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.
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.
Hey everyone, welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.
I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is such a pleasure to be talking with you today.
Today I am extraordinarily happy to introduce our guest on the show, and it is Dr. Gabby
Hobbs.
She is an amazing, amazing clinician, researcher, scientist.
She's done so many things, and I won't do it justice if I try to introduce her.
So I'm actually going to ask Dr. Hobbs.
Gabby, welcome to the show.
Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Hey Teyasi, thank you so, so much for that very kind introduction.
So my name is Gabby Hobbs.
I am the clinical director of the Leukemia Service at Mass General Hospital in Boston,
and I am a clinical investigator, and I specialize in the care and research of patients with
maloperulative neoplasms.
I'm so excited to be here with you.
Thanks for joining us.
So Dr. Hobbs, you're not a PhD.
Nope.
You did MD training, like I did.
And one of the things that I think definitely was hard for me is coming through all this
clinical training and then turning out on the other side as a clinician scientist or
clinician researcher, physician scientist, however you want to address yourself.
But I wonder, what was the turning point for you at which you were like, yeah, I'm a physician
scientist.
I'm doing this.
I'm a researcher.
What was that turning point for you?
It's funny that you ask it that way because when you say it, I'm like, oh, is that really
what I am?
So I don't know that there's ever a point where you're like, oh yeah, this is what I
am.
But in all seriousness, I think as I went through fellowship, all of the training was
geared at making me or making my co-fellows, both clinicians and investigators.
And so I kind of left fellowship feeling like that was my reality and that's what I was,
that's who I was.
But really you realize once you become faculty that actually becoming that person takes many
years, many, many years in the making.
And so I think little by little that reality dawns on you when you first start and it takes
a few years to actually believe that that's what you are.
And I think that's part of why when you asked me, you know, when did that dawn on you?
I don't always believe it still.
You know, it's an interesting thing you share.
It's like you talk about this gradual process of becoming, right?
You went through fellowship where that was the goal of the fellowship.
But in the process, you didn't end the fellowship as a researcher.
You've kind of been growing into the role.
Now I want you to talk about the aspects of your fellowship that contributed to you kind
of becoming at least a little bit more of the investigator that you were before entering
into fellowship.
Because I don't think everybody has that experience in fellowship.
Yeah, sure.
So I think a lot of it depends really on where you get your training.
And for me, it felt like my fellowship program only had one viable endpoint.
I mean, and then that's, you know, I'm sort of simplifying a little bit because of course
not all my co-fellows ended up doing this.
But the question really was at the beginning of fellowship, not are you going to do research,
but are you going to be a lab investigator or are you going to be a clinical investigator?
And so it always felt like that was the purpose of fellowship to learn how to become some
form of an investigator.
So throughout my whole fellowship training, all of everything that I did in my second
and third year in particular was geared at learning how to write clinical trials, identifying
a mentor that I could write a clinical trial with, thinking about projects that I could
accomplish during fellowship, but it was all very contained.
And it was rare that I had full autonomy or ownership over the direction of where the
research was going.
So it felt like a very safe way to be a researcher under the wings of somebody that was already
fully established.
And so then that's why I think when you're a fellow, it's easier to believe that you're
that investigator because you already participate in research that was established by somebody
before you.
So then tell me about the transition.
So now transitioning into your own independent faculty career, how did you keep that fire
going with regards to being an investigator?
Yeah, no doubt.
I think the most challenging transition, and I heard this when I was a fellow, and I really
do believe that the most challenging transition in medicine is, or at least for me was, when
I finished fellowship and then I started from scratch in a new location as an attending
physician and all of a sudden my colleagues around me expected me to be the person that
I told them I was going to be when I interviewed in fellowship.
And that transition is really difficult, especially I think if you go to a new institution where
you're not known by your colleagues there as the fellow that did X, but all of a sudden
you are this attending and by definition you brought in this expertise.
And so there for a few years I really felt like I have to fake it until I make it.
