Seizing opportunities in grant writing

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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 today.

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For those of you who are watching me by video, I'll tell you that I probably look tired,

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and that's because it's been one of those late nights trying to get a grant in on deadline.

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So I started last week without knowledge of this particular grant that I submitted this

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morning, but I had an encounter on Sunday with a friend who said, hey, I have a grant

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I'm submitting.

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Can you give me some advice?

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And I thought, of course, I'd be happy to give you some advice.

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And what is this grant?

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And so I look at this grant opportunity.

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It's an AI opportunity through Google, and I thought, oh, this sounds interesting.

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I should look and see if I can apply.

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So when I did my weekly planning meeting late Sunday slash early Monday, I had listed Tuesday,

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start writing the grant application, Wednesday, submit the grant application.

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It was due on Thursday morning.

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And when I had the conversation with a colleague on Monday night, it turns out that he wasn't

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able to submit without a collaborator who was based at an academic medical center, AKA

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me.

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So then it turned out that we were going to collaborate and submit the grant, which was

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fine because I had already decided late Sunday that I was going to submit this grant.

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And I thought, oh, it's three pages.

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I can do this.

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It'll be straightforward.

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How hard can it be?

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Famous last words of anybody who's ever written a grant.

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It took me a long time, let's just say a lot longer than I wanted.

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So I had blocked out a couple of hours of writing time.

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So no, I didn't get to it on Tuesday.

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I said, you know what, I'm going to block a couple of hours on Wednesday morning and

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then I'll be done by the end of the day, Wednesday.

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Well, my couple of hours on Wednesday morning is about 90 minutes, actually 180 minutes

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worth of writing.

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So it's that three hours.

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And I thought, well, within three hours, I should be able to put together three pages.

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I will tell you at the end of the three hour period, I had put together one page and there

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were two pages to go.

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And most of what was left was really talking about the details of the proposal, the methods.

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And so it was an interesting realization to say, wow, three hours is not enough time to

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really put together three pages.

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Anyway, long story short, let's say it was a late night last night and an early morning

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this morning and the proposal is now submitted.

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Was it a perfect proposal?

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Definitely not.

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I have to tell you that I've been writing a lot of grants, not nearly as many as others

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around me have written, but it still takes a long time to submit a good grant proposal.

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And a day or two spent writing three pages is not nearly enough because grant writing

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is an iterative process, right?

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And it takes time to really create something that's strong and solid, something you can

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stand behind.

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And so it was not a perfect grant and yet we submitted.

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And I just want to talk to you today about how to be ready to take advantage of an award

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opportunity.

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Because as of this time last week, I had no idea I was submitting, had no idea of the

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grant and that by this morning we're submitted, right?

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So I want to talk about that.

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And this is not, I just submitted, right?

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I don't hear about the funding until three months from now.

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And for all I know, I may or may not be funded.

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But the issue is not whether I'm funded or not.

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The issue is that we showed up and submitted on time.

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So I will say that one of the things that helped me recognize that this was an opportunity

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that I was going to take advantage of, even though I was at the last minute, was being

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very clear about the goals of my research program.

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So I am a hematologist focused in rare blood disorders and I have a particular rare blood

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disorder on my mind, it's TTP.

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And I really want to improve outcomes in patients with TTP.

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Now when this opportunity came up, it was an AI opportunity and my colleague is creating

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chat bots for self-education.

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And I thought, well, one of the things that has come up in some of my work is that my

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patients say, we wish more people knew about TTP.

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We wish there was a place that we could go to and get information that was clear headed

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and level headed that didn't make us afraid or think we were about to die, right?

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And so there's been an expression of need for quality educational content.

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And in one of our qualitative interviews recently, that was a theme that kept coming up from

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patients.

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So I understood that it was an issue that was important to my patient population.

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Here comes this opportunity where someone is creating educational content in other spaces

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and I see an opportunity to create educational content in my field and marrying it with their

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AI capabilities.

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Absolutely awesome opportunity.

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Well, because it fit within the overarching goal of my research program, I was able to

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take advantage of the opportunity or at least recognize it as an opportunity that was worth

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sacrificing time and energy to complete.

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But the only way I was able to recognize it as an opportunity is because I'm clear about

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how I want to contribute to my patient population and I'm in tune with my population as to what

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their needs are and how my research program may be able to meet those needs.

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And so my overarching big, big, hairy, audacious goal is to bring patients with TTP to early

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diagnosis.

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That's the big thing.

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And I recognize that I don't just want to bring patients with TTP to early diagnosis.

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I actually really want to improve their outcomes.

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And so if education helps them advocate strongly for themselves and improve their health outcomes,

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I'm all for that.

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It fits.

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And so being very clear about the overarching goals of your program and the impact that

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you want to make allows you to see and take advantage of opportunities as they arise.

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So that's number one.

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Be very clear about the overarching goals of your research program.

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Number two is to create space for reflection.

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So I know the overarching goal of my research program and I understood in the moment how

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this opportunity fit.

