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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills

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to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.

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When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find

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that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research

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program.

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Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.

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However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

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For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians

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the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.

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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.

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I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and what an absolute pleasure to be talking with you today.

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Today I'm especially excited to talk about why mentoring matters.

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Why mentoring matters.

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And this topic comes to me kind of in the midst of actually at the end of our annual

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meeting where one of my mentees gave a presentation.

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And I will tell you that I was the mentor in the audience listening to his every word,

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literally hanging on his every word and so proud, so proud of the words that were coming

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out of his mouth, of the things that he said.

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I was so, so proud.

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And I mean, he did an outstanding job.

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He did a fantastic job.

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And at the end, I was so happy to be able to tell him, you did awesome.

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And why did he do awesome?

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Well, he did awesome because honestly, he's an awesome person.

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But he also did awesome because I helped him do awesome.

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I helped him do awesome.

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And I want to own my role in helping him do awesome.

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But I mean, it's my responsibility as a mentor.

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And also what a privilege it is to watch him just take the feedback and just be better.

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I mean, so awesome.

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Anyway, so I'm really writing about why mentoring matters from the perspective of a mentor,

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of a mentee, but also to some extent from the other perspective of a mentee who needs

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a mentor.

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And the reason I am sharing this story from two perspectives is because you know what?

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I didn't feel like I had that kind of mentoring.

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I didn't feel like I had mentors who really valued me or really thought I was going to

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amount to much.

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I mean, I had mentors who helped me and I want to acknowledge all the help that I received

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and I want to celebrate my mentors and thank them for it.

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But I don't know that I ever got to a point in my life where I feel like I had a mentor

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who actually believed in me, who believed I was going to succeed and who I felt like,

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you know, gave me everything.

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And again, now that I'm a mentor, I recognize how hard it is to give of anything to anybody,

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let alone so much to somebody who you don't even know.

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You don't know their mother, you don't know their father.

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You're like, I don't know who you are, where you're from.

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But it's a lot.

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It's a lot to be a mentor.

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But mentoring matters.

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And even though it's a sacrifice, even though it costs so much to be a mentor, it absolutely

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matters.

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And it's absolutely the way that we must all go.

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We must all be great mentors, even if we were never mentored well, or even if we were

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mentored to a place that we hope that we could have gotten more.

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So anything that anybody gives you, just be thankful, but also recognize that no matter

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how great a mentor you had, you can do better.

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So if you had a great mentor to some extent, it's kind of like your, I don't want to say

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moral obligation, like you got to do this.

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But if you had excellent mentor mentoring, then wow, what an opportunity to pay it forward

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and then expand on that mentoring, make it so much better.

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But if you didn't have great mentoring, it's not an excuse to say, well, I didn't have

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a great mentor, therefore I don't owe you anything.

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But to say, hey, if I didn't have this, how can I give it to somebody?

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Okay.

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So I want to talk about why mentoring matters.

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And I want to talk again from the perspective of the mentee looking to the mentor, but also

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looking at it from my perspective as a mentor, really at enhancing the experience of my mentee.

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Now here's the thing.

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The mentee could give you a different story and say, oh my gosh, she sucks.

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Did you see the way she yelled at me?

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Did you see the way that she didn't prepare me to succeed?

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He may say that because to be honest, value is in the eye of the beholder.

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I was proud of him.

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He did such a great job.

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And I hope he recognizes that I'm proud of him.

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And I hope he recognizes that all the feedback I gave him was loving and to help him grow

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and expand.

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But it is possible.

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Sometimes people are looking at the world through wounded lenses.

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I know I had that issue when I was coming up as a faculty member.

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And sometimes even the best meaning mentors may not come across that well.

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So I'm saying that to say that I'm not judging myself, but I'm using this example, the story

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to talk about why mentoring matters.

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Well the first reason mentoring matters is because, wow, you've got a long way to go.

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You got a long way to go.

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The journey ahead is far and it's hard to get there.

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So I want to pause and say that this journey of academic medicine is hard.

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And in reality, there's nothing in life that's really easy, especially if it's worthwhile,

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especially if it's really full of purpose, especially if people are going to be helped.

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It's going to be a hard journey.

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No one should ever, ever take the journey by themselves.

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I mean, there are many people who make it even though they don't have the resources

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or the help that they need, but it's a hard and lonely journey.

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And to be honest, many people who don't have the support they need, they don't make it.

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Or they don't make it well.

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They don't make it in a way that's healthy.

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Some people make it across the finish line and they're made, like they're missing an

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arm and a leg.

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Their heart has turned to cold stone.

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I'm just saying the journey is hard.

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And if you're going to get far, you're going to want people to come alongside you and help

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you make it and not just make it, but help you live on the way to getting there.

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And so why does mentoring matter?

