~tasha~
Age: 124
Total Posts: 47628
Points: 0
Location:
United Kingdom, United Kingdom
I give you my top 10 things to do as a young academic generalist to prepare
yourself for success(from ACOG May 2007)
1. Chart your course. You must set goals. "If you don’t know where you are
going, don’t be surprised when you get there!" Your road may lead down the
clinical track or tenure track. Initial goals will be set for you by your
superiors and mentors. Set realistic goals and time frames. When is it
reasonable to win a teaching award, write a paper, submit a grant, or
develop unique surgical expertise? What will be your balance of teaching,
clinical work, and research time? Make sure you have an annual review with
your department or division head to keep track of your progress toward
goals. You should initially have mentor reviews every 2 or 3 months. One
mentor told me to make a list of 1-, 5-, and 10-year goals. This has been
helpful in keeping me focused on the road ahead. I even try to picture
myself at these landmarks without losing my hair.
2. Find a mentor. Better yet, find a few. The earlier you do this, the
better. When I got to Indiana, I went to talk to every researcher I could
find to discuss the clinical research environment on campus. One person will
often give you the names of several others with whom it might be good to
talk. Start with your department chairman. He or she can usually point you
in the right direction. This opened doors and career paths I never dreamed
of and is an ongoing source of collaboration. You don’t have to start from
scratch. Others in your center can help you out if they want to. You may
find the perfect mentor outside of your department or even your school. Not
everyone you meet will be a perfect match, but eventually you will click
with someone genuinely interested in mentoring you.
3. Venture forth. There are benefits to going away after residency. While
some very talented physicians can make the jump from chief resident to staff
in one day (one examination actually), you may be setting yourself up to
still be considered a "resi-staff" for a year or two as many of the staff
still see you as a resident and the residents still see you as their
colleague and not their staff. Being a junior faculty member is hard enough
without trying to shed the mantle of the last 4 years of residency as well.
Understandably, you may have personal circumstances that require staying in
the area. Although it may be advantageous to "know the territory" already by
staying in the same place, moving on allows for clean starts. You get to
bring "your" method of doing something to another center. Going out and
practicing a few years on your own to find out what "your" method of doing
something is may be good, but that is another topic altogether. Don’t be
afraid to investigate, interview, and visit somewhere new. Find the best
"fit" for you.
4. Get the training you need. Faculty development seminars are helpful.4 At
many institutions, there are leadership seminars, grant writing seminars,
and many others designed to help nurture junior faculty. Take a postgraduate
course at the ACOG Annual Clinical Meeting to learn a new procedure.
Nonclinical postgraduate courses on topics such as negotiation, research
methodology, and use of library resources, to name a few, can be extremely
helpful. Learn the nuances of being an effective teacher. Improve your
knowledge of research methodology by applying for the Berlex Foundation
course (www.berlex-foundation.org).5 You may want to pursue a masters degree
in public health, epidemiology, or clinical research. No one learns
everything in residency. Residency prepares you for practice, to be a great
ob-gyn physician. Residency often does not prepare you to be an excellent
teacher or researcher. Commitment to lifelong learning and development of
your skill set will make you happier and will make you a sought-after
commodity in the academic world.
5. You can be a triple threat. You may be discouraged by some, but if you
truly think you can do it, excel in teaching, service, and research.
Luckily, tenure committees only make you excel in one, but you still have to
be good at the other two. Trying to do everything well is not a crime. Just
make sure that, in your pursuit of doing it all fantastically, you don’t end
up doing nothing well. Although most young academic generalists choose the
clinical track so that they are not forced to perform basic research, you
will still need to demonstrate scholarship and contribute to overall
knowledge to advance in academia. So tackle what feels right and do an
excellent job but do not feel limited in what you do well. Senior academic
mentors on faculty promotion and tenure committees will let you know if you
are on track.
6. Get a life. Many residency graduates pursue an academic career under the
notion that the lifestyle will be better than in the private practice world.
However, if you don’t pursue life outside of the ivory tower, you will not
end up with one. You still must produce since there are no free rides, but
humanism can make you a better person and a better doctor. This is where
your significant other, family, friends, and hobbies come into play.6 Have
fun. Work hard at work, then leave it there and go home. Your patients will
survive without you working 100 hours per week. You can go to a ball game or
travel. Watch your kids grow up, go to parent-teacher conferences, date if
you are single, find Mr. or Mrs. Right, get involved with your spiritual
community and/or the arts, check some things off your life’s "to do" list.
It will make you a better teacher and colleague.
7. Don’t focus too much. This is hard. All around you, people are telling
you that you won’t succeed without academic focus. "No one likes a
dilettante." I would contend, however, that the reason you are a generalist
is because you like many things in the specialty. You can make yourself
extremely valuable to your department, school, etc., if you have the skills
to be a "go-to" person in multiple situations. Although being the world’s
best surgeon and having the fastest/safest hysterectomy times may be
professionally satisfying, you probably still like to deliver babies. Don’t
close doors. Keeping an open mind will also leave you open to serendipity.
You will meet someone in academia who will change your professional life.
Your career may take a turn that you never would have expected. If you are
so invested and focused on one particular thing, you may either miss out or
be unable to switch gears to what may be a more personally and
professionally exhilarating pursuit. You can work on a theme to your career
without wearing blinders. As your career progresses, you should be able to
nurture the emerging themes into a focus that will make you stand out.
8. Join up and be active. Exercise this one with caution. The last thing you
need as you are charting your course is to be on five different hospital and
school committees at the beginning. Your life will be one meeting after
another. Set limits and find a focus to your activities. Look for
opportunities that relate to your focus and don’t have massive time
requirements and then jump in. You will meet more people on campus. The
networking potential is huge. Networking goes right back to no. 2 above. The
more people you meet and get to know, the b
