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.
Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.
I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is such a privilege to be here.
It's such a pleasure because I have the amazing Dr. Betty Pace.
Betty, welcome to the show.
Thank you, and thank you so much for having me.
I don't know if I've ever told you, Betty, but you transformed my life because you were
director of the Pride program.
You are the director of the Pride program at FT in Augusta, and that was the first time
I ever really had anybody tell me about what it meant to succeed in academic medicine.
So I want to say thank you for that, and I want to thank you on behalf of all of us who've
come through Pride and been touched by you.
Thank you.
So if you would please introduce yourself to the audience, how did you come upon this
journey of being a clinician turned researcher and a badass one at that?
Well thank you so much for kind introduction and the vote of confidence for what I do.
But my journey started a long time ago as a teenager when I came into contact with someone
with sickle cell disease and that impacted me so much that I wanted to do research in
sickle cell disease and take care of individuals with the disease.
So from that point on I worked very hard in high school, college.
That goal in mind is to go to medical school and take care of patients with sickle cell
disease and do research.
It's a long road, a long road, medical school and residency and then pediatric hematologist.
I'm a hematologist, so another year, three years in that.
And then I did a post-doctoral for four years because in order to be competitive at research,
bench research, I felt I needed more training.
Even though I trained as a medical doctor, I didn't have the bench research training.
So after the four-year post-doc, I then said I'm ready and I started my lab, seeing patients,
I wanted to have a teaching lab.
So I think that's kind of where the teaching, mentoring part of it came along.
I made it so I was doing the research I wanted to do, but then I also wanted to develop my
other talent, which would be for teaching and mentoring.
So I started off with dress-styled students in my lab who rotate through the lab, medical
students.
You know, we always had a lot of people once.
It's been a summer in the lab.
And then in 2006, said, okay, let's start a formal training.
And I applied to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
And we were funded to start the PRIDE program.
I have to say what it means.
Program to increase diversity in the health related research.
And we have been going ever since.
We're in our 15th year.
We focus on mentoring and training young people like yourself, underrepresented junior faculty,
teaching you how to develop a career plan, research, balance between your clinical and
research, and apply for grants so you can become independent investigators.
So after 15 years, we've been very successful.
We've trained 114 mentees, and they're all, the majority, doing very well with grant funding,
K awards, R01, they're all amos.
Very, very impressive.
But I wouldn't change anything.
It's a lot of work, but I love doing it.
And seeing young people flourish, they give me such a great pleasure.
So today, coming back and talking with you and your success, I do remember our conversations
about what you should do.
I think it's about the mentoring and instilling the confidence that you can do this.
And we don't have that as underrepresented, especially underrepresented.
So I think that that is what drives me to do this, and I'll keep doing it.
Well, thank you for your work.
And one thing that you said, you've been very successful.
I love the way you own it.
And you have been very successful.
This is nationally known that among programs throughout the country that are focused on
increasing representation in research, you have been one of the most, if not the most,
successful program.
What is your secret sauce?
I think it comes from within, and your dedication and genuine, my genuine desire to see young
investigators be successful.
And that makes me happy.
So I work really hard.
And when that happens, and that gives me the fuel to keep going and do it again.
Sometimes some of the young people say I was a taskmaster.
I worked them a little too hard.
But sort of like your children, it's hurting me more than it hurts you kind of thing.
But I think it is really the caring, I try to communicate to the trainees that I really
care about you and your success.
And when you're successful, I'm successful.
That's the way I view it.
And so I think people really can pick up on that.
And the long-term relationships, I still communicate with people who first turned in the first year
in 2007.
We're like a family, a network.
And so I think you get a lot out of it.
They saw the value.
And it's interesting you should ask about that.
I just saw an article yesterday that was published from NCI.
It's still talking about how underrepresented faculty, they do not have mentoring opportunities.
Same story.
So NHLBI had a lot of insight when they started the PIAD program.
It is very successful, not just my program, but all the other programs that are funded
too.
There's eight other programs.
And I think NHLBI is in it for the long haul and really want to increase diversity.
So secret sauce is love, I guess.
I love it.
You know, I was going to ask you next, what is the biggest challenge that you see for
increasing representation in science?