And it felt very uncomfortable initially because I was expected to be an expert in an area
where I personally didn't feel like I had enough expertise because I had just been a
fellow yesterday.
And so that initial transition was difficult.
What kept my fire going and what has really been very, very, very helpful for me from
the beginning to where I am now is having a very clear direction and having a very well
defined niche.
And I can't emphasize that enough and I talk to my trainees about that all the time.
When you start in a new place, when you transition, having a clear goal and whether that is a
niche in a specific area of oncology or a specific type of research, I find that that
really helped to direct me.
So when I felt like I wasn't necessarily making progress or I didn't exactly know what the
immediate next step was to accomplish a task, I at least knew where I was going overall.
So even if I was hitting some dead ends, because man, you hit a lot of dead ends at the beginning,
at least having a clear sense of, well, these doors may not be opening the way that I want
them to or this project may not be working, but my overall goal is to get to here.
And so when I started as faculty, to put it in perspective, I was hired to be the myeloproliferative
neoplasm person.
So I was going to be the expert in MPNs and I was going to start a research program for
MPN patients.
And so I was very fortunate that I was able to do that.
That's what I wanted to do.
And I had a lot of room to do what I wanted to do, but also that room is overwhelming.
And so sometimes it's kind of difficult to actually get started.
And so knowing that I had a clear mission really, really helped.
So I think that's very helpful for Neutronies.
I love it.
Gabby, there are a couple of things you said that I really do want to highlight for our
listeners.
You talked about how you were faking it until you made it.
And one of the things that I think is so important is just the mindset shift.
It's like everybody was looking at you as the expert, no matter what they thought about
the fact that you had just come from fellowship, you were the expert.
And somehow you were just filling in until you believed that you were the expert.
And so what you were doing at the beginning didn't necessarily change until you finally
figured out that, hey, I am the expert.
But it was really your mind was changing.
One day you had been the fellow and the next day you were the attending.
And that shift was just so big.
I mean, it was so big for me too.
It was like, you know, they seem to be buying this thing.
Okay.
But it's so important.
And the biggest, I think the person we most have to convince is ourselves, right?
It's not really other people.
And maybe there's some other people who will never be convinced, whatever.
But really the biggest convincing we need to do is for ourselves.
And so a lot of the work really is mindset work is changing our minds about how we see
ourselves so that if we're fortunate, we start to see ourselves as other people see us.
But sometimes we're not fortunate and we have to see ourselves the way we see ourselves,
whether other people see us that way or not.
So definitely I love the way you highlighted the mindset work that really needs to happen
to make that transition.
And then the second thing you said that was so awesome, I just want to just drill down
on it is just you talked about how you had a clear sense of where you were going.
And I have to say, Gabby, everybody doesn't have that clear sense, but you did.
And that was like your guiding compass so that even when you're lost, like the GPS,
you put in the directions, you're going to get there or you have no GPS.
You go ask me, you're like, I'm on my way here.
How do I get there?
And so I feel like it's so important just to help people recognize that you just got
to own your space.
You've got to own where you are and just determine that that's where I'm going.
And it's not clear, it's kind of fuzzy.
And sometimes you hit dead ends, like you said, but we've really got to take ownership
of it.
Anyway, so I wanted to just highlight those two things and then ask if there was anything
else you wanted to add to that.
Yeah, I love that you summarize the second part of owning your space.
I think one of the things that probably makes the transition from trainee to faculty is
learning that your space is yours to be owned and truly taking that very, very, very seriously.
We're so used to in our training being told when we have to be on call, when we have to
have elective time or given projects, everything is like more packaged.
And then all of a sudden you become faculty.
And whether or not you're fortunate to have one very clear direction or you start out
trying to figure out what that direction is, making sure that you realize that you are
no longer a trainee and you can create space around you to grow is just so important.
