Your career as a vehicle

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 right now. Thank you so much for tuning in. I am excited to bring you today's episode, which talks about getting the most out of your career. Now, I started our conversation on the last podcast, and I was talking about the things that you should be able to get out of your career.

1:23 I talked about things like spiritual growth and personal development and increasing your social capital and making sure that your health is good. These all seem like, okay, why do you think my career should be able to deliver this? I thought today was the day to talk about how do you get what you need out of your career? Intuitively, we know that our career is a vehicle to get us to where we want to go, but it's not always clear exactly how to make the most out of the vehicle. I want to talk about the vehicle as the analogy for your career.

2:03 Your career is a vehicle, and it's a vehicle that can do so many things for you, get you to so many places, get you to the destinations that you want to go. I say destinations in plural because there is not one single destination that you're getting to. There are a number of destinations, and the things I talked about, for example, financial health, those are some of the destinations that your career should get you to. But then how do you get the most out of your career? I think in doing that, we can think about our careers as vehicles. Okay, so I think about one of my first cars that I drove. It was a Cadillac, I think it was a GTS, I may be wrong, but it was white and it was old.

2:50 When you say Cadillac, it sounds like it should be a nice car, and I'm not saying it wasn't in its heyday, but by the time I came into possession of it, it had been around for quite some time. So driving it around campus, no problem at all, and I finally decided I was going to drive this car home. And at the time, it was like a two-hour drive from campus to home, and in the middle of the drive, in the middle of the highway, the car packs up. We're fortunate enough to be able to pull over to the median, no less, and that's where we parked the car.

3:30 And then we run across the street to be able to get to the other side where we're safer to await help towing the car. Oh, I'm so fortunate that it was okay, because when cars packed up in the middle of the highway, that could be dangerous. And so I was fortunate, I was driving with one of my roommates, and we got where we were going safely. The car didn't get me where I wanted to go. And since then, I've traded in and I've traded up to nicer cars that now get me where I'm going, and I don't have to be afraid that they're going to stop in the middle of the highway. And I think that that's one way to think about your career, is that over the lifetime of your career, over the lifetime of your working life, you're going to always have a vehicle to get you to where you want to go, or at least I hope you'll always have a vehicle.

4:23 And you realize that over time, as a vehicle no longer serves you, you decide how you move to the next vehicle, or how you make the most of the vehicle you already have. Now the vehicle is just a vehicle. It doesn't have to be the same one your entire life, but you recognize that you always have a vehicle that transports you from one place to another. And let's think about your career in different ways in which it is a vehicle for you. Okay, so the first question is, what kind of vehicle do you drive? Now notice I haven't been talking about a car, because maybe you ride a bicycle. Maybe you're early on in your career and you feel like, yep, I'm definitely riding a bicycle only.

5:08 I'm the only one who can get here who can use this particular vehicle. And it's a great bicycle, but it doesn't get me very far. I have to pedal really hard, especially when I'm going up hills. I change my own tires. I do a lot of things myself. And sometimes it can feel that way. But the question is, what kind of vehicle do you have? Or maybe you have a passenger vehicle where you have space for one passenger. And you're like, yeah, it's just me and my lab technician, or it's just me and my MA, whoever it is who supports you. And it works. It gets us from place to place, but we can't carry very much cargo.

5:50 We can't carry too many passengers. And maybe it's an old model that breaks down a lot. But ask yourself, what kind of vehicle do you drive? What kind of vehicle is your career? Is your current career in its current state? Again, we're remembering that. We're going to change vehicles a number of times over time. We're going to upgrade over time. And your vehicle is not going to stay the same. But assess the kind of vehicle you drive right now. And I'd like you to pause and think about it and tell me. Maybe even send me a DM on LinkedIn. Tell me what kind of vehicle you drive. Right now, I will tell you that my vehicle, I believe, is at least a four-passenger stand.

6:34 And it carries a number of people, including some collaborators who've been riding with me for some time. And we've gotten to a lot of great destinations together. Along the way, we've had some people exit the vehicle and others stay. And I'm thinking of trading up to an SUV that carries more passengers. Though if I'm trading up to an SUV, it's going to guzzle more gas and I'm going to need more resources. Yes. And my resources, I'm thinking along the lines of more funding to be able to really do some of the work that we really want to do. So when you think about the kind of vehicle you drive, think about your career as a vehicle and maybe you have a bicycle, maybe it's an SUV, a gas guzzling SUV, maybe it's a hybrid that you invest a lot in to be able to keep the cost down.