It is hard work.
You have to, when the young people come into my program, I think it's the lack of confidence
that they can do it.
And so if you don't have someone encouraging you and teaching you at the same time and
mentoring on how you can be successful, then you just, you know, stop out and say, I can't
do this.
And, you know, I'm not saying that just going and taking care of patients is less important,
you say, I'm going to do what I can do best.
I'm going to go see patients and become a clinician.
But for the research part of it, you have to steal the confidence that they can do it.
And I think that's really important.
And if you don't get mentoring, where is it going to come from?
You know, most people in your family don't know anything about research.
And you can't talk to family members, you know.
I try to describe my research and be like, what's this?
So I think the early on mentoring, even high school undergraduate and instilling in underrepresented
students and STEM students that they can do it as well.
And keeping that confidence going, even through junior faculty, because you still need the
support for sure.
But I think that is a key problem.
The resources and mentoring is just not there.
It isn't.
One thing that I see that's unique about your program is that you take on faculty who have
already started, have maybe even been on faculty for a few years.
And many times I hear the sentiment that, well, if you finished your fellowship and
you didn't get the research training, it's too late for you.
Can you speak to that?
That's a very good question and probably sort of lose what I was saying previously.
When I finished my fellowship, I myself felt I was not ready to compete as a faculty member.
So that's why I was fortunate enough to get Harold Ames funding and to do a postdoctoral
fellowship and get more training.
So if you want to do be a physician scientist and have like a research lab, independent
lab and CLC patient, you really do need more training.
And I recommend that for people who really want to dedicate their career to be a research
scientist.
However, there are other areas that you can go into and be very successful doing clinical
research, which you probably don't need more postdoc.
You can get a master's and enhance your ability there.
So there's many ways for MD by training to expand their capability to do research.
It doesn't have to all be bench research.
Now the implementation research, all these types of research are very valuable.
So you can become a more general clinician scientist.
You know, physician scientist traditionally refers to people who want to do the bench
research, but there are many tracks that you can go on.
But the key is when you get your first faculty position is negotiating to have the time to
continue to develop.
And that's the one thing that I think is a weakness of the program is that NHLBI does
not allow us to recruit fellows.
If we can get a third year fellow, help them negotiate the package, find their faculty
position, I think we have a jumpstart in the process.
But you know, when you all came to us, you've already got your faculty position.
Look, you're already stuck with a bad package.
So what can we do?
You know, 90% club going, 10% research time, oh, yay.
But you know, we still try to work with other people like that in the prior program.
They were not as successful, but I think it will still be valid to get that experience,
to feel like they're a part of a network.
So there's more that comes out of the prior programs and, you know, always getting a grant.
But both people, even when they didn't get grant, they learned better, they learned how
to operate better, and they got the promotions, you know, so they were better positions and
able to compete better.
So there are a lot of different things that can come out of the program.
Now let me ask you this.
For, and you mentioned something about kind of the, you already have the faculty position,
you're stuck with a position that doesn't support research.
Who are the people who succeed versus those who struggle in the pride program?
The most successful mentees are those who have protected time.
When they come to the pride program, then they have the time to really spend in pride
learning what they need to learn, doing the grant writing, publications.
We have some extra training opportunities we have now for pride, taking advantage of
their pride mentor, there's extra expertise.
So they have the time to make it happen.
So the most ideal training would be an MD who has a 70-30, 70% protected time.
And we have MDs like that.
I'm very impressed.
They negotiate nice packages and have 70% protected time for three to five years.
So if they can build, get that K award, get the research going, et cetera.
And some are doing bench research and some are doing clinical research.
The most challenging is the basic scientists who's at the teaching faculty, teaching institution,
I should say.
And they do a lot of teaching.
So their duties are look at doing all kinds of coursework, different courses, three or
four courses a semester, and then you can't do anything.
You're always teaching and grading to us and taking care of the students.
So those trainees tend to have more challenge.
But I would say whether you're doing bench, clinical, it's having protected time.
And number two, some financial support.
A startup package to help you get your program going.
We hire some people to help you as hard as a startup program and you're the only person
underneath the research assistant associate something to help you no matter what your
focus is.