And I've seen this time and again with a lot of junior faculty where they continue to ask
for permission about a lot of different things, whether that be something as small as can
I end my clinic a little bit earlier today because I have to go do whatever.
And it's like, yes, it's your clinic.
You can do that.
Or that is something as simple as saying, I can't do that review or I can't participate
in that project because those things won't fill the needs that I need to fulfill in order
to create and develop my space and my niche and all those things.
So realizing that that space is yours to create is also a very important part of that.
You were talking about, Do you see the mindset of making that space your own and being successful
in that initial growth.
And it's not that straightforward.
I think sometimes it takes a few years to figure out how to really carve that out.
Yeah.
Gabby, it's such a great point.
It is so hard because we've been trainees for so long.
I with med school and residency and fellowship, for me, it was 10 years.
For some people, it's a little bit longer than that.
But you are for 10 years or more, you've been in that mindset of like, well, this is what
I've been asked to do.
This is where I'm supposed to go.
This is what the end result is supposed to look like.
And then there's such a transition to faculty where it's like you're on your own.
How do people accelerate that transition where they stop thinking like a trainee, acting
like a trainee and really owning them their roles as a faculty member?
Well, that is a hard question.
I think there's this mixture of being humble and being able to ask all the people around
you for as much advice as you can.
Whereas on the other hand of that, also being able to develop boundaries that keep you sane
and keep your career moving in the direction that you wanted to go.
So both learning how to ask for help while also setting up some space.
And I think that that takes a little bit of time.
And I think we don't talk about it enough.
I've seen it a lot with like I was saying before with younger faculty where they show
up and they're still in that trainee mentality where they're looking around and saying, all
right, well, who's going to give me a project?
And a lot of becoming a successful attending with whatever research you're going to do
to fill the research career that you want has to be self-driven.
And so learning how to both ask for it and create on your own I think is sometimes probably
part of what makes that transition so difficult.
And I think just if I could at least tell it to your audience and just in general to
the people that I mentor is learning how to create their own project or make their own
space.
I don't want people to wait for things to be given to them.
I love what you said though about asking for help because what you're not asking is who
should I become?
Who should I be?
You're saying this is what I want to become.
This is the help I need to get there and that's so important.
I feel like we put people in a tough situation where we're saying, who should I be?
How should I live in this world?
And it's like, they can't tell you.
And sometimes people are earnest and they're really just trying to help you, but they're
not helping you because they can't tell you who you are, who you need to be, but they
can give you help to get there if you've decided who that person needs to be.
And so I think some of the work you're talking about, like in a sense is unspoken is that
you got to figure out who you want to be, how you want to show up in this world.
And nobody's going to help you do that.
You kind of have to decide on your own.
And for me, working with a coach helped me figure that out.
It took me a long time, but some people kind of know from the beginning.
So when you're going to ask for help, you're not saying, well, should I be a myeloma person?
I know I'm kind of the MDS person, but should I be the myeloma person?
And maybe they think it's yes, but now you're kind of off track.
But if you're like, I'm the MDS person, this is what I came to do or I'm the MPN person.
Then they can be like, well, this is what the MPN person should be doing, or this is
what you should be applying for.
These are the resources available to you.
So they can help you if you give them something to help you with.
What a great point.
And I think learning how to ask for that help is not something that everybody knows how
to do immediately out of fellowship.
Because I think that what more people are asking is either to be given something that's
already created or asking for an identity.
And no mentor is going to either give you your identity or shape that research career
for you.
I think one of the beauties and also one of the things that's so overwhelming about academics
is that you do have the flexibility to craft your career to a way that makes sense for
you.
And nobody's going to care about that as much as you are going to care about that.
And so learning how to look around you and saying, listen, this person may not be in
my exact same space, but the type of research that they do in this area appeals to me.
So I'm going to ask them specifically for that.
And so taking the most of your environment in order to craft that career for yourself
until you yourself figure out exactly what you want them to look for is so important.
But not going and asking, please shape this career for me.