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Mentoring matters because you've got to finish this journey and at the end of it, be whole.

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At the end of it, be one.

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At the end of it, be aligned.

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At the end of it, still be recognizable as the beautiful, wonderful, enthusiastic and

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joyful you that started the journey.

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And if you look at yourself right now and instead of joy, you find pessimism and bitterness

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and anger, then I would say that something is not going well.

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And you may be like, oh no, I have a great mentor.

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I have three New England Journal of Medicine manuscripts.

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I'm saying that that's not the goal of mentoring to get you into the biggest and baddest journals.

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I mean, that's great when that happens, but the goal of mentoring is to help you grow

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in support while still maintaining your authenticity and your joy in the process.

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And if you're being broken to shreds just to create a product that you can't even recognize,

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I don't think it's worth it.

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But again, you have to be the judge of that.

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You have to be the judge of that.

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For some people, getting the nature paper matters more than being intact and whole.

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And to be honest, you may believe that to be true now, but the day is coming when you

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may not believe that to be true and where you may regret those choices.

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But that being said, the journey is hard and mentoring matters because it helps you survive.

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And not just to survive, it helps you survive.

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It leaves you better than where you started.

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It leaves you more fulfilled than when you began the journey.

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It allows you to enjoy the journey because the journey is better when more than one person

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make the journey, right?

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A lonely journey is a rough journey, a journey that's partnered so much more beautiful.

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And so mentoring matters because it's a tough, tough road and you need help along the way.

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Okay.

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The second thing, the second reason that mentoring matters is that it shortens the distance traveled.

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You know, you can make it.

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So here's the thing about especially physicians in medicine, but just the human persons in

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general, human beings in general is that we're so resilient, we will make it.

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It's like, is it desert?

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Is it desert like conditions where there's like a sandstorm and there's sand in my eyes?

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Like if you are resilient, if you are determined, you will make it.

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No question asked, but it will be a long journey.

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Yes.

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At the end, you may be able to beat your chest and say, they almost destroyed me, but I made

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it.

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Yeah.

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I know that, but the reality is if you have a mentor, you're able to get where you're

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going further faster, right?

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It's like, okay, great.

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There's a sandstorm mentor.

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Like, oh, the mentor is like, I came with a Jeep.

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I have a four wheeler.

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Let's go.

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Right.

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I mean, your mentor has more resources than you, even if they don't have as much like

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financial resources, they have more resources in terms of experience, in terms of opportunities.

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And so they will get you further faster.

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So mentoring matters because it shortens the distance traveled.

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Why do we want to shorten the distance traveled?

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Because hey, you've got further to go.

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If at the end of your career, all you have to show for your life is exactly what your

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mentor has.

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Wow.

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You haven't really benefited.

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If you've had great mentoring at the end of your mentoring experience, you should be better

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than your mentor.

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Can I say that again?

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If you have had the benefit of great mentoring at the end of your mentoring experience, you

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should be better than your mentor.

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And I say that because mentoring is supposed to enhance you as a person.

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If all that you get at the end is becoming a shadow of somebody else, you haven't really

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been mentored.

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You've kind of, I'm not even sure what to call that journey.

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I'm just not sure what to call it.

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I'm not sure.

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Like follow the shadow.

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I'm just not sure.

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But in reality, what happens is your amazingness comes together with your mentor's amazingness

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and it results in triple quadruple amazingness.

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I was going to say badassery and that's really how I feel.

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It's like, whoa, who is this person?

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Because what you've done is you've taken everything that's awesome about you and you've collected

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everything that's awesome about your mentor and you've made it into something unrecognizable

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and out of this world.

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And so your mentor should always accelerate you beyond where they are.

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Absolutely.

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Every one of your mentees, for those of you who are mentors, should absolutely be poised

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to outstrip you, outclass you at the end of the day because you're pulling into them yourself,

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but they came with themselves.

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So there's so much more.

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What happens is when mentors tear down their mentees and then pour themselves into their

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mentees, like you're first of all stripping them of everything that is them and then saying,

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well, now you can take me on because I'm amazing.

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All you've given them is you.

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And to be honest, it's not that you is not okay.

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It's just that you already happened.

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And if something amazing is going to happen, it takes you and what the other person brings

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to make it amazing.

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It's just like it's a new combination.

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It's a different chemistry.

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And so mentoring gets you further and it gets you faster.

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And if it doesn't do that, then it may not be mentoring.

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Okay.

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Number three is that it opens doors that are otherwise hard to get through.

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So here's the thing about mentors.

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Mentors tend to be further along than you are.

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Right.

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And again, I'm talking about more senior mentors rather than I am talking about like peer mentors.

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But to be honest, the same principles apply.

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Right.