So having protected time, funding.
And then key is that you're in a department where your leadership, whether it's your division
chief or chair of PEEDS or medicine, they really want to see you succeed and you're
in a good environment.
You can come to all the private programs in the world, but if you go back home and no
one's supporting you, we just put you right back into the same environment.
And unfortunately, that happened with several of our private mentees as well.
So it's complicated.
It is.
I will tell you that I was one of your mentees who joined at 80% clinical time with 20% protected
time.
And it's definitely been a journey.
And I would say that-
Well, remind me what year did you-
I was in 2015, the year my life changed forever.
It doesn't seem like it's been eight years.
Wow.
So talk a little bit about what your success has been too and what you got out of the pride.
Absolutely.
So I think the biggest thing I got out of the pride program was just awareness.
I think nobody tells you what you're supposed to do as a faculty member.
I didn't even really realize I wasn't ready.
I was a clinician.
I figured being a clinical person and doing research, it was going to be okay.
And I came to my faculty position and I wasn't felt to be qualified to get a research supported
position.
And so I got the 20% protected time and I thought, well, okay, I can make this work.
And what I didn't realize was it was not a setup for success.
And so I was doing these projects and really running with them, trying to move them forward.
And when I came to the pride program, I remember you just laid out for us what we should be
pursuing as a faculty member.
And I remember that whole week, it was probably two and a half weeks, I feel like.
And I was like, oh my gosh, it was like you blew my mind.
I was like, nobody told me.
How is it that nobody told me that this is what I'm supposed to be doing?
And I remember asking you, you may not remember, you've had so many of us, but I was like,
why is nobody telling me that this is what I'm supposed to do?
And I said, but what if we're not supported to do that?
And you said, you're going to have to start to have those conversations.
And so I went back to my institution and I said, hey, this is what I'm supposed to be
doing.
I was supposed to be submitting a K. And I think people were like, you're not ready.
I'm like, no, I need to submit it now.
Yes.
They were the worst case ever, but they got me started.
Yes.
And it gets you on the right track.
And you're fortunate you had people who supported you.
Now that doesn't excuse the fact that they were not mentoring you.
You know, it is what it is.
One of the things that you mentioned earlier is caring, right?
And I think what I've run into in my experience, and I'm glad to be where I am, is that if
people don't believe you can, then there's no energy to help you.
They say, well, you just can't do it too bad.
But there's something else, you know, and then they send you off to do the work you
can do.
And that's where I found myself, where I felt like I didn't have people who believed I could.
And you were the first person who believed I could and gave me the tools I needed to
move forward.
And so it took me a long time.
I was doing heart transplant research when I met you.
I'm a hematologist.
I was doing heart transplant research.
And it was a few grants.
Actually, I probably put in the AMOS maybe three or four times.
And it was one, some of the feedback I finally got where it was like, but what is a hematologist
doing?
I know.
Heart transplant research.
And it was, you know, I was doing other research on the side.
And then it was the first time I said, well, let me just bring the stuff I've been doing
that I care about and make it into a project.
And that was what got me the AMOS.
And along the way, I had started getting support.
So I started on a K-12.
I got the AMOS.
And since then, I've gotten some other foundation awards.
But it's really been a journey.
It's been a journey.
And many doors were closed because I was the phenotype of people who don't succeed.
Right.
But it really did take you jumpstarting me.
And that really made a difference for me.
But that's interesting because I think in your case, I always viewed it as you would
do your hematologist doing cardiac, you know, transplant research.
But it was what was available to you.
It was what you could actually move into.
No one else was competing.
No one else wanted it.
So you took it and made it into something.
And you're still doing hematology type of research, but it was with cardiology patients.
But I think that so often as young faculty, no one's basically sitting down and say, okay,
what do you really, what do you want to do?
What type of research?
What kind of career path development you want to have?
And then developing and supporting what's in your heart.
And most people don't get that.
Well, you know, you've been successful.
You've been able to take that.
And I thought very interesting research.
I think it's kind of cool.
You're a hematologist doing this kind of research.
And you've been successful in the field and leading in the field.