7:29 Or maybe it's electric and you have to go from place to place getting your charge in so that you can make it to long distance destinations. So think about your career, the fact that it's like a vehicle and think about what kind of vehicle best describes your career. Okay, that's number one. The second thing is the kind of vehicle you have determines not necessarily what places you go, though, yes, it does determine what places you go, but it also determines how fast you go and how long it takes to get there. For example, let's say the terrain is water, while your car will not get you very far over water and maybe that's a time at which you get on a ferry, which is a seaworthy vessel.

8:20 And then you ride the ferry as far as your car will take you, as far as fare will take you and then you can take your car off the ferry and continue your journey. So sometimes you cross terrain where you need help and your car can't get you there. But most of the time you're going to be on the road and your vehicle can get you there. You don't necessarily need to change modes of transportation. But think about how do you get the most out of what you have based on the terrain that you have, for example, or based on the terrain that you're in. For example, for many of us who started out with fully clinical careers or at least mostly clinical or partial clinical that kind of swallowed up the rest of our research time, we realized that, wow, this vehicle could get us to where we're going, but really, really slowly.

9:12 And sometimes with some breakdowns along the way. And over time we've had to learn how do we get the most out of this vehicle, this mostly clinical career when we're trying to transition into research and we learn to get help. Who are the other vehicles that are also traveling on the same road that we can tag team and say, OK, well, why don't I park my car today and you ride your car so tomorrow we can carpool? And so thinking about what are the strategies that you have to be able to make the most out of the vehicle that you have, because it has limitations.

9:54 Every type of vehicle has its own limitations and it doesn't mean it's not a great vehicle. It's just different. And you'll learn how to navigate and you'll learn how to get the help you need. Or maybe you say to someone else, like, oh, you don't have a vehicle, but I have a vehicle. Why don't you ride with me and you can chip in for gas. Right. And so the two of you may be both clinical and it's like, well, I'm going to help you because I have funding to do this. And why don't you help me in this way? And so think about how you get the most out of the vehicle you have and how you make the most out of the people who surround you to be able to make the most out of your career. Okay.

10:34 The third thing is ask yourself, who are the passengers that ride with you? Now, again, this will depend on the vehicle you have. Sometimes when you're starting out and you're just on a bicycle or maybe it's a motorcycle, you can maybe carry yourself as a passenger or depending on what kind of two wheeled cycle it is, you might be able to actually carry another passenger. But ultimately, if you're going to carry more passengers, you're going to need to trade up to a bigger vehicle that seats more passengers. Now here's the thing. You might decide to go with your bicycle and just get a bicycle with an extra seat and that's okay. But there are some passengers that are not going to want to ride with you because they're like, well, it's a two wheeled bicycle and there's an extra seat.

11:22 I have to ride with a helmet. I might fall. I'm not sure I want to ride with you. And so you have to think about the kind of vehicle you have determines what passengers will ride with you. And there are people who are there for the adventure. So let's say you have a motorcycle and it's like, okay, great. I'm going to come along for the ride because it's going to be so fun. There's a certain type of person that will ride with you. Most people are going to want to sit in air conditioning. They're going to want to roll up the window. They're going to want to be comfortable. They don't want to sit back and relax. And so you're going to need to invest in a bigger vehicle to allow them to ride with you. And what am I talking about? I'm talking about, well, if you're going to want collaborators to ride with you, then you're going to need to think about how can I fund my program to be able to have enough spaces in my vehicle to allow them to ride with me.

12:17 And I'm not just talking about collaborators. I'm talking about students who may want to be in your program. I'm talking about post-docs who might want to work with you. I'm talking about hired staff that work in your research program. And so in order for you to have a larger vehicle that can transport people in a little bit more comfort, you are going to need to do the work. And that's sweat equity sometimes. And actually it always starts with sweat equity, but then it allows you to start to think about, well, what funding opportunities am I pursuing so that I have enough to be able to support the people who are going for the ride with me? And think about the people who are along for the ride.