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If somebody is only three feet ahead of you, connecting with them gets you three feet further

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faster.

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Right.

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If somebody is seven years ahead of you, connecting with them can get you seven years faster.

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Right.

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You're just able to get further faster.

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Right.

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You're able to get through doors that otherwise are closed because this person has just been

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more places.

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They know more people.

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They've got a couple of networks.

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They've got people.

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They know people that you don't know.

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Right.

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And so pairing with them allows you to go through the doors that they're going through.

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So it's not even really a magical process.

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It's just that they've just been passing through doors that you haven't been through because

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you just haven't gotten to that level.

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And when you partner up with this mentor, you just get to walk through the door with

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them.

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You just do.

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I mean, they're not even thinking, oh, wait a minute, let's check you at the door.

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They're just walking.

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And you by virtual walking with them, you end up walking through amazing opportunities.

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For example, I had the opportunity this year to write a paper for our manuscript for our

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our, gosh, it's our education journal that we publish as part of the animal meeting.

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At first I was like, I don't have time for this.

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Like this is not what I want to write.

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But then I was like, wait a minute, I have mentees who've been working with me in this

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area.

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What if I ask them and they write this manuscript for me?

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So this is a manuscript that as long as it's well written, it's going to be peer reviewed.

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It's going to get published.

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It's like a certain publication.

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And to be honest, I could do with or without it.

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Like at this point, I'm not like, oh, my gosh, I need that manuscript because I've got a

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lot of other manuscripts in process.

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But by virtue of working with of these mentees working with me, I'm like, hey, I'm walking

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through this door of a guaranteed publication.

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If well written, if well written and handed in on time, will you walk with me?

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And they say yes.

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And we walk through the door together.

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Honestly, these are doors they couldn't walk through, except that the opportunity comes

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to them because I'm walking through those doors.

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And so what does mentoring, what should mentoring do for you?

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It should get you through doors that otherwise you might not be able to get through.

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And so if you're with your mentor and they have opportunity after opportunity after opportunity

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and somehow you don't seem to be included in any of those opportunities, you may not

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have mentoring going on.

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You may just be kind of hanging out as like a fan in like, you know, you know, fans, they

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get so excited because they're there in the midst of the performance and maybe they get

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an autograph, but that's about it.

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Good feelings and an autograph.

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But if you are a mentee and you're actually benefiting from your mentor by virtue of hanging

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out with them, you get opportunities that ordinarily you wouldn't get by yourself.

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And that's why mentoring matters because it gets you through doors that you otherwise

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might not get through.

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OK, that's number three.

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Number four is that it connects you to new networks.

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Here's the thing.

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If you hang out with people who look like you, walk like you, talk like you, you get

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what looks like you, walks like you and talks like you.

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But the moment you connect with somebody else, then what happens is that you are able to

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take advantage of networks that they already have access to.

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And when you think about somebody who's been building a network for 20, 30 years, it's

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different from the network you've been building, but maybe you've only built for seven or

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eight, built for seven or eight years.

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Now don't get me wrong.

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Some people are super network builders so that it's like, yeah, I've only been in this

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game for three years, but look at the network I have.

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So I'm not disdaining the fact that people build networks and have a great, are able

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to do that really well.

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What I'm saying is that you get access to different networks.

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OK, and so if you are experiencing great mentoring, what you are doing, what you are, you have

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the opportunity to do is be introduced to people that you ordinarily would not be introduced

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to.

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For example, I'm at the annual meeting.

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I'm talking with one of my mentors, somebody else walks up to talk to them and they're

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like, hey, wait a minute, do you know Toyosi?

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I'm like, oh, Toyosi, meet this person, this person, meet Toyosi.

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And by virtue of the fact that that person is a part of their network, I now know them.

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OK, am I best friends with them yet?

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No, but now they know me.

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Now we're going to show up to the meeting next year and guess what?

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I don't need my mentor to be in the room to say, hey, remember me?

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I met you last year.

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And they're like, oh, yeah, I remember.

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You see what I'm saying?

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Like, just the fact that you know other people, your mentor knows other people already by

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virtue of that connection, you are able to participate with them in their networks.

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And so it opens the door to networks beyond your own.

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OK, number five is it helps you grow.

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This is so important.

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You know, I have to say that I'm going to go back to the story of my mentee presenting

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at the annual meeting this year.

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And he just did so I mean, he was just so finessed, so polished, and he was so smooth.

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Now I will tell you, it took us like two or three reviews of the slides.

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It took a lot of changes.

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It took a lot of practice for him to show up with that level of polish.

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But I have to tell you that tomorrow when he creates another presentation for another

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meeting and I'm not there, everything I've taught, he's going to be able to use to create

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an amazing presentation.

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And so his level of presenting has grown.

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It's expanded from where he started from before I mentored him in that way.