I think I want to be around here is pretty difficult, I think, at the beginning.
I love what you said.
And it really reminds me of how we can help our mentors succeed in mentoring us when we're
clear on how they come to help us.
And sometimes it helps us to see that we actually have more access to mentors than we thought.
So many of us were thinking about the one big mentor who's going to shape my identity
and give me everything I need and feed me and clothe me.
And yeah, I mean, it's so much that we have to learn as clinicians who never did research,
right?
We need to learn how to write and submit manuscripts, take them all the way through revisions.
We need to learn how to write and submit grants, take them through revisions.
We need to learn to create writing structures.
There's so much we need.
And one person is really not going to be able to give us all of it.
And if we ask them to, we're so needy, so desperate, we end up chasing off a lot of
people who could be helpful to us.
But when we kind of think, okay, well, I need help in grant writing, there's a grant writing
program at my institution, I'm going to go do that.
And then I'm going to ask my mentor, okay, I've written this first draft of this piece
of the grant, can you help me take it further?
It's giving them very tangible things that they can help you do.
They can help you win.
But when you're like, tell me, tell me how to get there.
Tell me who I am.
It's hard to help you win.
And to be honest, I think a lot of people bulk at that.
And they're like, I can't be your mentor.
This is too much for me.
I love that you said that.
And I remember, sorry, when I was in fellowship, literally from day one, it was ingrained in
my mind that I needed to find, and I always say it this way, this like unicorn of a mentor,
this person that was going to do all of these things for me.
And I never found that person.
So then I thought there was something wrong with me.
And I was like, never going to be successful in research.
And exactly like you said, I think learning how to find mentorship from the people that
are around you in a way that's tangible, that doesn't, that's not like you said, you know,
please help me with everything in the world and like help shape my career is so important
because I think one of the things that you don't realize when you're a trainee, and it's
kind of like being a child and then a parent is really, I mean, mentors are busy, you know,
and they're generally not mentoring one person only, and they usually have lots of responsibilities.
And so the mentee interactions that I've had that have been the most successful and
mentor interactions have been most successful are when there are clear agenda, there are
recurring meetings that mentee is able to like take charge of that relationship and
say, would it be okay if we meet with this frequency?
Would it be okay if I send you this manuscript so you can help me with this section where
I'm struggling?
And so I think that that skill is one that I think should be more emphasized in fellowship
and in like early transition, as opposed to like what I was saying before about finding
that magical type of mentor that, you know, some people really do have and that's wonderful,
but a lot of people don't.
And a lot of people, even if they have that great one mentor, they still would benefit
from asking for advice from other people that have maybe different perspectives.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And I thank you for just shedding light on that because it's so important.
You know, honestly, I have a lot of failed mentoring relationships, not because the mentors
failed me, but because I just didn't know what I wanted, but somehow it was there.
I had a sense of it, even though it wasn't clearly defined.
And instead of defining it for myself, I was asking other people to define it for me.
And so when they took on that challenge to help me define it, then I got upset because
I was like, that's not what I want.
And so clarifying for ourselves what we want helps us to make the most out of our mentors.
And I love what you said about making the most of people around you.
The reality is everything you need is already around you.
And to be honest, we live in a world now where it doesn't even matter where the mentor is.
You get the most out of them.
I mean, we meet virtually now.
I mean, we've always met virtually.
It's become more of a thing now, but just whoever it is across the country who has something
you can benefit from, you can usually find a way to connect to them.
And if you make your ask very, very specific, you're really able to do that.
And so I wonder if you want to speak more to that as people who may be thinking, I don't
have any mentors, there's no one here.
How can they get the most out of the people around them or thinking even across the country?
That is a great question and a really important skill to have.
And again, something that is not spoken about enough and so I'm glad you brought it up.
In the era of virtual everything, it's like you said, it's perfect.
And I would say, don't be afraid to network.
