Forget about societal expectations, MuDPhuD club, Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!! I'm sorry I can't be home so I can't hug my mom all day, but I will be Skyping with her later on and ordered her a book off of Amazon. Also got to Skype with my nephew (or my brother/sis-in-law holding him, he's 9 months old) last night. I love Skype :)

So on Friday night the MD/PhD program held our MuddyPhuddy Club meeting at the home of one of our directors. It's a semi-social, semi-academic event where we get to talk to a guest physician-scientist about their career history and research. But Friday was something extra special- we had eight (8!) younger physician scientists dine with us. Some of them have just gotten faculty jobs in the past few years, and some are still residents or post-docs. This was great because while it's always nice to hold the attention of an HHMI investigator for a few hours, early-career scientists are much more relatable. I definitely have to give the hosting director credit- this is her first year with the program and she's already coming up with good ideas to mix it up.

So what did I learn? These sorts of meetings can always be tricky, since in science (and life, I'd argue), the usefulness of talking about career development pales in comparison to actually doing it. But I had a fantastic time on Friday, and I think that the young-investigator angle was critical. These are scientists who are still struggling to find their place, still figuring out general strategies for defeating obstacles, still changing their perceptions of how science works, still working on their own personalities and habits to maximize their effectiveness, just like early MD/PhD students. When people are in the middle of struggling with a challenge, their brains are working hard and they have to be able to crystallize their wisdom into words that they can tell themselves over and over. Good thing is, they can also tell it to us MD/PhD students. I want to spend the rest of this blog entry discussing some of the lessons I learned. I had been thinking about these sorts of issues and deliberately changing my habits and perceptions this past year, and it was good to hear that these are the exact things that young career physician-scientists struggle with. And I suspect this is all generalizable outside of science and medicine.

Up-front apology: I'm using this blog to be a bit preachy to myself, so if it sounds preachy to you, that's actually a good thing.

Lessons from MuddyPhuddy Club

1) Don't feel like you HAVE to do something or that someone else expects you to do it. Do it because you WANT to. Don't feel like you need to learn all the nuances of all the different cases in pediatric oncology just because "that's what a pediatric oncologist does," and don't take a prestigious chief resident job just because everyone else thinks you'd be great at it. These young physician-scientists evaluated their choices based on their own values, and where an appropriate choice didn't exist, they ASKED for one. One young resident thought 1 month of research per year was wholly inadequate, so she negotiated and ended up creating an entirely new program option for residents. She overcame all of the institutional resistance, but more importantly she overcame the "expectations" for what she was "supposed" to do. You need to be able to say no, to negotiate, to find your own path. That path might turn out to be exactly the same as what other people say you should do, but it's the perception that matters. Once you let other people, or your job description, or "societal expectations" tell you what to do, you are surrendering both your privilege and your responsibility as a thoughtful proactive person. I used to think I was doing research because I was supposed to in an MD/PhD program. Once I realized I should be doing what I WANT to do, I was forced to reexamine what about research I might WANT to do. Turns out it was research that I wanted to do, and I became 10 times more productive while feeling like all I was doing was having fun, and all I changed was my perception.

2) Start looking into labs immediately when I start residency. In more generalized terms, be proactive and don't let my long-term mind shut down just because I'm in super-busy mode in a well-defined role (resident)- that would be too easy. It would just be making excuses.

3) Don't put off life now just because you're busy. If you're ready to get married and have kids, do it sooner than later- it's only going to get busier. If you want to work on personal development, try new things, and improve yourself, do it now. That's the advantage of protected time, which will only disappear later on. Don't rush and try to finish the program faster, because that's just surrendering the protected time. Even if you're way ahead of the game, there's always more you can work on- professionally and personally. One resident had her child during her super-busy intern year, rather than waiting, and her reason was really good. If raising a child proves to be crazier than she suspected (like if the child gets very sick), then she can drop her job, because there are thousands of people with her exact same job description. The world keeps turning. But if the same thing happened later when she's starting up her own lab, then if she takes a break from her work, then the work simply doesn't get done because no one else has her skill set and expertise on the research problem. Thus, it is always better to live your life sooner than later, because you'll only lose more and more of that protected time.

4) Think you don't have time in the short run to read papers and work on other habits you

know will help you in the long run? Get up extra early every day and do it. I've been working on this but it's not at the top of my list so far so I've had minimal results. One of the early career physician scientists at the MPC told us, "So-and-so colleague told me that he woke up at 4:30am every morning to read papers. I told him he was crazy at the time, but now I do it all the time and its the only way I can keep up with the literature." (paraphrasing) In other words, don't complain about obstacles ("I don't have enough time."). Instead find clever ways to get around it- because that's way more fun.

On that last note, it's amazing to see that people at much more advanced stages of their careers are still forming habits, still being proven wrong and changing themselves to adopt the opposite viewpoint, still struggling to better themselves so they can contribute more to society. And this is the most important thing I realized- these habits are what I can really gain from these mentors. Often times at these meetings, it is expected that they talk about the specific challenges they faced recently- picking specialties that go with research careers, starting a family, securing funding, negotiating job packages at their first institution. But really, this is too far in the future for us trainees, too abstract, and too much of it will change by the time we are in their shoes. But the lesson to be flexible, to watch out for opportunities, to proactively improve yourself, to make time for reading and learning, to find what you truly WANT to do, these just seem like eternal truths. And I can use my protected PhD time to really master them before insanity of lab-clinic-raising kids starts up.

So I started this post with Mother's Day, and I'll finish it with Mother's Day. Here's the video I made my mom last year, accurately depicting her as the worrisome mother who sticks to conventional wisdom whenever possible. She showed it to all of her friends who laughed their heads off because apparently it's what they do as mothers as well. Happy Mother's Day!