So often young people basically end up doing what samples are available that they can analyze
or what can get them started.
And I think doing that is better than just sitting and not doing anything.
And you know they'll love you to go to clinic and see patients.
There's never a shortage of patients in clinic.
Never.
So you really have to be determined.
If you don't get the protected time in the first five years of your career, you have
to try to steal time from different places and be successful because after you've gone
five years, it's so hard to get started that late.
You know, it's already too late as far as I'm trying to become competitive on a national
basis if you sit and see patients for five years.
So you got to hit the ground running.
Yeah.
Wow.
I want to.
Oh, yes.
I want to talk about the pride program.
How do people apply?
How do they hear about it?
How do they get in on it?
So we're currently in between funding cycle.
Usually the program is funded for now five years.
So starting in 2024, once we receive our notice of award, which I'm confident we will receive,
then we'll open up for recruitment.
And that's where previous trainees become so critical and getting the word out that
we are recruiting for the program.
We have a centralized database where applicants would fill out their application, upload their
CV and letters.
And then after a pre-screen, those applications are sent to us.
We have an admissions committee.
We view the application and decide which applicants have the right type of research.
It needs to be heart, lung, and blood focused research or sickle cell disease.
A lot of young people doing sickle cell disease research.
And then whether or not they have the environment and support at their home institution, this
is critical.
So we ask the chairperson to put in writing that this trainee is going to have to protect
the time to be able to participate in the pride program 100%.
And it's a year long program.
And if they pass all of those things, then we do a...
We do a Zoom interview.
And once we say, this is a good person to possibly recruit, after that our admissions
committee makes a recommendation.
And hopefully, if I present, we'll start recruiting in the winter of 24 or the summer of 24.
So it's really short.
That first year is a quick turnaround.
And so people being able to make the commitment on the first year of training, summer institute
is two weeks, and then they have a mentoring on networking, peer mentoring throughout the
year.
And then they come back the subsequent summer for a second summer institute, which is shorter.
We just see 10 days.
We're playing around with whether the second institute will be virtual, because it is hard
for individuals now to stay for that long.
And after COVID, everybody's pretty much gone to some type of virtual.
So you get an in-person interaction, which is so important to get to know your mentee
colleagues.
And then the second summer, maybe do a little bit of virtual mixed in with it.
And then after that, you get a certificate of completion from Dr. Gibbons at NHLBI.
And since after you trained, starting with the last cohort, they now give pilot funding.
Yes, stats for research pilot project to help jumpstart the mentee's training.
So we're very excited about that.
We now have four cohorts who have been funded through NHLBI.
And we're waiting to see if it translates into more grants and funding.
But it's wonderful to have a little bit of money to get started.
It's not quite as much as like K-12.
And I think it's wonderful to have that pilot funding, so you get training and you get a
little money.
That's pretty awesome.
Well, tell us, what's the inclusion and exclusion criteria?
Okay, it's for underrepresented junior faculty.
You have to have a faculty position.
So you can be finishing your fellowship.
And if you have your letter of offer signed, we can take you.
And underrepresented is defined based on NIH definition, African-American, Hispanic, Native,
Islanders, et cetera, that definition.
You have to be a U.S. citizen.
What else?
You have to be committed.
You have to commit to spend and have the protected time to participate.
And disabled junior faculty, we're actually looking to help train some disabled faculty.
If you have a disability, you can be any race, doesn't have to be underrepresented.
So those are the main criteria.
Assistant professor level is what we most commonly see.
Occasionally, we'll have been an associate professor, but in general, assistant professor
instructors for the bench research and research scientists, they have a faculty position.
I think that's mostly K. Did I miss out?
Did I leave anything out?
Do they have to be a research one institution to participate?
A research one institution?
Like a research one institution.
No, no.
The pride program is there to help anyone who wants to improve their skills, experience
mentoring and be successful in their career.
Our mentees have come from the Ivy League institutions, Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins,
all the way down to the community colleges.
The community undergraduate colleges where they teach, they have a chance to do some
bench research, our PhDs.
And we've been able to turn some of those people, their careers around and they get
funding and they do better and be able to get more protected time.
