Are you a physician who's looking to build your career and be recognized nationally, but is having trouble getting on the program or on the committee or getting your articles published? Are you having difficulty finding mentors and coaches to help you get ahead quickly? Well, don't spin your wheels or lose out on your personal life. This is the podcast for you. I'm Stacey Ishman, and I am the host of the Medical Mentor Coaching Podcast.
I'm a reformed full professor who has transitioned from building clinical and research programs to directing a utilization management program And now I am thrilled to be founding my own medical mentor coaching business. It was not long ago I was in the same boat as many of you. Struggling to pinpoint my niche, feeling like my contributions were lost in the shuffle, and unsure how to advance my career. I spent a lot of time juggling tasks that didn't quite align with my goals or bring me joy.
And I missed out on a lot of precious moments with my family. But I've had my aha moment and now I'm all about channeling my energy into activities that truly propel me forward and bring me happiness. Please join me on the Medical Mentor Coaching Podcast as we dive into all things career advancement, finding your niche, and working towards that elusive work life integration. I look forward to talking with you.
I want to talk a little bit about starting out in academic medicine. When I started, I had no idea what I was doing. I was excited. I was eager to make my mark, but I really didn't know how to spend my time productively. I had some idea what I wanted to study and I thought I wanted to publish in a specific area - for me it was sleep surgery. And I knew I really liked some of the other components of academic medicine.
I really love mentorship and coaching. I really enjoy working with residents and trainees and medical students. But I wanted to be big time. I wanted to be invited to speak far and wide. I wanted to publish.
I wanted to have grants. I wanted to be known for my area of expertise. And at the same time, I wanted to make sure that I had a family that I could spend some time with. But I had no idea how to make any of that happen.
Now when I started, I was really focused too on making sure that I was a good clinician.
I did everything. I read everything. I asked questions. I talked to senior colleagues. I really tried to make sure that I knew what I was doing clinically, and that took a year or two for me to be comfortable.
I mean, the first week, I didn't even know how I liked to drape the drapes. I knew how lots of other people like me to drape them. But I really wasn't sure. And I was looking stuff up all the time, and there was so many times. And I was like, hold on one minute. I'm just gonna get something from the hallway and I'd go out there and Google the problem or look up at a book. And you know these days, probably not so much looking up in a book, but that's the way we did it.
And I really wanted to put my efforts into a national organization. I thought belonging was really important. And so for me, the American Academy of Otolaryngology -Head & Neck Surgery, easy for me to say, was the organization that I really put my heart and my soul into.
This is the group that I thought represented me in a lot of different ways - in terms of advocacy, research, guidelines, education, and so I said, this is where I'm going to put my time. When I reached out to senior people, I actually will say, I met with a lot of people who were so gracious about giving me their time. And I said, what do we need to know? What are the gaps in our education? What are the gaps in our knowledge?
And I started off in pediatric sleep surgery, which twenty years ago, there were even more gaps than there are today, and there's a lot of gaps today. But it was really useful. I started with a game plan. I thought about the outcomes I wanted to measure. And as many of you know, if you've read some of the things like Atul Gawande who says, just start measuring something. And so I started measuring something.
I literally handed out pieces of paper in my clinic, and I had people fill out some outcomes pre and post all the sleep surgeries that I did, whether it was taking out your tonsils or your adenoids or putting in a hypoglossal nerve stimulator, which didn't happen twenty years ago. But I just started measuring something, something I thought was important. And as I moved along, honestly, I didn't even know how I was going to use that information. But it did help me come up with a plan. And quite honestly, that vision has wandered and gone left and turned upside down and done lots of things. But it gave me a starting point.
So if you're starting to work on your academic career, I want to give you a little bit of an idea why you need to come up with an academic plan. Because it really helped to put me on the right path. Now, some of this is longevity and happiness. Well, that's not even a word. Longevity and happiness. Sorry. But what I really found is by having an idea of where I was going, even if it was wrong, it gave me a really nice idea of what I needed to do, and it gave me a sense of accomplishment. It was great to check things off my list.
Not that long ago, my kids were talking to my wife. And they literally asked her when she said, oh, we're gonna write down some things we need to get done. They said, do you need to use check boxes? I think I may have, you know, spent too much time doing scut in my youth. But in any case, I do think that checking those things off not only gives you this sense of accomplishment, but gives you confidence that you can attain the things that you want to attain.
The other important thing I think is coming out of this conversation clearly is that adapting to change is important.I started off with this idea of exactly what I wanted to do, and over time it's really changed. You know, there was no point in my early career when I said, I'm probably going to want to start a utilization management group and learn how to do something I have no idea what I'm doing. I started off saying, I want to make my mark in sleep surgery. I want to measure outcomes. I want to figure out where we're going next.
So as we think about how to climb the academic ladder, you need goals. And let's think about how you wanna create a strategic career plan.
Now the most important thing I'm going to tell you is when I meet people who talk about how they want to go on this journey, It's understanding what you like and where you want to go. So take a good hard look at yourself. And figure out what you really care about. I've had people I've coached over the years who were so distraught that they really couldn't get their academic research career going when it turns out they really didn't like research.
Maybe they liked QI and that was an area they could focus on. Or,they really wanted to focus on education. But we get this preconceived notion of what we're supposed to be doing in our career, and sometimes it doesn't fit with really what we love. Now start by looking at what are you good at. What do you love? Knowing yourself is really the most critical step.