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And so, you know, maybe I've taught him all the tricks I know, and now he can move on

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to someone else who can teach him more tricks.

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But there's a growth that happens between when you start out where you're going.

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Now, here's the thing that's important.

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There are many mentoring situations where it's not like you're not growing, but sometimes

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it's like you're being torn down more than you're actually growing.

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It's like you're being pulled back more than you're actually moving forward.

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And it's important to pay attention to this because mentoring shouldn't tear you down.

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It shouldn't pull you down.

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It should leave you better than when you first started.

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And so mentoring matters because it helps you grow.

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It helps you expand as a person without breaking you.

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If you're in a situation where you're like, yeah, I'm growing and getting access to all

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these opportunities, but my I don't recognize who I am.

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I'm a shadow of the person I used to be.

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I want you to be aware that may not be a mentoring situation.

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It may be a actually I won't even say it.

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It sounds like a bad word in my head, even though it's not necessarily.

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But I'm just saying that mentoring matters because it leaves you better than when it

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first met you.

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It allows you to grow in a way that you ordinarily might not grow just by yourself.

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OK, number six, it gives you tools you didn't have before.

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So you're you're getting mentored.

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You're learning new things.

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It's like, OK, this is the way I do.

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I do slides.

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Great.

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Here you have a new set of tools that you can use.

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We're writing a paper together.

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Here's the way I write the introduction.

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Now you have a set of tools that you may not have had before or you are going to write

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a review article.

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Here's the way I write an outline before I do the review article.

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Now you have a new set of tools that you didn't have before.

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So in your mentoring experience, mentoring matters because it gives you tools that you

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never had before.

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And so you know what?

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My mentee is now going to mentor somebody else in giving a talk.

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He's got strategies to show them that maybe they ordinarily didn't have for themselves

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before.

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And so mentoring matters because it gives you tools that you may not have had before

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and not just tools that you can use for yourself over and over again, but tools that you can

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take, modify, make them yours, and then pass them on to another generation of mentees.

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And that leads me to number seven.

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Mentoring matters because it prepares you to be a great mentor.

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Why is this important?

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Because there are many people who are not in great mentoring situations.

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In fact, people are in what we call tour mentor type situations where instead of being mentored,

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they're actually being stripped of their dignity, they're being stripped of their respect, they're

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being stripped of who they are and being made to fit a mold that doesn't fit them.

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But what happens when you get great mentoring, you learn the right way to mentor.

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You're able to mentor another generation into health.

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And so unfortunately for some of us who've been abused in the course of mentoring, all

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we're able to give out is abuse, right?

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It's like, this is how I learned.

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So sucks for you.

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Suck it up.

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And for many of us, that's the way it happened.

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And we're like, well, this is the way my mentor treated me and it worked for me.

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Look at how I turned out.

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And it's not okay.

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Just because you didn't get great mentoring doesn't mean you get to dish out dirt to another

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generation and perpetrate the ugliness and move it forward.

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Please don't do that.

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Even if you did not get great mentoring, you have the opportunity to recognize what it

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means to be a great mentor, to heal from all your wounds of poor mentoring and to give

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a gift to the next generation that you didn't have.

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The gift of mentoring well is that that person now knows how to mentor in a way that's healthy

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and respectful and can pass it on to the next generation.

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The reason mentoring matters, good mentoring matters, is so that we can mentor another

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generation that then mentors another generation in health and in happiness and peace.

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There are so many people who are so successful and so broken, so successful and full of bitterness

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and poison, and they're spewing it out all over the place and calling it mentoring.

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And I'm just saying that it's time for us to break that mold.

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Even if we didn't get good mentoring, it's time for us to break the mold of poor mentoring

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and begin to do things a little bit differently.

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All right.

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I just want to summarize again the seven things I talked about, about mentoring.

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Number one, it expands your vision, at least you're better off than you were before.

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Number two, it shortens the distance traveled.

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Number three, it opens doors that are otherwise hard to get through before it connects you

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to new networks.

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It helps you grow.

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It gives you new tools you didn't have before and can now pass on to another generation.

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It prepares you to be a great mentor, to pass on the legacy of great mentoring.

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Thank you so much for listening to me today.

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Somebody else needs to hear this, please.

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Please share it with someone who's struggling with mentorship or struggling to be a mentee,

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struggling to be a mentor, because they need to hear this.

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They need to be encouraged to do the best that they can to create a new generation of

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mentors, a new generation of mentees that passes on great mentoring to the next generation.

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It's been a pleasure talking with you today.

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I look forward to seeing you again on the next episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast.

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Have a great day.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic

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clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they

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have a mentor.

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If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

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Someone else needs to hear it.

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So take a minute right now and share it.

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As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation

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of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.