12:59 Are they people who ride all the time and make it a really unpleasant journey? Are they people who say, well, it might not be a great car, but we're here for the ride and we're going to help you to the best of our ability? Are they people who know how to change tires? Or are they people who are going to bail the moment the car packs up by the side of the road with a flat tire? Think about those things. Now, in your career, it feels as if, well, I'm not choosing, this is just what I have. But in reality, you are choosing. And you may not choose the first passenger that rides with you, but what you can do is learn from the passenger and decide, hmm, this is why this passenger didn't stay very long.

13:42 What can I do differently? How do I optimize for the kind of passenger that can tolerate what vehicle I have at this stage knowing that as I trade up to a bigger vehicle, this passenger will continue to stay with me because they're not here just for the size of my vehicle. And the bigger your car, let's say you have a plane, they're going to be over there just for the ride. And the moment the plane touches down there like, sayonara, thank you for the ride. See ya. And it's OK. You just got to realize what kind of vehicle you have and what passengers you want to ride with you. And you may decide you never want to trade up to a plane. You may decide you want to stay with your three seater car.

14:25 I mean, well, it's a three seater. It's probably like more like a moped, right? You may decide that. You might decide that because it's efficient. It gets you where you want to go. It gets you a certain type of passenger. And that's just the way you like it. So recognize that your passengers drive a lot of your experience. You've got to have a vehicle big enough to have passengers. And then you've got to make sure your passengers are comfortable, or at least you have the kind of passengers that don't mind the kind of conditions that you have in your vehicle. But at the end of the day, think about your passengers. Now, you may decide you don't want passengers at all. That's OK. You're going to be riding a bicycle and it'll get you where you want to go to just get you there slowly.

15:06 And sometimes you'll need to change your own tires. And sometimes it'll take you a lot of work if you're going up a steep hill. But you just got to recognize that if you're going to really go further, faster, you're going to want to be able to have passengers ride with you and passengers who can contribute to the maintenance and the help that you need getting the vehicle to where it needs to be. OK, so we talked about maintenance. We started talking about maintenance activities. And that's number four. So you have work to do. So your vehicle is great. You bought it or you leased it. And you have it. It works for you. But you've got to do some maintenance activities to keep it going.

15:47 And you can decide to ignore the maintenance activities. You can decide I don't need a community. I don't need to engage with mentors. You can decide to skip a lot of maintenance activities. But you also recognize that maintenance activities are what keep the car running longer, faster. And when you don't do maintenance activities, when you don't get the help that you need, you're going to run into some trouble like I did. On the highway, your car might pack up. And then you're going to need major help. And major help is OK. It's just recognizing that having a community that supports you, having a group of mentors. And I noticed I didn't say just one mentor. Having a group of mentors that can support you and encourage you is helpful so that you don't have to do the major overhauls or the major repairs because you weren't getting maintenance along the way.

16:40 Now, that being said, you're going to want to know where to go, is the number five. When you do have a big repair issue that comes up, your check engine light comes on and you're like, I have no idea what's going on with this car, with this vehicle. Who do I go to? You're going to want to have a go to person or persons for major challenging repair jobs. And I would like you to know this person as to someone like your research mentor, like your primary research mentor. Now, you never have just one mentor, but you do. You can have a primary research mentor who's like the one stop shop. It's like your minik or like your Mr. Tire.

17:23 The person you consistently go to for checkups and when a big repair job is needed. And depending on what's going on, you might actually need a specialist to step in. It might be a body shop, maybe body work that's needed. But you always want to have a go to person and think about again, your mentor, but it doesn't have to be just one mentor. Maybe it's a train. And so if you're not going to say the Toyota dealership on highway 54, you're going to the Toyota dealership in Raleigh and that kind of thing. So you want to make sure that you have a cadre of people that you trust that you can go to for maintenance, but also for major issues as well.

18:10 Okay. Now, number six is you also need to know when the cost of maintenance becomes too high and you start to think about trading in your vehicle for the next vehicle. And sometimes that happens because you find yourself at the shop all the time. The cost of fixing continues to go up and you're maybe in the repair shop too many times or somehow the body work that was done last time needs to be redone. And you're saying, okay, well, at what point is this cost? Is this time spent getting maintenance or time spent getting major repairs?