Don't be afraid to cold call or send an email to somebody that you don't know and say, hey,
I read your whatever I saw you in this presentation, et cetera.
Would it be okay if we set up a quick call to talk?
And it's an art, truly.
I think that in our training, we don't learn that much about how to network.
Perhaps some of us have good mentors that introduced us to different people at national
meetings or things like that.
But I really, I didn't appreciate the importance of networking and building those connections
in terms of finding mentorships but also finding people to collaborate with.
And it really can be so, so, so incredibly helpful.
I remember my father would always talk to me about this when I was a medical student.
He was like, you have to go network.
You have to talk to people.
Maybe you should ask this person.
I was like, what are you talking about?
I don't want to do that.
But once you become an attending, especially if you're working in a field where there's
rare diseases or in general, many different careers benefit from collaborations, making
those connections is so important and getting your name out there is so important and building
I think the concepts of building social capital is so important.
So people are like, hey, you know what?
That person called me up one time.
She sounded really motivated and had these great questions, whatever.
Maybe we should include her in this next project.
Those little things that you don't think they're going to be a big thing in the future really
can make a huge, huge difference.
And I'll tell you one story.
When I was starting out, because I was the only person in my institution that was focusing
on the area of leukemia that I focused on, I reached out to somebody in the field that
was very well known.
And it was really like a cold email where I was like, I respected you, Don.
Do you mind if we have a call and we talk about several how you guys started?
He was also Latino in the field of malproliferative neoplasms.
There aren't that many, so you probably wouldn't know who it is.
And to this day, he'll still remember.
And he was like, I was just so impressed by the fact that you just called me and we talked.
And our relationship has been a relationship now of almost a decade.
And so little things can go a long way.
And so reaching out to people that you're interested in and connecting with is a great
idea.
And sometimes you just have to swallow your ego and your pride and say, I'm just going
to do this even though it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable.
I love it.
And thank you for sharing that.
Everybody is excited when someone emails them and says, I love your work or I'm following
your work or your work is inspiration, something.
I mean, it's just like, oh, thank you.
You're not sending me an email to complain about something.
This is so awesome.
And then if you're a young person in the field and you think that you can learn something
from them, what an honor it is to actually say, yes, I'll talk to you.
And to be honest, I think a lot of people don't get enough of that kind of people reaching
out to them.
So I think I want with you to encourage listeners and say, hey, if you want something and it's
not at your home institution and there is someone who exists in this world, definitely
in this country who has it, just be bold and reach out and be nice, be kind, flatter them.
Not in a bad way, but just-
It goes a long way.
Share with them what aspects of them are helpful to you or impressive to you because you notice
them because they're doing work that is meaningful to you.
So definitely, definitely reach out.
I appreciate you that sharing how to network because everyone's always saying network,
but it's like, but how do you do it?
I don't know if you want to speak to more networking tips for our listeners.
Yeah.
I mean, networking is very, very important.
Like you said, not something that we get enough training on.
And it's really not something that I had appreciated.
And I would say take every opportunity that you can to practice networking skills.
When you're at Ash, for example, if there is an event that you feel could be potentially
interesting to you, there's like the women in medicine events on Saturday nights or there's
different types of events throughout the conference, definitely go and step outside of your comfort
zone.
Even if it may not be exactly what you want to do, stand in front of your poster, talk
to people, follow up with things, get people's contact information.
All of those, all of those are easy, easy ways to start networking.
And then definitely, you know, some, some networking stuff has been lost a little bit
with a lot of the virtual meetings because it's much harder to network with a chat on
zoom than it is to network with a coffee break in the middle of a meeting.
Take those opportunities to meet people in person when you can.
Like I said, national meetings are usually a very good place for that.
And yeah, don't, don't be afraid to seek those opportunities out in person is obviously better.
But if you can't do it in person, then like we were saying before, reach out.
And if you don't have that person's information or you really don't feel like you could reach
out to that person directly, I'm sure there's somebody else that you can ask, Hey, do you
mind introducing me to this other person?