But we really look at each individual candidate, their potential to be successful, how much
they want it and if they have the support at the institution.
So I would say we go this full spectrum and across the country, we have people from all
the way East Coast, New York, all the way down to San Diego.
But the majority of our trainees come from around Augusta, the Georgia area.
And then a lot come from the Midwest.
Is this only MDs or is this PhDs as well?
You have any degree, it could be MD, MD PhD, straight PhD, veterinary medicine, we've had
people in that, nurses, PhDs, we have a really strong cohort of nurses who are doing research.
DO, so as long as it's a recognized faculty position, I would say about 50% of our trainees
are bench researchers and about 50% MDs.
So it's a pretty hefty split, equal split between them.
But then the majority of our trainees are doing either bench research or clinical research
related to sickle cell disease.
Now I want to ask you about the peer mentoring program.
You have a pretty unique component with the peer mentoring.
Do you want to speak about that?
It is wonderful.
We started the peer mentoring program with our last round of funding for Pride III.
And we just started off experimenting, I did some reading on it and kind of the pros and
cons of peer mentoring and so forth.
But in general, I thought it was more positive than negative.
And so we teamed up with our education institute on campus and we used that faculty who has
some expertise in it to actually set up a peer mentoring program.
I can't remember, did you have peer mentoring during that?
Yes, I did.
Great.
I think I may have been the first cohort.
Okay, okay, very good, very good.
And it was so overwhelmingly successful.
Everybody thought it was just awesome.
And you need many different types of mentors.
You have your environment, your institution mentor to help you with your promotion package
and help you with your career development.
And your institution, you have research mentors who help you and know expert in your research
area.
And then we have the peer mentoring.
They're experiencing the same thing as you.
Even though they have a different perspective that they can give to their peers and make
you more comfortable talking more freely with your peer mentor, then you might feel talking
to your research mentor or someone in your home department.
So I think when you put that all together, we call that a mentoring team, different components.
Research mentor, academic development, career development mentor, peer mentor, and we always
include the whole research or advisor as well.
So we have four members of the research team.
And Pride actually supports someone who's a leader in the field.
Our mentors in Pride are top notch.
One part of it, you know, it's wonderful.
They have never had anyone turn me down to be a mentor.
But I've been invited to the program who I felt could contribute.
We have people like, I think, Mohan and Aria, who have been a mentor in the Pride program
since 2006.
Wow.
Because, you know, he's popular every year and he always participates, very strong supporter.
And so we have a cadre of mentors with different expertise.
So we try to build a team so that you can get everything you need.
And so we've continued the peer mentoring program, we actually had our first publication
on it, which was wonderful.
And thank you for congratulations.
And so that we will keep.
We decided to formalize it, keep it as part of even the next round of funding and see
if we can kind of expand it.
But overall, it's very successful.
And that's based on the response of the mentees.
That's wonderful.
Wow.
I feel like I've asked you as much as I can remember to ask you.
What haven't we talked about, about the Pride program that we should mention?
I've talked everything about the program with the teaching faculty, but I've been amazed
at how dedicated faculty have been to the Pride program and their willingness to come
back the next year or the next year and support it.
I think it gives them a sense of accomplishment and they've contributed to something that's
important.
So from our teaching faculty, we have people who've been teaching a certain topic since
2006, coming every year and teaching it faithfully.
We have mentors like Dr. Narla.
And then we have our staff, which is wonderful.
Natasha Alford, who is our program coordinator, and Mayoko Takazaki, who is our research coordinator.
They are absolutely wonderful.
I always say they run the program.
Our program is unique, which we haven't talked about.
And maybe you can comment on that as well.
Our Summer Institute is a combination of didactic and bench research.
So when you go into the lab and actually conduct some bench research.
And we always have people who want to apply say, well, is that going to be useful for
me?
I'm a clinician and I want to do clinical research.
And I always say you learn how to do structured research, which can then help you do even
better in your clinical research, taking care of your patients.
You learn appropriate approach, learn how to read the literature better.
What's a good study?
What's not a good study?
And even though you may not continue to use that laboratory technique, it expands your
experience.
It really does.
It makes you appreciate the person who's doing bench research.