And it may be that you'd partner with people who like the pieces that you don't or you veer and do something different. This assessment may involve a formal process where you look at your strengths and your weaknesses. You come up an idea of your interests and values. Or it may just be some soul searching about what you really care about.
The other thing to talk about is knowing where the gaps are.Where's your research focus? Where do we need to learn things? This may start as, you know, an in-depth look at the literature, which can be the first thing you publish in your area. It may be interviewing senior people in your field to really learn. Where are the gaps and and where is an opportunity?
It also can involve working with your friends. There are times where you absolutely can enjoy working with people you like. Answering questions you both have, especially from different institutions where you might be able to pool data and actually come up with better answers. But I really do recommend going to conferences, listening, asking questions. And quite honestly, so many of my research ideas came from listening to smart questions other people answered.
And then think about the next step. Maybe it was a negative study, and they were not showing what they thought their original hypothesis was, but it gave me an idea for what might really be going on. It also allows you to network with colleagues, those senior folks who you can talk to ,and the friends that you can work with as you go on over time.
I talked at the beginning of this about really setting some goals, and I think this is critically important. It keeps you focused. It keeps you excited.
And like I said, it builds confidence and a sense of accomplishment.
Now in a previous blog, I talked a little bit about attaining goals. And one of the most useful frameworks and easiest to start with is the SMART format. Tthis is goals that are specific measurable, achievable (but not too easy), relevant to what you want to do for your bigger goals or vision. And time bound, they need to have some deadlines.
In an ideal world, you should be stretching but not doing too much. Make sure you really can accomplish these things. So that you actually can move yourself forward. And this is important whether you're talking about what you want to do in your personal life or what you want to do in your research or academic life.
The other thing that may be important for you is to sharpen your skills. Figure out what else you need to know or who else you may need to know in order to get where you need to go. And it may be something as simple as a new clinical skill like I worked on at the beginning of my career or how to code most effectively so that you're using and getting reimbursed for the time you're spending. It could be how to write a great grant application or how to lead your group or your practice or your team.
Then also consider asking for some of these things when you start your career.
It may be coaching or a certification or an advanced degree. Or just learning about a research methodology, all of which can be really useful.
Now the other thing that's critical for these is to have mentors and coaches who help you along the way. They can help show you the ropes. They can help you navigate your institution. And hopefully provide you some guidance and feedback, especially feedback. Because you need people who are going to tell you the truth. When what you're doing is maybe not as good as it could be or they can pick something great and make it even better. You want to look for people who are genuinely committed to the relationship and who are willing to invest the time. And who you like!
The last thing I want to mention is evaluating your project. Sorry. That was progress. So evaluate your progress, which is really important when you're setting goals. Are you meeting them?
And sometimes, if you're not meeting them, it's that you're not focused, but maybe the goals aren't the right thing and you just have to find something new. So assess in both ways.
When we think about tips for climbing the ladder, There's some pretty easy ones we all recognize, so publish and research. Anybody in academic medicine or any academic specialty for that matter know that a strong publication record really does help you get promoted. Now this also may include seeking opportunities for research funding, And one thing I'm going to tell you, which I think is not so obvious when you start, is that collaborations are the way to go.
I've had many colleagues who are worried about people stealing their ideas. But what they don't recognize is that maybe somebody can contribute to ideas, maybe they can make it better. Honestly, if you write a paper together, what's so great is if you each have the next idea and you spearhead the project but include the other person rightfully in the process They can help with the ideas, they can help collect data, they can help interpret the data and write the paper. Then all of a sudden, you have two people who are helping build your academic productivity. As you collaborate with more people, this continues to mushroom until really, there's things happening all over the place that are exciting, you wanna be involved in, and don't require you to do every single step from beginning to end in order to publish.
As I mentioned already, I really think that networking is an integral part of building an academic community and climbing the ladder. This includes attending conferences, joining professional organizations, and participating. There are a lot of people who join a committee and never really raise their hand or they raise their hand and they never really finish what they say they're going to do. So be the person who raises your hand and finishes the job.
I also think professional development is really important.
So at these same conferences and workshops, should be enhancing your skills. You should be learning what's new in the field. It may be something you need to learn. It may be a new guideline, a new strategy, a new surgery, a new research method. But keep up to date.
And visibility is important. So some of that networking and that professional development can help with that. Absolutely publishing can. But try and get involved in speaking engagements, getting on a committee, getting on a panel, and raise your hand whether it's asking a smart question or asking to help with something on a committee, these things really help.
And don't forget to enjoy your life along the way. I will tell you I spent many years really loving everything about my career but probably not integrating it with my life nearly as well as I should have. And maybe I had a too big of a swing the other direction for a while where I was much less interested in my career and really enjoying my family, but I feel like I'm hitting that sweet spot now where I'm recognizing how important it is for me? Not to balance because I've never really been able to balance, but to try and integrate the two together.
I hope some of these tips might be useful for you. I also have a checklist for promotion that's available on my website if you'd like to look at how to work your way through some of these. You can find that at www.medicalmentorcoaching.com or go to Instagram and DM me the word CHECKLIST. I hope this was useful, and I look forward to talking to you again in the future.
