It has been about two years since I started my new position as a principal investigator (PI) at Clinical Department in R1 University. Year 2 has been a challenge, but for different reasons than Year 1. While the lessons from Year 1 remain relevant, Year 2 has yielded additional knowledge and insight. As always these days, n=me.

Use your faculty mentoring committee: It is one thing to assemble a faculty mentoring committee and another thing entirely to use it effectively. I have been remiss this year in utilizing the expert panel of mentors I have assembled. Much like graduate school, I am worried they will tell me my progress has been slow (I know) and I need grants and papers (yes, I know). But, much like in graduate school, this is a necessary conversation. Moreover, my committee members are there to support and facilitate my progress through the Promotion and Tenure process. It is unwise to skip these meetings that address every point of my tenure application.

Pay it forward: I have benefited from some stellar mentorship throughout my early career. Part of the reason I started blogging at Edge for Scholars was to pass along my experiences in career development award writing, the academic job market, and the life of a new PI. This is the year I started paying it forward in earnest, actively seeking out opportunities to peer mentor new faculty and postdocs. Be the mentor you had or be the mentor you needed. But be a mentor.

Use that network: This has been the year my network has really started playing a role in my career development.  I spent last year attending new meetings and expanding my network, building up my laboratory website, and investing in my career with both time and money. This year, that investment is starting to pay off with new opportunities for myself and my trainees. Not sure where to start? Here are some easy steps to take towards building a national reputation.

Plan ahead: I thought I was busy in Year 1. I was even busier in Year 2. Work on managing your time and being efficient in the time you allocate to tasks. This continues to be a struggle for me and it was particularly obvious during teaching in the spring semester. Year 2 was the first time I taught an undergraduate level course. It was a lot of work and came at a particularly busy time in the laboratory. I do not think I was prepared for the hours of preparation teaching these lectures would require. Do not underestimate this time or you, like me, will only do lecture preparation for weeks. The same is true for grant writing. Break up grants into smaller pieces and work on them in smaller chunks over a longer time period (excellent tips here). This will keep your productivity up on other tasks.

Protect your time: One of the continuing themes of this new PI journey is protecting your time and filling it with valuable things. Progress on your own projects, managing your research team, and writing grants are all valuable. Service on committees and administrative tasks (like updating the department website), while also important, are less important than successfully launching your career. In the words of my mentors, when it comes to service in the pre-tenure years, do the minimum required. Help others (with their permission) protect their time too. While external requests for manuscript and grant reviews this year were manageable, this was the year of a hundred new funding sources with a thousand new grants. I was very tempted to write many of them, but there is not enough time to write them all, and saying “yes” to these grants meant saying “no” to other grants and opportunities. Protect your time and be picky in which grants you choose to write.

That is a wrap on Year 2! In Year 3, I have my three-year review. Fingers crossed this year will include the laboratory’s first papers, grants, and trainee fellowships. Stay tuned for more tales!

Did I miss an important point? Do you have questions or concerns about the post? Or perhaps an anecdote to contribute! Feel free to send some electrons my way in the comments, via Twitter @PipetteProtag, or through traditional electronic mail pipette.protagonist@gmail.com

We’re living through tough times. The overall grant funding rate has been trending downwards since I was born, and I ain’t that young. Everything’s more competitive now than it was 10 or 20 years ago, from the amount of work needed to get into a high impact journal to the number of publications you need to be competitive for training grants or R01. Not only that, but we’re more circumscribed as well – the regulatory requirements are much more stringent than they used to be, and we live in a world of all soft money.

To add insult to injury, for a lot of young folks, going into science means you stop getting constant praise from everyone for how smart you are, and start being constantly told what an idiot you are, every time you submit a paper or grant. Heck, I’m more successful than most, and my standard grant review is, “It’s amazing, given all the great work he had as preliminary data, that he wrote such a godawful grant.” You probably spend your primary education and undergraduate career being the smartest kid in class, and having everyone telling you how wonderful you are. Now, pretty much the opposite.

