I'm just saying there is an institutional culture that you grow into. And the longer you've been at your institution, the longer the culture is part of who you are. It's like the older fish that was passing by and talking to the younger fish and asked, how is the water?

9:36 And the younger fish are like, what water? Because it just is so pervasive. You just take things for granted that really are part of your institutional culture that may not translate. And I want to say it is so important to meet the environment of your institutional culture and all the career development programs that to some extent are embedded in your institutional culture to go elsewhere and do something and interact with people who are not part of that culture. Because here's the thing about academic medicine. If you're going to succeed as a faculty member, you need to be able to succeed as a faculty member who would succeed at your institution with its unique requirements and at another institution because you may not be at your institution forever.

10:23 And if that's the case, why would you put all your eggs in one basket where you're like, well, as long as I meet the requirements of my institution, I'm fine. The reality is that you need to be marketable at other institutions as well, not just yours. And you may stay at your institution forever and ever, amen. But if there's any chance, if there's the possibility that a move might take you somewhere or a leadership role might help you advance in your career in one way or the other, you do want to make sure that you have an outside perspective. The outside perspective is so powerful. And so again, I want to say that if you have very large programs at your institution, definitely take advantage of them.

11:06 I bet they're great. And it's important also to step outside of your institution, to step outside of your institutional culture, to get what usually is an unbiased and un-conflicted view of your academic growth. For someone to look and say, well, how come you don't have as many publications? This is an example. We definitely know what we're doing here. But let's say someone looks at your CV and they're like, oh, I see that you have a lot of book chapters and you don't have as many publications in period of new journals. What's happening? And you might be like, oh, at my institution, they're fine with us. As long as they're publishing one or two book chapters a month, they're fine because I'm on the clinician track.

11:47 And somebody will say, great that you're on the clinician track and this works at your institution. But if you're thinking that you might want to move, here is how you can expand your portfolio. And so they can give you a different perspective than you would get at your institution. Okay? And that's number three. Number four is that it is safer. I laugh because now I'm conjuring up pictures of the dangerous atmosphere of your environment. What I'm saying is that there's psychological safety in these kinds of meetings. Most faculty are not from your institution. And even if they are, they're probably not from the same department as you.

12:27 And you come to a place where you can be frank about the challenges you're experiencing. And there is not anybody who's not experiencing challenges. It's just challenges are a way of life. Challenges are part of a faculty member's experience. So everyone is experiencing a challenge. Everyone's experiencing a challenge. And you come and you can feel safe to talk about your challenges. People are likely still going to be anonymous about what they're reporting. They're not going to hang out their institutions to dry. If they did that, they probably wouldn't still be there. But it's an opportunity to say, hey, this is the problem I'm having with a prominent faculty member at my institution. And nobody knows who you're talking about.

13:07 Most people, it's not that they don't care. It's just that what's important for them is you, not that faculty member. So at your institution, other people may be so vested in protecting the reputation of that particular person you may be having challenges with. They don't see enough to think about how do they support you when you're in a situation where you're outside of your institution and you're getting help that you need. Then the people can answer the question of, OK, what do you need out of this? How can I support you? Let's not think about the person who's not here. Let's think about you. And so it is so important. It is so powerful to be outside of your institution, to have a place of psychological safety where you can talk about your career at the internet.

13:51 OK. The next thing, and I think we're at number five, is that you get access to faculty who are senior or not at your institution. Why is that important? It's important because the perspective of people who've been where you are is so powerful and so important. You get to hear their stories. You get to hear how they built their careers. You get to hear how they made it work. It's hard to know how to move forward in medicine. Everybody comes and they ask you, what's your five-year plan? What's your 10-year plan? Some of us don't have a five-year plan. We don't have a 10-year plan. Or we know that whatever five or 10-year plan we're saying is going to change because our lives and our needs are changing.

14:38 For example, my children are 10 and 12. And in five or in 10 years, gosh, they'll be in college. And if they're in college or out of college, I'm going to have a different perspective or a different view of how my career moves forward compared to where I am today. And so the 10-year plan really I could make now in light of, oh gosh, they won't be whole. But likely I'm going to be a different person thinking about how to move my career forward differently at that time. It's hard for me to think about it now. But it is helpful for me to see how people have done their careers. And what I'm seeing as people are talking about their careers and their career choices and the moves that they've made is that people are taking, they're preparing, they're creating a core foundation of what it means to be an academic faculty member.

15:32 And then opportunities are showing up that they are leveraging. Yes, opportunities are showing up that they are leveraging. And that's one of the powers of being at such an event like this, because you get to see other people in the way they've crafted their careers. At your institution, the senior people are hard to reach. They're so busy. And to be honest, the faculty who are at this program are also hard to reach. But you know what? They are faculty for this event. They've taken time out of their schedules to be here for you. So you get to talk to them. You get to ask them questions. You get to show up and interact with them in a way that you might not be able to interact with them, even if they were faculty members at your own institution.

