Take control of your academic environment

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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.

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What an absolute pleasure to be talking with you today.

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Thank you so much for joining.

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Today, I'm talking about setting the thermostat for your academic environment, and I'm talking

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about different strategies that may work and strategies that leave you a little bit more

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challenged in your ability to set the thermostat.

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I will tell you that this particular episode and the inspiration for it comes from a conversation

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I had with one of my mentors recently, and she talked about the importance of setting

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the thermostat for your own home.

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Specifically, actually, she was talking about the fact that you can worry about the temperature

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or you can air-condition your home.

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She's like, your job is not what the temperature is on the outside.

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Your job is the air conditioning in your home, is setting the temperature in your home.

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I just remember from that conversation, I literally had a...

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It was one of those epiphanies, or actually it was more like a mind-blowing moment, like,

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this is so profound.

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And for that reason, I thought to record a podcast episode on the importance of setting

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the thermostat for your academic environment.

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And in fact, a couple of weeks ago, I was caught up in this place, which to be honest,

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I'm caught up in often, and I try not to be caught up in it.

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And part of how I do that is to stay busy and stay out of these conversations, but I

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got caught up.

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And what did I get caught up in?

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I got caught up in one of those conversations where we talk about how everything is falling

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apart and going to hell in a handbasket and everything is just not working.

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And to be honest, in healthcare, there are a lot of those moments where we can sit and

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just lament the challenges that are happening around us.

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And I work very hard to try to stay out of those conversations because they weigh me

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down and then I really can't move forward because I'm so overwhelmed by the badness.

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And this was one of those where you can't get away from the conversation because it

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just feels so bright and there's just so much energy and you really want to have the conversation

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and you want resolution to what you're talking about, but there's no resolution no matter

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what that conversation always ends in you feeling badly.

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So that's why I try to avoid it, but I wasn't able to successfully.

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But anyway, this particular analogy of the house and the condition outside and setting

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the thermostat in your own environment made me start thinking about our academic environments.

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And in reality, goodness, there's so much that's wrong.

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And if we could just list all of it, we would be completely overwhelmed.

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And actually, if we only just shared a little bit of what's going on in that academic environment,

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we would be, I mean, it's kind of demoralizing actually sometimes.

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And so I thought about what are some of the conditions that can challenge your ability

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to set the thermostat of your academic environment and some situations or some scenarios that

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enhance your ability to do that?

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And what am I talking about when I'm talking about setting the thermostat of your academic

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environment?

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It's saying what is conducive for you?

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So we live in this big ecosystem and there's a sense, especially when we first get started

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that we've got to just go with the flow.

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It's like status quo.

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We're just doing what everybody else is doing or we just do what we're told to do.

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And then in some areas, we're finding that, you know, there's a rub.

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It's like, I know this is what they told me to do, but it's not working for me.

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So you want to be team players and we want to just, you know, we want to do what everybody

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else is doing or we want to do what we're told to do.

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And so we're just going with it, but boy, it's not really working for us.

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And we're like, oh, I don't like the way it's working.

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And we're afraid.

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We're afraid to try to change things, even though changing things means that it works

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better for us.

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And we're afraid because we're like, well, you know, they want us to do this.

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And if we change anything, it will be, it will be frowned upon.

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And one of the things we don't realize is that our thriving is more important than our

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conformity.

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And to be honest, people make the rules and they make the rules for different reasons,

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but they don't make the rules to stifle you, or they don't make the rules to take away

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your, your, your ability to think or your ability to be innovative or your ability to

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create because the better you do, the better they do in any environment.

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When people thrive, they bring their best selves to the table.

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They are more creative.

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They're more amazing.

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And so in reality, even though it would seem that the environment is asking you to conform

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in reality, the environment wants you to create your own thing in the midst of the rules.

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And so part of our strategy is to think about how do we understand the rules so well that

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we know when they can be broken or how they can be successfully broken, right?

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And sometimes we do it successfully and sometimes we don't, but in reality, continuing to shape

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our environment so that we can thrive is important because the alternative, the part where we're

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in conformity and we just hate life, oh my gosh, it doesn't help anybody.

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It doesn't serve anybody.

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You're miserable.

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And they also like, are not happy to work with you because when you're miserable, you

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look bad.

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You have this attitude about you.

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You don't even do your work very well.

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And so being miserable is important.

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Resources, you're applying for bigger funding.

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You're looking for more resources.

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It's a beautiful thing because you get to create the environment you want.

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You get to be, you know, you get to, you know, put in all these green energy saving technology

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that allows you not to feel the, you know, not to have so much of a gap between like

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the external temperature and the internal temperature.

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But what it does take is investment.

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It takes, it takes, it takes time.

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It takes time.

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It takes investment and it takes time to be able to build your own home in the academic

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environment.

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It takes you having a body of work, something you're known for, something people ask you

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to come and give talks about, something that you're consistently moving forward in the

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place of funding or in the place of scholarship.

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You're building.

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You're building, it takes time and you're doing it.