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But I was only able to do that because I've had time to think about it.

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I've had time to say, hmm, how do I want to move forward?

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What are my patients thinking?

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What are their concerns?

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And for that reason, I was able to recognize the opportunity when it came.

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Now in a past life when I was so busy, I couldn't see my brain.

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When I didn't create space to have a weekly planning meeting, when I didn't create space

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for reflection, I couldn't have recognized the opportunity if it hit me with a big stick.

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And that's the being prepared for when opportunity comes.

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But you can only be prepared if you're paying attention.

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You can only be paying attention if you have time for rest and reflection.

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Now I will say that I feel like I'm pretty busy.

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I suspect that you are too.

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But one thing I am not is crazy busy to the point where I don't have time to think.

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I have the opportunity to take walks in the morning, which I do most mornings.

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I didn't do that this morning because I was trying to get the grant submitted.

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But I will after I share this particular episode with you.

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But those spaces happening regularly allow me to really think about how do I want to

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contribute?

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How do we move the research project forward?

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Another opportunity that came out of this was that I have a potential new collaborator

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and we could think about how to move this work forward, not just for this grant opportunity,

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but just in general.

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Now, the moment we are all invested in submitting this one grant, and all of a sudden the probability

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of increasing opportunities for collaboration happens, right?

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We may not be funded on this opportunity.

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However, we've established a relationship, right?

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This intense 24 hour, let's get this done.

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Holy cow, are you still awake?

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Can you give me what I need relationship to submit the grant already creates a kind of

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connection that allows us to move forward.

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So by creating space for reflection, I'm able to take advantage of that opportunity.

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Okay.

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Number three is that when an impossible situation arises, ask how.

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I will tell you that when my colleague brought this opportunity before me and then let me

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know that, oh, it was only going to be possible if I contributed, I remember the whole time

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I kept thinking, okay, I actually was, I was judgmental in my mind because I was like,

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okay, and you're going to make this work.

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How are you going to write a grant in two days?

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How?

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Because you know what?

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It doesn't happen.

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Well, I know it doesn't happen.

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Well, I know it's not impossible.

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If you're going to write a good grant, it really does take more than two days.

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Absolutely.

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It takes more than two days.

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Now, you could argue that if you've been writing grants serially for years and years and years,

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you could put a grant together in two days in a way that you were not able to put a grant

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together in 10 weeks in the past because it's not really that moment in which you're pulling

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all the information.

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You're really pulling information from cumulative hours, hours and hours of gathering that data.

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So what would have taken you a long time to look up and pull together takes you much shorter.

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So I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's just not the kind of thing I would opt to

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do.

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But I recognize the opportunity.

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I recognize the possibility for collaboration.

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It did seem like I wasn't going to be able to make it, but I thought, how can we make

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this happen?

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And so one of the things that ended up happening is that with my colleague, we said, well,

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here's the other person that is in this group that may make the most sense to be a co-PI.

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If we bring in this person, then we might be able to have a coherent application that

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stands a chance potentially of being funded.

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Now again, it felt like it was impossible, but I was trying very hard to switch out of

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judgment motive.

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I can't believe you're telling me this at the last minute to how can we make this possible?

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How can we make this possible?

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And the more how questions I was asking myself, the more possibilities came.

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And so honestly, if you'd asked me on Sunday whether I thought that a grant submission

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by Thursday morning was possible, I would say no, of course not.

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No, it doesn't happen like that.

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But we were able to get it done.

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And that's because we didn't challenge or allow our judgment to drive the situation.

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We said, well, how can we make this possible?

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First of all, is to recognize that unusual collaborations create synergy.

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I'm a clinician.

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I've known clinicians all my life.

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I love clinicians.

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I understand them.

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They're my people.

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They speak my language.

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And it's a different kind of synergy that's created by someone who doesn't speak my language,

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doesn't know what I do, but has tools that could come together with the resources I have

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to make something amazing.

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And so when I was connected to a computational biologist who's also a data scientist and

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has created AI self-learning tools, I could see the possibilities in a way that none of

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my clinician friends are going to be able to connect with me to create resources.

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Now can clinicians come together to create educational resources?

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Yes, we've been doing that for years.

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We know how to do that.

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But it's a different kind of synergy that comes from someone with deep expertise elsewhere

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coming together with my deep expertise.

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Both of us are educators to be able to create a product that actually can really benefit

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patients in a huge way.

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It's an unusual collaboration.

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This person exists outside of my sphere, but it's a big deal because it's creating a powerful

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synergy.

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So recognize the potential for unusual collaborations to create synergy.

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Maybe if this was a clinical colleague saying, hey, let's do this grant, I would say, eh,

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it's too late.

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It'll take too much time.

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But recognizing that this person has the potential to actually execute on what would become an

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amazing product, then I recognize that that's actually something that I should pay attention

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to and I should go out of my way to try to make happen if possible.

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Number five is to push for the impossible.