You know, where they collect data for five years and get one.
Everyone that was concerned when they applied, always come back and say, wow, that was a
great experience.
Don't take it away.
Just a little, you know, just to get them introduced.
And then of course, you know, the bench researchers love it.
So we have the balance between our clinical and our basic science people.
So there's something for everybody.
So we do the fact that now we've expanded and we try to address what research is relevant
at the time.
So for instance, 10 years ago, implementation research wouldn't have been relevant.
Now the health services research, implementation signs, public health research, we now, health
equity, we now try to cover those topics for whatever our mentees need and what the area
of specialty is.
So we're ever changing programs as far as the focus is concerned.
But all we do is sickle cell disease.
You wonder why that is, right?
Maybe because I attract a lot of sickle cell disease researchers, that's my field, that's
what I love.
And then actually having an African American director as a role model as well.
I think that that's very important in the program.
And then one other thing that we've tried to change, the majority of our trainees are
women.
Over the 16 years, about 16 to 70% women.
And so we really want to try to get more men involved.
So that's where we spread the word around and get more men to participate.
But it's not just our program, it's all the private programs.
The trend in medicine, I think, and research.
Can you speak to that a little bit?
What is going on?
Why do we have fewer men interested?
It's a bigger issue in medical school.
If you look at the numbers for the AAMC, there are more women who apply, more women who are
admitted to medical school, and you're feeding that pipeline.
So it's just going to continue further down the pipeline.
It's interesting, in the beginning it seemed like the men are not getting the support or
the women are more ambitious and motivated.
I don't know which one it is.
Probably a little bit of both.
But however, it flips when a male gets a faculty position.
An underrepresented male will have more chances for mentoring than an underrepresented woman.
And I myself, I was fortunate to have one person who cared about my career and helped
me go along and stay on the right path.
But I hear so many women talking about they don't have mentors in their institution.
So I think that it's just a trend.
There are more women than men.
I think the numbers are not quite equal.
And we're hoping that there's a lot of effort to turn it around though, to get more men
involved.
I did a little more heavy promising to men.
They participated in the pride program, you know, give them a little extra kind of thing.
It actually helped.
So in the last couple of cohorts, we have a good three or four men out of a total of
about 10 trainees.
So we're turning it around, but it is a concerning trend that's going on.
Well thank you for everything you do to increase diversity in research.
And you've been so successful and I appreciate all the work you've done.
Do you have any closing comments for our audience?
Well I think that you asked me what would be a burning question for me related to mentoring
and what I've been able to accomplish in the pride program is I would ask the public, even
when I received my award for leadership and diversity for ASH, my plea to the ASH, a
leadership is everybody needs to mentor.
Everybody should have some degree of commitment to mentoring the younger generation because
if we don't do it, no one will and the younger generation will not have the keys they need
to be successful.
So there are faculty I know who've never mentored anybody.
They're very successful, big grants, big labs.
They only mentor maybe a postdoc, but they don't take to heart other junior faculty
and they build strong programs, but they don't reach back in, kind of pay it forward to the
next generation.
So I'm very concerned and always making a plea for people to be more sensitive to mentoring
and be more dedicated to mentoring throughout their career.
I just don't think that we have enough people who want to train a mentor.
Why do you think that is?
It is hard work.
It's like a new baby in a diaper.
It's like having a house full of children.
Yeah, especially something like a pride program where you'd be a mother figure to attend junior
faculty a year and they always, even though I might not be there assigned a research mentor,
it's sort of like a given fact that Dr. Pace, everybody's mentoring and they feel they can
call on me at any time.
And I try to answer because once you become a part of the pride cohort and the village,
we're always there for you.
That's what we tell people.
But I remember early on I was like, can I do this?
The first funding cycle, it was so hard, the amount of planning and arranging for the summer
institutes and support.
You know how we waited on you all hand.
Oh, you too?
You got the royal treatment.
Yeah.
We want our to be the best.
It's like, I'm not going to do it if it can't be the best.
And so it's a lot of work and then keeping it up in between the institutes.
Some years we have two sets of cohorts, you know, up to 20 trainees.
The whole month of July is like training people.