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And at the end of it, it is your home.

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At the end of it, it's your place.

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At the end of it, it's yours.

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And it's so, so important.

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It's so important, but recognize that it really, really takes time.

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But the beautiful thing is at the moment it's built, that other people are able to come

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under your umbrella and you're able to set the temperature to a temperature that's conducive

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for them.

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You're able to treat your mentees with respect and with honor and you're able to help them

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in the way that maybe you weren't helped.

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You're able to create an environment that encompasses at least a couple of other people,

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right?

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It's a home.

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It's not a city.

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And that's why number five is building a city.

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And this is where you are saying, okay, I'm going to encompass a couple of homes within

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my enterprise.

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And that takes more energy.

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It takes more investment, but it's an opportunity to grow your footprint in terms of the people

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that you bring in to an environment that's conducive to an environment where people are

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treated with respect to an environment where people's careers are advanced, where you're

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not fighting with people over the future and yours.

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It's an opportunity for you to do more, but it always starts small.

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It always starts with coming back to where you are.

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Now whether you're homeless or whether you have your own couch in your mentor's home,

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you do have a space that belongs to you.

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And it may not be an ideal space, but it's an opportunity for you to set the tone of

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that space.

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What is it going to look like around you?

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How are people going to be treated around you?

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Are people going to be treated with respect?

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How are people going to feel when they come into your program?

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How do you help mentees advance?

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How do you make sure you're not taking things from them that they have expectation that

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they're supposed to have?

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For example, they want to be first author and you're like, oh no, no, no, I'm going

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to be first author on this one, even though you've done all this work.

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You know what I mean?

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It's how are you building an environment that helps and heals in a way that you didn't have

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in a way that you didn't have that when you were coming up?

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And maybe you're still there where you're still waiting for your mentors to kind of

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give you the best of what they have.

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Maybe they're falling short.

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Just because you may not have gotten the perfect situation doesn't mean you have to dish it

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out to other people as well.

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What kind of environment are you building?

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And so I say all that to encourage you that you would think about the space you have and

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rather than be overwhelmed with all that's going on around you, ask yourself, what is

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the space I control and how do I make it conducive for me to thrive?

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And if I don't have the resources to do that, where can I go to get the resources?

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Where else can I go that's going to support me?

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But I feel like it is our moral imperative to thrive because when we thrive, other people

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around us thrive, our environment thrives, we create thriving environments, our patients

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thrive as well.

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The work we do matters and we do it joyfully.

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So I want to invite you to not accept sadness, anxiety, fear in your environment.

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I don't want you to accept it as a status quo.

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And you may say, oh, I look around and everybody is this way.

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Yeah, everybody is outside.

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They're feeling the same temperature.

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But there are people you can't see and they're indoors and they pay a big bill, but they

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are much cooler than the external environment.

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And I want to invite you to think about how do you make the environment you're in right

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now work for you?

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What will it take?

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And you may be like, oh, I'm leaving in three months.

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You're leaving in three months, but there are three more months left.

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How can you make the environment conducive for you while you're still here?

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So you're not miserable for another three months.

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You're not miserable for another day.

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And I want to encourage you that it is possible, that it doesn't happen until you decide that

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you're going to make it happen.

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And it does take investment.

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It will cost you.

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But it's absolutely worth it to live in the environment you absolutely want to live in,

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the environment that helps you thrive, the environment that helps you be the amazing

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person that you came to the academy to be.

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So five things I talked about.

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You want to be homeless where you have no mentoring, no community, nothing.

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You have no plan.

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And then you're just like the outside temperature, toxicity, all the problems, they just follow

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you because you're just going with the flow.

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You want to be in a situation where you actually have a community, where maybe you're crashing

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on other people's couches or crashing on your mentor's couch or maybe even have a room in

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the mentor's home or maybe even have a cottage built for you out back.

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And that's great.

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Find mentors, find a community and enhance your academic experience.

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Number three is getting your own rental where you're like, okay, I'm going to start fitting

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the bill for my own place.

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Number four is getting your own home where you're building it and you're like building

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a space that encompasses other people and creates an atmosphere where they thrive as

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well.

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And finally, you can build your own city where you're like, you know what, I'm going all

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in on this work, the scholarship, I'm getting funding to move it forward and I'm creating

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space for other people too, to come in and be part of this amazing environment that I'm

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building.

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So I invite you to think differently about the status quo and think about how can you

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do it differently where it works for you and because it works for you, it works for so

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many other people as well.

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All right.

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It's been a pleasure talking with you today.

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Please share this episode with someone else who needs to hear it and tell me about what

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buildings you're building, what you're doing, whether you're renting, hope you're not homeless,

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but if you are, I would love to talk to you, get you a place to sleep, a community to be

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part of and whatever it takes for you to thrive.

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I want to be here for you.

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I want to support you.

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Let me do that.

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All right.

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Have a great, great rest of your week and I look forward to talking with you again the

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next time on the Clinician Researcher Podcast.

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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.