So, given both these real and psychological pressures, how do you sleep at night? How do you keep from collapsing into a quivering pile of jelly when you think about it?

Two words:

Massive. Egotism.

Here’s the important part – I first taught large lectures for undergraduates in 1988, 30 years ago, and have been helping train grad students and fellows for roughly 20 years. There is such a thing as talent and intelligence, and people have it in different quantities. But in order to be in this position at all, you’re already in the top few percent. And, in my experience, there ain’t all that much difference at that level. Somebody who’s in the 99th percentile and the 99.5 percentile just isn’t that different.

So – the thing to tell yourself is, “What I am trying to do is possible. And if anybody can do it, I can.”

Your ego needs to be so big, it no longer requires external approval – you’re wonderful no matter what anybody else says. So when reviewers ask me if perhaps I was having a stroke while writing my latest paper, I don’t let it get to me. I know my work is wonderful – I just perhaps need to do a better job of letting them know how wonderful it is.

That’s the trick, though – have the sort of ego that allows you to completely emotionally gloss over complaints from reviewers, while still having the humility to recognize when things need to change. Sometimes your theory is wrong, and you need to adapt it to new data. Sometimes you need to do a better job of explaining why your work is important. Sometimes you just flat out need to bring in somebody else’s expertise. That’s OK, though – you can not possibly be an expert in everything, no matter how smart and hard working you are. Division of labor has been a good idea since the neolithic. Needing someone else’s help isn’t an admission of failure – it’s good resource management. There’s only so much of you to go around, and it’s more efficient to outsource some skills.

So, don’t let the harsh reviews of your grants get to you. You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and, gosh darn it, people like you. And if you’re not the smartest person in the room, you’re as close as makes no difference.

Alternately, you can just remind yourself, that no matter how bad it gets, nobody is shooting at you yet, so how bad can it really be?

Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the United States for individuals aged 10-34 (accidental injury is the only cause that exceeds it), and the fourth leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 35 and 54. (National Institute of Mental Health)

“If we were to base our actions on the data rather than on stigma, we would be focusing far more on preventing suicide as a critical public health risk. We ought to be checking in on our students’ and colleagues’ psychological health as much or more than we do regarding their ‘physical’ health.”

Dr. David Sacks, licensed clinical psychologist

With a fuller toolkit of resources, together we can create a suicide-safer community for academics in crisis.

These links provide general guidance with a focus on mental health in university settings. Refer directly to your institution’s health and counseling centers for specific programs to help you or your colleagues and scholars.

Gatekeeper Training 

Gatekeeper training empowers participants to start initial conversations about suicide and mental illness and to refer someone in crisis for help (not to be the primary source of support). These trainings are available online and many universities offer live trainings.

QPR Institute

LivingWorks

Suicide Prevention Resource Center

Kognito is an online interactive program that addresses how to help students, including those at risk for suicide.

Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Provides resources to prevent suicide including a 24/7 Lifeline 988 and crisis counseling via instant messaging.

Most people who die by suicide exhibit warning signs. Knowing the risk factors and signs may help you determine if a colleague is at risk and needs help.

Preventing Medical Trainee Suicide

Excellent information for healthcare professionals including facts about physician depression and suicide, prevention programs, links to additional resources, and toolkits for medical schools and residency/fellowship programs for coping after suicide loss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9GRxF9qEBA&feature=youtu.be

Responding to Emotionally Distressed Students: A Faculty/Staff Guide

Specific guidelines designed by the Organization of Counseling Center Directors in Higher Education (OCCDHE) to assist faculty and staff in helping distressed students.

Grappling with Graduate Student Mental Health and Suicide

An in-depth look at a graduate student who died by suicide and concrete steps that academic institutions have taken to better support their graduate students’ mental health.

Supporting Graduate Student Health and Wellness

An overview of mental illness and death by suicide in graduate students with resources and strategies to support emotional health, and steps for helping someone in emotional pain.

Suicide Prevention in College

A thorough guide to emergency assistance, warning signs and prevention of suicide in college students. Includes a depression quiz and links to resources for LGBTQ, minority and veteran student populations.

