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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 it is an absolute pleasure to be talking with you

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today.

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Thank you so much for tuning in.

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I am so excited to bring you today's episode about seven questions you should ask of your

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career.

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Seven questions you should ask of your career.

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This comes from a coaching session that we did earlier today with some amazing clients,

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and we were talking about what do we want our careers to give us?

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What do we want our careers to give us?

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And there were certain things that kept coming up, and I thought it was so important and

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so powerful because if you don't have a picture in your mind of what you want your career

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to give you, what you want from your career, then you can't go out and create it.

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And the natural tendency of a career is towards chaos unless there is a plan, unless there's

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a plan.

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And the analogy that I use is the analogy of a garden.

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So let's say you plant a garden outside, looks beautiful, and then you get really busy in

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life and it takes about four to five months before you really have time to surface because

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work is so busy and you take a look at the garden, what is it going to do that?

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What's it going to show you?

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What's it going to give you?

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It's going to give you weeds.

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It's going to be overgrown.

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The paths are going to be overgrown.

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Things are just going to be all over the place.

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Yes, the natural state of nature is wilderness.

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It's chaos.

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It's disorder.

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It's not order.

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Order is something that people bring to things.

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And so if you look at your career and you have the idea that it's going to deliver something

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amazing to you, but you have no plan, you have no structure, then it cannot deliver

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to you what you think it will deliver to you.

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And you'll get what most clinicians, what most clinician scientists get out of their

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career, burnout, dissatisfaction, anger, bitterness, feeling of defeat.

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There's so much negativity that can come with a career as a physician or as a physician

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scientist, but that people who have joyful careers, people who celebrate their experience,

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people who feel like they've left a lasting impact, they've had legacy, they've been

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intentional about the kind of careers that they're creating.

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Now when I first started, I had no intentionality.

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I just thought I would just go in like I did when I was starting med school or go in like

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I did when I was starting residency and go in like I did when I was starting fellowship.

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What I didn't recognize is that although I didn't have a plan, they had a plan.

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And there was a curriculum.

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There was a list of competencies that I needed to accomplish.

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And so there was an end.

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And they were working me through the process.

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And as long as I followed instruction, I was going to get to the end.

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But you get to your faculty career and there's no such plan.

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It's all over the place.

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You can kind of do whatever you want.

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It's a free for all, except that there are different places where people are demanding

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accountability.

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For example, patient care, so much accountability.

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Submitting grants, not so much, at least not as much accountability.

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Submitting manuscripts, yeah, not as much accountability.

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And so if you're going to create a career you want, you actually have to have a plan.

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But if you're going to create a plan, you have to know what the end looks like.

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And so here are seven things I want you to think about in terms of what you're getting

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out of your career.

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Number one is spiritual.

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Now some people are like, well, I'm not really a spiritual person.

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I'm not a religious person, but that's not really what I'm talking about here when I'm

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talking about spiritual.

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What I'm talking about is your source, your nourishment of you as an individual.

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When we're in our careers, we're so focused on the doing.

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We're focused on the, okay, well, I need to do X, Y, Z so I can get to whatever and then

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I'll be productive in these areas.

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And you're thinking all about the mechanics and all of that.

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But in reality, you, the person who's underlying all of that is about more than just the doing.

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You're mostly about the being.

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And your being can drive everything else in a negative direction or positive depending

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on how your being is doing.

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Right?

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And so if you are someone who has gratitude, if you're full of joy, if you're nurturing

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the deeper person within, you're going to create something amazing.

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But if you neglect the side of you, the human side of you, you suppress your emotions, you

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suppress your need for sleep, you don't worry about your stress levels, you're just all

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focused on the doing, you will find out over time that your doing becomes less effective

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because you did not attend to the being.

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And so when I'm talking about asking of your career, spiritual things, what I'm saying

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is to what extent is your career nourishing the inner you?

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To what extent is your career creating space for you to be everything that you can be?

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To what extent is your career allowing you to be the human that you've always been?

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To what extent does your career create space for you?

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And I hear some people laughing and say, are we talking about a medical career or are you

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talking about a different kind of career?

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Are you talking about like an artist career?

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I'm saying that for everybody, there is an inner you that needs to be nourished.

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Your career takes up a lot of your time.

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To what extent does it create space for you to be nourished?

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And it doesn't have to be that your career is one nourishing your inner being.

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It could be that your career facilitates the opportunity for you to take time to nourish

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your inner being.

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But you got to ask of your career, your spiritual health, that you as a person, the inner you

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is being nourished and that you're not so focused on the doing that you forget about

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the being, who you are and nourishing that person and sharpening the focus of that person.