And so building those connections, I just can't, I know we sort of said it a little
bit already, but building those connections, especially early in your career, but really
throughout your career is just so important.
Remember, once you become faculty, once you are trying to be, make a name for yourself
as a researcher, it's not about grades and where you're going to match and those kinds
of things.
It really is about who you know and who knows you.
And a lot of it is, you know, if they like you.
And so if they've had good interactions with you, you've been kind to them like you were
saying to me before, people are eager in academics to collaborate with people that are nice.
And so that's just so important.
You don't realize like how those little gestures can actually really go a long way.
So I really would think about that very, be very purposeful about that.
Thank you for sharing that Gabby.
You know, as you're talking, I'm reminded that, you know, being a faculty member is
like a choose your own adventure type of book.
I don't know if you remember those where you're like, you get to decide which way do you go.
And yeah, you may end up in a place where you didn't want to, but you get to walk back
and choose a different adventure, right?
I mean, it's just at the end of the day, the book is still there.
You can choose a different adventure.
And so the key is that you kind of are the one leading your own program.
You're leading your own career.
And yes, it's so awesome.
We have great mentors who can help guide you, but everyone doesn't have that.
And if you don't have that immediately before you, it doesn't mean you can't have a great
career.
And so don't write yourself out of a career as a physician scientist or as a clinician
researcher because you don't have resources right around you.
So thank you.
Thank you for sharing those tips about how to network well.
So I want to ask, you know, I feel like we've had a great conversation.
We've touched on a lot of things.
What would you say is left on set?
So there's someone who's listening and they're like, I just don't know if I can do this.
I didn't have the same kind of great fellowship training the Dr. Hobbs had.
And I don't know if I can make it.
What would you say to them, Gabby, about making this, taking the step to kind of becoming
a physician scientist?
You know, one of the things that I think about a lot as I see people around me transition
in different careers or perhaps leave academia is that the beauty, the beauty in academia
is that like you were saying before, it is choose your own adventure, but that is also
part of what sometimes makes it overwhelming.
So don't be, don't think that you have to do it.
Do it if you want to do it.
And if you don't enjoy it, definitely don't do it.
But if you think that it's something that you're interested in, if it's something that
you want to give it a try, remember that you are going to get out of it what you put into
it.
And I think one of the things that's so special about this type of career is exactly like
you were saying before, you see that you may walk down one path and find that you are somewhere
where you didn't intend to go.
And that can go two ways.
Either you backtrack and you start over, or you realize that actually that place that
you didn't intend to be in, actually not that bad.
And then it takes you down another road.
I think one of the things that's beautiful about a scientific career that way is that
usually one question leads to many other questions.
So it can open the doors for things that you didn't necessarily expect.
But take ownership, don't be afraid to ask, and focus on something that you're interested
in because otherwise it's just not worth it.
So make it worth it for yourself.
I love it.
Gabby, thank you.
What a beautiful note to end on.
I just want to share with our listeners, you heard Dr. Hobbs.
I mean, this is your own journey and you're not stuck and you can make a new thing out
of it if you get to a place you don't want to be.
But definitely decide that you want to be here and then move forward with it or decide
that you don't and then move forward with whatever you choose.
But you're not stuck.
You have agency.
You can make a career for yourself that allows you to thrive.
And I think Gabby's just mentioned so many things that would be helpful to so many people.
So I want to invite you, if you have heard something that resonated with you and you're
like, somebody else needs to hear this, share this episode with them.
If you're a mentor and you're like, my mentees need to hear this, please forward it on.
I think more people need to hear that this is doable, that even though it's hard and
even though it's challenging, there are many ways to make it work.
And so please share this episode as best as you can.
Gabby, thank you so much for being with us today.
It's been such a pleasure to have you.
Thank you for sharing gold with our audience.
Thank you so much for having me, Taysa.
All right, everyone.
Until next time, take care.
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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