18:55 At what point is it too costly and I need to upgrade to something that doesn't cost as much? I mean, there's the upfront cost, right? And when you're trading in, you still have to bring some money to the table to be able to trade up to the next car, but you've got to decide at what point is the cost of the frequent repairs probably no longer worth it where you do need to find a chunk of investment to be able to get you traded up to the next vehicle. And what might that mean? It might be that your current role doesn't serve you anymore or it costs more than it's really benefiting you. And this may happen after you've done the same sort of experiments over and over again, and it's time to move into the next level of your research program.

19:42 Or it may be that you've gotten to the point at which you feel like, okay, well, I feel like now I need to move into a leadership role, whatever that is, but just recognize that at some point you're getting less out of your investment than makes sense to you. And so then you have to decide, do I trade up to another vehicle and what vehicle do I trade up to? Do I change institutions? Do I change collaborators? Do I seek a new role? Do I do something different? And so recognizing that sometimes it's not so obvious, it's the signs that tell you, it's the challenging conversations, it's the restlessness that you feel, it's the feeling of, oh, I'm investing a lot, but I'm not getting what I want.

20:33 And these are all important in recognizing when is the next step. Now you're not going to make this decision by yourself. Presumably you have a major repair shop that's going to advise you and say, hey, we've been repairing you for a long time. We've been doing your repairs for a long time. And we feel like you've gotten to the point where you really need to trade in. And so your mentors are going to help you with this and your sponsors are going to help you with this. In fact, your peer mentors as well can advise you. And so you're not on your own. You're not making decisions by yourself. But at some point, your investment is going to need to stop in the way that you're making the investment and you're going to need to think about a different investment so that you can trade up to a new level.

21:17 Okay. And then number seven is to recognize that the most important passenger in the vehicle is you and that your vehicle, it serves you, but it's not you. It's an extension of you. You decorate it. You make it shine. You take it to the car wash. You get it fixed up. It represents you. You are proud of your vehicle, but it's not you. It's an extension of you in so many ways, but it's not you. Your vehicle is there to serve you. And you accept the limitations of your vehicle. You get the most of it out of it that you can, but it is there to serve you.

22:00 And if at some point you get to a point where the vehicle doesn't serve you in the way you need it to serve you, you've got to be ready to separate from the vehicle and get another vehicle that does serve you. And so the most important passenger in the vehicle is you. And maybe you're writing with rowdy passengers who every time there's a flat, they just file out of the car and they're like, yeah, can you call us when you finish fixing the flat? And then they come back and ride with you again until the next challenge where they're like, I'll take a bus today. Let me know when everything is okay. You got to recognize that the vehicle serves you and you get to choose which passengers ride with you.

22:42 You get to choose who are the people speaking into your career or helping you move forward. You do have choices. You are not stuck. So most importantly, the purpose of the vehicle is to serve you. And so if you realize that you're not getting to the destinations you want to go or because of the limitations of the vehicle, you're not getting as far as you want to, as fast as you want to consider that you are the one who invested in and got the vehicle in the first place and you can always make a change. You're not stuck. You are not stuck. You're not stuck with what you have. Change is hard and yes, it requires investment and yes, it will cost you, but it's doable.

23:29 You are capable. You've done it before. You can do it again. Make sure that you're getting the most out of your career that you want. Don't feel like you're stuck. Don't feel like you can't make change happen because you can't and recognize, recognize, recognize that it is there to serve you. All right, so that's been the whole vehicle analogy. Recognize what kind of vehicle you drive. Figure out how to make the most out of the vehicle you drive. Recognize who your passengers are and how much they drive your experience and they drive the kind of vehicle that you can drive. Make sure you get help with maintenance activities.

24:12 Know where to go when you need major repairs. Know when the cost of maintenance is high enough to necessitate a new vehicle and determine whether you're going to trade in or buy out, right? But finally recognize that you are the most important passenger in your vehicle and that your vehicle and its passengers are supposed to serve you to a great extent. All right, it's been a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you so much for tuning in. I look forward to talking with you again next time on the Clinician Researcher Podcast. Thank you for listening.

24:52 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. As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.