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Okay, I didn't think this could happen, but I kept asking how.

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And even as of last night, when I was looking at my final, I finally finished page two and

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I was like, great, it's due at 9 a.m.

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I'm exhausted.

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It's 11 p.m.

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How am I going to get page three written?

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It really did feel impossible.

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I don't pull, I try not to pull all nighters anymore.

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It's a thing of the past for me.

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I don't do that consistently.

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Honestly, as I'm getting more seasoned in age, it's something that becomes harder and

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harder for me to do.

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So I didn't pull the all nighter.

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I went to sleep.

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But then I woke up early this morning and of course it's on my mind and I was able to

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finish page three in a way that felt good to me.

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So at the end of the day, I was able to submit the application on time.

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I didn't feel like that was such an amazing grant.

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I've had those experiences in my life where we've pulled together a grant and I'm like,

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this was really good.

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I don't feel that way about this grant, but I don't have to.

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What was important was to push to submission.

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Now number six is to recognize that the win is in the submission.

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So I'm telling you that I'm celebrating right this moment and celebrating today.

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I don't hear about the grant, but the grant awards until October and it may or may not

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be funded, but the goal is not funding, not all the time.

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You would say that, wait a minute, if the goal is not money at the end of the rainbow,

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like what are you doing?

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But I will tell you that every time you submit a grant, every time you finish, you announce

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to yourself into the universe and to whoever else is paying attention that you are somebody

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who can start and finish a project that actually felt impossible to finish at the beginning.

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It reinforces your self image as somebody who can see opportunity, take advantage of

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opportunity and take it to the finish line.

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It reinforces your identity as someone who doesn't let impossible situations stop them.

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Being able to take a grant to the finish line feels like an impossible scenario because

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there are points in which you're like, okay, this was a bad idea.

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Oh no, this is never going to work.

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But when you are able to get it to the finish line, you tell yourself that you can push

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past obstacles, you can crush them on the way to the end.

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And so submitting a grant is a reward.

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And does this apply to only grant submissions?

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Of course not.

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It's anything in life where you're able to say at the end, you push through challenges

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to get to the end.

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And so what you're doing when you submit, every time you submit, especially a grant,

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you're creating an identity of somebody who finishes even when things are challenging.

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You're creating an identity of someone who's creative to be able to bring solutions where

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it seems like there is no solution.

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So the win is in the submission.

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I'm bringing this episode to you because it's fresh on my mind.

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And then I'm going to go away and I'm going to celebrate the submission.

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I'm going to do that with going for a walk and reflecting and all of that, which is a

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celebration, but I'm celebrating the submission.

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The seventh thing I want to tell you is that all grant application submissions help you

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win.

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There is a win in every package of a grant submission.

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I will tell you that there were times during my writing where I thought, what was this

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person thinking, telling me about this at the last minute?

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I had some choice thoughts, but I also thought I was like, no, this is an opportunity.

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This is not that, it's okay.

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This is an opportunity.

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I mean, they didn't tell me about it on the day it was due.

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They told me about it at least three days before.

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So I can't say I didn't have enough notice.

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I mean, I didn't, but I could have not had the opportunity period, right?

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But I had enough of a window it was possible.

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And so the win is in all the things I mentioned, including all of a sudden acquiring a new

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collaborator who has now put an energy to say, hey, can we see where else we can take

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this?

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The win is also in the fact that we now have a finished product, all bit imperfect, that

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we can now take and actually make into a really good product.

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So the next time we go to submit something similar, we already have the building blocks

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and the foundation.

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I have everybody's bio sketches, right?

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We have our budget.

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We have the things that we need.

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We've talked through these issues for the first grant, which may or may not be funded.

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Now we have something that we can take, make better for the next grant with an increased

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likelihood of funding.

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Now that's why grant writing is iterative.

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You're never perfect.

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The goal is not perfection.

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The goal is progress, which improves things.

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And over time, you actually do get close to a perfect grant.

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If you've ever been on study section and read some of those grants or you're like, holy

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cow, this is near perfect, it's near perfect because it's been through many iterations.

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And some of those iterations include having gone through a review and not being funded.

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And so honestly, the win is in the grant package because of who it allows you to be, how you

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are able to change your identity in the process of writing it, and also the benefit that now

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you have something that you can take and submit elsewhere.

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Now you have a building block that you can take and share with others.

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Now you have a building block that helps you create synergy and collaborations.

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The grant is the win.

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Not the money at the end of the rainbow.

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That's just a bonus.

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The grant is the win.

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All right.

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So I told you seven things.

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Number one, be clear about the overarching goal of your research program.

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Number two, create space for reflection.

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Number three, when an impossible situation arises, ask yourself how.

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Number four, recognize that unusual collaborations create synergy.

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Number five, push for the impossible.

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Number six, recognize that the win is in the submission.

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And number seven, recognize that all grant applications help you win.

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All right.

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I want to thank you so much for listening.

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I look forward to talking with you again next time on the next episode of the Clinician

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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 health