Over the past few months, I have had a series of conversations with colleagues of all stripes about the benefits of living and working in an academic medicine setting.
Some voices have cautioned that focusing on the positives runs the risk of minimizing the true personal, institutional and financial costs of burnout. They have rightly noted that engaging in "toxic positivity" can invalidate the real struggles that persist in our systems.
Others have noted that we all need to hear, at one time or another, positive affirmations about our choice to work in academic medicine, however imperfect it may be. In the current climate of distrust and cynicism about the value of science and medicine, it is easy to lose sight of the intangible characteristics that brought us to this place. So, I offer this piece as a way to embrace our academic medicine identity without denying the very real structural factors that also influence our workplace wellness.
Why are you here?
When I joined the IU School of Medicine faculty in 2009, I attended a new faculty orientation during which we received (and it remains on my desk wall today) a button that asks, "Why Am I Here?" Executive Vice Dean Emeritus Stephen Bogdewic, PhD, had given a presentation on sense of purpose, and he extended an invitation to each person to answer this question for themselves in the service of keeping our individual goals and priorities at the forefront of our daily activities.
While the answer to this question is as unique as we are, I would posit that there are a number of reasons we all have chosen to work in an academic medicine setting. After all, we could work anywhere. Our skills, training and ambition qualify us to work in many different settings, but we don’t work at these other places.
We are here because:
- We want to be part of a community of scholars. Fundamentally, we all want to be affiliated with like-minded people who understand and relate to us. This drive to be understood, valued and connected is deep within our wiring. Being part of a community of scholars is our tribe. We are stimulated by the differences of perspectives and experiences of others. When we connect, we can experience the joy of synergizing ideas, receiving feedback that makes our science better and celebrating successes with others who can truly appreciate what it takes to achieve these milestones.
- We are curious. Academic medicine is a playground for the curious. We ask questions, form hypotheses, test our hypotheses and evaluate the changes that come from the interventions of our design. We can stretch our thinking beyond our training to be creative in our approach to familiar problems or develop new tools.
- We seek growth. Whether it is contributing to basic or clinical medical knowledge, experiencing the joy of discovery or augmenting our skills, academic medicine is at the nexus of discovery and clinical practice. When we support or direct bench science research, clinical trials or extend our processes and practices to communities, we challenge ourselves to learn new skills, think outside the box and become more flexible along the way.
- We want to positively affect people’s lives. Whether we came to this work from our own experience or those of others we have encountered along the way, we live and work in academic medicine to find, hone and implement the best tools in the service of making people’s lives better. While this value is not unique to academic medicine, we have the ability to leverage the input from many disciplines to adapt our practices and innovate our approach to complex problems.
As we move into the heart of the academic year, I invite you to consider the ways you can get the best (and most) from this academic medicine environment.
- Take advantage of a community near you. Show up to a meeting or talk in-person if you have the option to do so. Share a smile with someone you don’t yet know. Better yet, recruit a colleague to go with you. A shared experience has greater potential rewards.
- Be truly present during a talk that interests you. Resist the urge to triage your email inbox or catch up on text messages during a presentation. You may be surprised to notice where your thinking goes and how much more rewarding the experience turns out to be.
- Read an article outside your immediate area of interest. Not only is it fun to learn, it can be enlightening to notice common themes or novel approaches that may have relevance to a problem at hand.
- Exercise a professional development muscle. Need to bone up on a software package that would make work easier? Consider attending a training that expands your toolkit. Want to expand your skills outside your current comfort zone? Consider volunteering for a service role (with a time commitment that is realistic) or join a book or journal club. Think about why you are here, where you want to go next and what might help you get to your destination.