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Because as you get better, everything gets better.

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And so you, the saw, must be sharpened or it doesn't matter how many trees you're trying

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to chop down.

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If I may use a tree chopping analogy.

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So you matter.

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You matter most.

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And your career should create space for you.

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Okay.

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Number two, it's family.

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Okay.

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So nobody's an island.

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I didn't say that.

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This has been around for a long time.

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And the whole idea of only you existing is a fallacy.

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And to be honest, we're kind of like, so, I mean, I don't know about your med school,

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but in my med school, not many people were married.

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Like I had one person in my class of a hundred and 203 who was married by the time that we

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graduated, maybe two by the time we graduated.

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Right.

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So not very many people married in medical school.

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And then going on like that, and over time you start to get more people that are added

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to the mix.

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Right.

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And so there's this whole fallacy that, oh, it's just the rugged individual, you know,

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you're showing up, you know, here you are, you're in class from, from eight to five,

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and then you're doing all the studying and the homework.

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And then on the weekends you're coming in to dissecting your cadaver.

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There's this whole idea that it's just you, but it's never been just you.

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There's always been family in the background, whether that is family, a significant other

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in your life, whether that's children in your life, whether that's your siblings, your parents,

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there's always family.

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You do not exist by yourself.

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You didn't come to medical school.

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You didn't come to medicine by yourself.

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Hopefully you don't leave by yourself.

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And though, though, if you're not paying attention, you're going to neglect family.

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And so to what extent does your career support your ability to nurture the family that makes

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you whole, that makes you spiritually meaningful?

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To what extent does your career allow you to support your family?

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Right.

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To what extent does your career allow you to spend time with that family?

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And so if you're going to ask of your career anything, you want to make sure that there

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is space for your family, for nurturing your family, for growing your family in that career.

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The next thing is your health.

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Okay.

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Now, it should go without saying, I'm talking to people who are in the business of healing

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others.

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The people in the business of healing others don't do so well when it comes to healing

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themselves.

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And so health is something that many physicians struggle with.

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And now I'm not even talking about physical health because somehow we do, we do okay.

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I mean, some of us are good at getting out in the mornings.

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We're running, we're exercising, we're at the gym, we're doing all the things.

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But what about stress?

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What about the way we're showing up as we eat?

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What about sleep?

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What about rest?

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What about all the things that make us a whole healthy being?

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Does your career give you space and opportunity to do that?

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Now, as I'm talking, I'm hearing some people saying, are you talking about the same career

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that I'm talking about?

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I am.

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I'm saying it doesn't give it to you unless you demand it of your career.

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And how do you do that?

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We're going to get there, at least temporarily.

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But this is really about you asking the questions because until you ask the question, until

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you create the picture, well, you can't create what you want until you know what the image

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is, what you're driving for, you can't create it.

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And so what you should ask of your career is the ability for you to have good health

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because of not in spite of your career.

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The next thing is finances.

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Okay, your finances.

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So in academic medicine, money seems to be a dirty word.

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Nobody wants to talk about it.

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Everyone's just like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you get paid a fair salary.

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We know that's not always true.

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But fair salary or no fair salary.

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The reality is that you live in an economic world and your salary needs to go far enough

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to support you, support your family and support your future self.

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In addition to your ambitions, your fun, the things that you want to do.

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And so your finances matter.

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And if you're not thinking about what financially you want to get out of your career, then you

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can't plan for it.

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Now this is not, oh, well, I knew I came into academia and I wasn't going to make a lot

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of money.

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It's okay.

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Yes.

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Making a lot of money is not necessarily the key to financial success.

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It is helpful, but not always necessary.

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I mean, we've heard about the school teacher who after like 20, 30 years of service, accumulated

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a couple of million dollars and donated it to a university.

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So it's not about how much money you earn as much as how much you keep, how much you

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invest, right?

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But you do know that your career acts as a platform to give you the seed that you use

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to create other wealth.

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And to what extent does your career supply you financially as you want it to so that

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you can go and create the wealth that you want to.

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And you can create whatever you want for your family to come.

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And so understanding what your career will give you financially, or at least having a

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plan for it is important because until you're clear, then you don't know how to go about

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creating what you need to create so that you get where you want to be.

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All right.

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Another thing that your career gives you is personal development.

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Okay.

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So we love being in medicine because of all the things we learn.

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And it is so fun to grow as we take care of patients, as we do research, as we discover

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things, as we educate, we're growing, we're personally developing, we're studying, we're

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learning, and it's so much fun as long as we're doing that.

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But if for whatever reason we are not developing personally, then we are really going backwards,

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right?