Thanks to Dr. Julia Simmons and Dr. David Sacks for their professional expertise and for providing resources.

MORE RESOURCES

Feeling Powerless in the Age of Covid (Part I)

Feeling Powerless in the Age of Covid (Part II)

Balancing on the Edge

 

Dr. Courtney Peterson, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition Sciences at University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), is having a very good year.

Her pioneering work on early time-restricted feeding (eTRF) in humans, shown to improve health even in the absence of weight loss, appeared in the highly ranked academic journal Cell Metabolism, making waves in the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC News, and other media outlets. It also caught the attention of a public looking for effective, sustainable weight loss solutions, spawning a hashtag on Twitter (#eTRF) followed by a growing number of fans.

Additional validation arrived in July 2018, when Peterson received a large ($2.2 million in direct costs) NIH R01 grant to pursue the next phase of her eTRF research. The funding will allow her to establish a new lab at UAB, where she is launching a large-scale clinical trial to study the effect of eTRF and time-restricted feeding later in the day (ITRF) on blood sugar, blood pressure, and cardiovascular risk factors in adults with prediabetes.

As measured by any academic standard, Peterson, whose PhD is in Physics, is incredibly successful for someone who is considered an “early stage investigator” by NIH definition. So, we had to ask, of her many scholarships and fellowships and master’s degrees, was there any particular learning opportunity that provided a special boost to her career?

Her answer, in a nutshell: The Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) mini-sabbatical.

What is a Mini-sabbatical?

Mini-sabbaticals are immersive training experiences that connect investigators from any career stage with experts outside of their institution to supplement their research repertoire, from mastering a new tool or technique to acquiring new data or knowledge. An advantage of the CCTS program is its intense focus; unlike apprenticeships of yore, or a traditional academic sabbatical, mini-sabbaticals last only 2-120 days.

While an NIH KL2 career development scholar at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, Peterson applied to the CCTS mini-sabbatical program so she could spend 10 weeks training with one of the world’s leading clinical researchers in circadian rhythms, sleep, and meal timing, Dr. Frank Scheer, who holds joint appointments at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

“The mini-sabbatical experience changed my career, providing me with the translational research skills, domain knowledge, and mentoring I needed to become the first investigator to study the health effects of intermittent fasting in relation to circadian biology in humans,” Peterson said.

“Most training programs are too short to really become an expert in an area and to become a truly multidisciplinary researcher,” Peterson added. “The mini-sabbatical was critical in providing me with an immersion in circadian research, so that I can help bridge the gap between the two fields of intermittent fasting and circadian biology and better understand the impact of meal timing on human health.”

Although the CCTS mini-sabbatical supports travel to another institution, the experience often results in investigators learning to look in their own “academic backyards” for new collaborative learning relationships. After Peterson returned from Boston, she sought out Dr. Karen Gamble at the UAB Nutrition and Obesity Research Center to learn about molecular and animal model techniques for studying circadian rhythms, rounding out her research skill set.

Beyond Anecdotes: Measuring Mini-sabbatical Effectiveness

SEQUIN, which stands for multi-CTSA mini-Sabbatical Evaluation and QUality ImprovemeNt, aims to evaluate and expand the use of mini-sabbaticals. It is a joint project of four CTSA Hubs: UAB, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, New York University School of Medicine, and the University of Rochester Medical Center (in its capacity as the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program coordinating center).

“Mini-sabbaticals offer a tailored training experience to meet the unique needs of an individual investigator,” says CCTS Director Dr. Robert P. Kimberly. “As the paradigm shifts toward team science in academic medicine, mini-sabbaticals offer a pathway toward greater scientific synergy among institutions with shared research goals.”

How Do I Find a Mini-sabbatical Opportunity?

The Center for Leading Innovation & Collaboration (CLIC) recently launched a mini-sabbatical opportunities web page to help promote the CCTS mini-sabbatical program. Translational investigators looking for an immersive experience to grow their research skills and knowledge should start there.