And I did get discouraged in the first round of funding and say, can I do this?
And then you haven't seen the fruits of your labor yet.
The trainees need time to see that they're going to get the grants, get the promotion.
So and then, you know, like with everything, there are some trainees who were a little
bit ungrateful for their experience, but it is what it is.
So I think it took time for me to say, I'm doing this for me.
That it's important that I do it because I love doing it.
And don't expect any praise or thanks or, you know, just do it.
It's nice when people say thank you, like, you know, you show your appreciation.
So at least you say, okay, I'm accomplishing what I need to accomplish.
However, you can't be in this business looking for someone to praise you and to motivate
you along and has to come from within.
So, but it is hard work.
It really is.
How do you do a lot of mentoring?
Well you know, this podcast is part of one of my efforts because what I see is that there's
such a gap in knowledge.
And like you, I feel that if people just had information before they started the faculty
position, so much harm would be avoided.
But I still think people can turn it around too.
And so a lot of it is getting information out there.
So yes, but you know, I feel like, I mean, outside of a training program, you can't,
there's not that many you can mentor at one time.
Yes.
Well, I still do my one-on-one, you know, in the lab, not as much because the pride
program has kind of consumed my effort for mentoring.
But if a student want to do some research with us, we actually had a medical student
who was funded by ASH to spend a year doing some, a short research project with us.
So I still do that.
I'm not no longer training any more PhD students.
I graduated my last PhD students, so you can mentor in that way.
But yeah, you're right.
It's more difficult if you're not having the time one-on-one.
And I'm also faculty in the graduate school.
And that's where the majority of the training will come from.
I mean, medical, you're just going to have the fellows and they tend to be a different
type of mentoring.
Sure.
Yeah, one thing I've done more of is coaching because I can't mentor as many people intensely,
but I can coach people through and connect them to resources.
So what is the difference between coaching and mentoring?
Wow, so I feel like if I say mentoring is more like, to some extent, it's more like
mothering, right?
It's the labor pains of bringing people forward.
Coaching, I think, is more, you do the work.
If you want to do it, you do it.
But helping you figure out what resources do you need to access so you can move forward.
So it's very much dependent on the person to move forward.
Interesting.
So I guess that means I'm both a mentor and a coach.
Yes, you are.
And that's, you know, as part of some of the training I did, it's to be able to mentor
as a coach.
You know, one of the things you said in the beginning that really resonated with me is
that we start from what people love to do, not having people say, can you just follow
me?
Just do what I do, which, yeah, you'll succeed, but you won't be happy.
And so the coaching piece allows people to say, you tell me what is the future that gives
you joy?
Just help you create that.
And I think mentors could do that too.
And maybe over time, we'll have more mentors who are coaching too.
Sure.
And even more important, when you see a young person going down the wrong path, you say,
you know, maybe you should consider doing something else.
I've coached in that way as well.
And it turned out successful.
Sure.
But it's sometimes just having that insight and working with the young faculty.
You know, not that you want to burst their bubble and, you know, seal the dreams, but
with that experience, you can kind of steer them in a better direction.
Yeah.
I think ultimately it's caring enough about the person to get to know what they need so
that you can help them get there.
Yeah.
No, it's wonderful.
I really have enjoyed speaking with you.
Thank you.
And congratulations on your effort and podcast.
Thank you.
Perfect fit.
So let me know when it airs so I can listen.
And then just send me the information on, you know, when your podcast airs, I can listen
in and learn something as well.
You never stop learning.
Sure.
Really appreciate your time.
No, it's been my pleasure.
All right.
For everyone who's been listening, you've heard Dr. Pace, if when it's time, if you
are eligible for the Pride program, please, it is a phenomenal program.
It will change your life.
And even if you feel like you're not eligible, still apply and you'd rather be turned down
than to actually not applying you all along where eligible.
All right.
And you can go to our website, www.edagusta.edu slash pride.
All right.
I'm going to put that in the show notes.
So please check the show notes so you can get that information.
And if they're looking for you, how can they find you?
See as in boy pace at a desk, that idiot.
Very simple.
You can put that there as well.
So I'd love to hear from you.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
It's been a pleasure to have you.
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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