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We've got to continually be in the process of self continuous improvement.

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And I would say that medicine tends to do that okay, because there's all the CME that

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you need to be able to continue to get your license renewed.

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And so continuing medical education is necessary, but I'm not just talking about continuing

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medical education.

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Are you growing as someone who has new fresh ideas from other industries that are not in

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medicine, that are not in healthcare?

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If you go out to a dinner party, are you able to converse with people who are not in healthcare

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and feel confident that you can converse enough in a specific field?

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How are you growing?

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What are the latest books that the New York Times bestsellers or whatever, what are the

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books that everyone's talking about?

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What is information that you should know at this stage of your life?

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And that's not limited to healthcare.

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And to what extent are you personally developing?

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Because if you're not developing, then you're stagnant.

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And you know what stagnant things produce, right?

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That smells and they don't look good.

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It's just if you're stagnant because you're not developing personally, then you're not

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happy and people around you are not happy either.

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And so personal development is really important.

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Another thing is social capital.

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You spend a lot of time with your work friends.

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I hope you like them.

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I hope you're building a network that you actually want to hang out with.

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And for some of us, maybe not.

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Maybe we're like, you know what?

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I don't want my social capital in my career.

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Well, okay, maybe you don't want all of your social capital in your career because the

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reality is that there's a lot of social capital in your career.

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You just, you work a lot.

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And so the people you work with happen to be people you hang with, right?

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Or your collaborators happen to be people you talk to routinely.

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And so you want out of your career, a strong network, strong social capital, or at least

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the opportunity to create a social capital beyond just your contacts and healthcare.

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To what extent does your career serve as a platform for you to grow your social capital,

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your networks, your communities?

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And finally, to what extent does your career give you the opportunity to create fun?

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Yes, because all work and no play makes Jack or Jill a dull person.

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And you know that being able to have fun in the midst of your career, now not talking

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about one or two vacations a year, those don't really count because you go to vacation and

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then you have to come back and recover from the vacation.

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And they're like, did I really have fun?

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You get a lot of great pictures, but maybe you didn't have fun.

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But I'm talking about sustained fun throughout your career, fun in the career that you're

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having, fun in the work that you're doing, fun in showing up to work, fun in the work

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that you're doing, fun in the things that you're producing, fun when you're not at work,

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but also fun when you're at work, does your career give you that?

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Now these are the seven things that you should ask your career to give you.

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I want to summarize spiritual growth, family, health, your own personal health, finances,

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having fun, growing in personal development, social capital as well.

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Now these are things that you want to have from your career.

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Now there are other things, I'm talking about legacy.

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And many of us come and we're like, I came to help, I came to grow another generation,

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I came to give back.

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And so legacy is part of that as well.

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So let's call it number eight is legacy.

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But to what extent does your career give you all these things, some of these things, maybe

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none of these things?

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So I'm going to invite you to rate yourselves on a scale of one to eight, right?

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Eight being legacy.

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To what extent does your career give you all these things in a way that's satisfactory

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to you?

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And if your career doesn't give them to you, then ask yourself, how can I get what I need

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from my career?

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Now remembering the garden analogy, if you don't specify what you want from your career,

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then all you can get is weeds and thorns and things that don't look good.

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Because the default state, and we know in medicine, the default leads to burnout and

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stress and anger, bitterness, all of that stuff.

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If you're going to have a career that delivers to you what you want from it, you've got to

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be very clear about what you want and how you're going to get it.

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And being very clear about what you want allows you to decide, well, how do I get what I want?

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Is it really like, is it a dream?

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Is it true that I can get growth out of my career?

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I can get health and finance.

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My finances can be where I want them to be.

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Yes, yes.

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But only if you decide.

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And you can't decide until you've imagined that this is what you want.

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And you have a plan to get there.

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And so the first step is for you to consider to what extent can I get these things out

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of my career?

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And then just start to make a plan to get there.

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And it helps you because then you decide if you're going to sprint, like maybe in the

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first five to 10 years of your career to get things and then move to a different industry,

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you might decide that.

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Or you might say, okay, these are the steps I need to take to recreate what I already

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have to get me to where I need to go.

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Or you might say you need a new space altogether.

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But you don't get to choose until you define what the outcome is so that you can now assess

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what seeds you're planting right now to determine if it gives you the garden that you actually

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want.

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So my next episode, I'm going to be sharing about what you could do to create what you

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want out of your career, no matter what your career is, but very especially to physician

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scientists, people who are growing as scholars in their academic careers.

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It's been a pleasure to talk to you today.

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I look forward to talking with you again next time on the Clinician Researcher Podcast.

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Thank you for listening.

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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.