16:13 So it is a powerful experience. And it's a great opportunity for you to access faculty members who are not at your institutions, who can really help you focus on your career development, because they can help you understand decisions that they've made. And you are a perfectly capable person. But it's also helpful to see how people make decisions that may help you think about how you're making decisions for where you are at your career stage. Okay. And then number six is that, wow, you learned things that you didn't know before. And you know, it used to happen to me more often. It happens to be less often now. But somebody made a statement yesterday that just crystallizes this particular point.

16:56 She said, I get angry when I think that nobody told me this until this time. Yes, that used to be me. I would get so mad. I will say, why are people hiding this information from me? Why is it that nobody told me? People are not trying to hide information from you. It's just the kinds of conversations you're having at your institution are not likely to uncover the things that you don't know unless it is intentionally focused on your career development. And the challenge is that even when you have mentors who are senior, there's a lot of your conversation is very focused on your day to day. Okay, have you published that paper? What is going on with these revisions? How about this project that we're working on?

17:37 What are you doing with regards to XYZ? Right. You're very focused in the minutia. And when you come to a career development conference like this, people take a step back and they tell you the big picture because they're not focused on the minutia. And so you get to hear information about the long term, big picture thinking that frankly doesn't often happen on our campuses. And so I did used to get angry at my mentors and I would say, how come no one's told me this? How is it that I've been busy doing all the stuff I'm supposed to be doing, but I'm not really advancing my career in XYZ way? And that's the feeling that a lot of people get. How I've stopped having that feeling now when I go to these career development events is I do a lot of them.

18:22 I realize that there is power in being at different venues where people can speak about your career or speak into your career differently. And so I make a practice of being at these external opportunities of attending as many as possible because I recognize that I may not get it from faculty in my institution. No, it's usually not necessarily a matter of bias. It's not necessarily a matter of discrimination. It's just a matter of the way things work. It's like, for example, I have young children and I'll tell them something and they're like, yeah, I don't know about that. And they'll go somewhere else and someone will tell them the exact same thing. And they'll say, oh my gosh, that's amazing. And I'll say, but I told you this before, right?

19:03 And that's happened to me. Recently, it happened to me with my sister who's a CPA and she gave me some tax advice and I was like, oh yeah, that's really great. Then I went somewhere else and gave me the exact same tax advice and I came back to her and I said, oh my gosh, I had no idea about this. I thought I pretty sure I told you about this. And so it's also that sometimes people have told us, but we hear things differently. And sometimes we need the expert from out of town to say it in a way that really connects with us and resonates with us where we finally get it. And so I want to say that repetition is the month there of all learning. And so it is powerful when you go outside your institution and somebody said something, even if you've heard it at your institution, it solidifies it as something important that you should pay attention to.

19:51 And so point number six is that you learn things that you may otherwise not learn just staying within your institution. It's finally number seven is that you get to develop your network of sponsors, mentors and coaches. I tell you, a faculty who come to these things are invested in you succeeding. They are. I mean, honestly, faculty or senior faculty, the time of their seniority, they're looking to leave a legacy. They're looking to help people come forward. They recognize all the challenges they've been through and they want other people to succeed. They're legacy known, but they're overwhelmed and they don't know who to help.

20:34 And they're getting emails from all over the place or people saying, oh, help me do this or anything. But when they're in a room with a dedicated group of faculty that they get to interact in one on one, it's easier to connect with those people and say, hey, I want to help someone. You're here. I've met you now. How can I help you? And so it's an opportunity for you to grow your network and not just networking with the faculty or the senior faculty that are that are teaching as part of the program, but also with your peers who are at similar life stages and can say, hey, well, you can give talking at my institution about X, Y, Z. So it is a great opportunity to grow your network in general, but very specifically to grow your network with sponsors and mentors and coaches.

21:20 And so those are the things that are really important in terms of attending things that are outside of your institution and specifically the double AMC series of offerings. I need to tell you that it's not free. And it shouldn't be right. People are providing a service. Faculty need to be paid. Rooms need to be secured. Food needs to be bought. None of this is free. And so recognize that there is an investment. And I want to say that you are someone who should make a habit of investing in yourself. Don't say this is too expensive. I can't show up. No. Ask. You know what? You can afford it personally because you can't afford not to afford it. But if finances are a challenge, you can ask at your institution and someone can help you.

22:08 Someone can help you in terms of supporting your participation. And I'd love to talk about how you can make the ask. And I'll probably record a podcast episode. My next podcast episode will be about how can you make that ask for funding that will support your career development. So until that time, I look forward to speaking with you again next time on the Clinician Researcher Podcast. Thank you for watching and 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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