As of this posting, there are 33 mini-sabbaticals available, representing a broad array of biomedical and behavioral disciplines (e.g., informatics, genetics, genomics, imaging; public health, economics, health policy) and complementary fields (e.g., drug and device development, pharmacotherapy, bioethics, and biomedical innovation/ commercialization). Opportunities for learning to work with special populations (defined not only by race, but also age and geographic location) are also available.

CCTS offers $1000 in support to investigators in our Partner Network who apply for a mini-sabbatical and encourages investigators to propose a mini-sabbatical if they do not see one that meets their career development needs. To learn more about the requirements for applying to the CCTS mini-sabbatical program, visit http://www.uab.edu/ccts/training-academy/trainings/mini-sabbaticals.

Questions? Email CCTS (ccts@uab.edu).

What every breastfeeding and pumping mom needs to know BEFORE attending a conference.

Travel Tip #1: If it’s a small conference or training, let work colleagues or training administrators know you are a nursing mother and will need to take breaks to pump during the conference or training. That way, they know that you aren’t just ducking out.

What to bring:

• Breast pump with extra pump parts
  • Be sure the pump is fully charged and extra parts are clean and stored safely
  • Consider also bringing a manual hand pump (and make sure you know how to use it) in case the electric pump stops working, AND a cover-up in case you need to pump in a more public space (like a plane)
• Extension cord
• Microwavable sanitizing bag
• Extra bottles with caps or breast milk storage bags
• Insulated freezer bag
• Reusable freezer packets
• Nursing pads
• Sanitizing wipes
• Large ziploc storage bags

Travel Tip #2: Taking a large (non-rechargeable) pump can seem like a great idea, but in practice can present challenges aside from lugging another heavy bag around. Many travelling moms buy a smaller, rechargeable pump, enabling them to pump anywhere without needing an outlet–including on the plane itself.

What to ask for from the hotel:

• A room close to the conference area if you plan to go to your room to pump
• On-site lactation rooms
• Extended checkout if needing to pump at end of conference before heading to airport
• Small bottle of dish soap for washing pump parts
• Freezer in room for milk storage
• Shipping services
  • FedEx and MilkStork offer special options for shipping breast milk
  • Check shipping hours and allow enough time to get the shipment processed before heading to the airport

Travel Tip #3: Pumping in your hotel room can impair your ability to participate in the conference. If your room is too far, ask the conference coordinators to reserve a room on the conference floor, just steps away from the action. They’ve done this without any issue for guests at previous Translational Science meetings and even went above and beyond and provided a refrigerator, hand sanitizer, pens, and a key for security.

Travel Tip #4: Ask the hotel to store your milk in their restaurant freezer. They do this on a regular basis and usually have the process down. Write your name and room number on the Ziploc and try to pre-freeze the milk enough to where it lays flat, then put several frozen-ish bags in a large Ziploc to give to the hotel clerk helping you. If bags are not yet frozen, tell the attendant that the bags need to lay flat in the freezer. Be sure to include your liquid ice packs to re-freeze as well.

Airport:

• Get to the airport at least two hours prior to boarding, no exceptions. This allows you to get through TSA, find your gate, and pump in a nursing room prior to take-off.
• Look for nursing rooms or free-standing nursing pods like Mamava, and download the app so you can easily look for locations near you when at airports, universities, and arenas/convention centers/stadiums nationwide.
• Know your rights. TSA allows breast milk to be stored in carry-ons (with or without your child) and breast milk is exempt from the 3-1-1 liquid rule. All American airlines allow expressed milk on board, but not all flight personnel are aware, so consider printing out the TSA and airline guidelines on traveling with breast milk.  Breast pumps and related equipment are considered medical devices and do not count toward your carry-on limit (meaning you can have your standard large and small carry-on plus a bag for your pump).

Travel Tip #5: Keep in mind: pumping AFTER you go through security will be easier than trying to bring your expressed milk through the checkpoint. Related, traveling through TSA with frozen milk is beneficial, as TSA will not have to test frozen items. If milk or frozen packs are not fully frozen when going through TSA, they will need to test the milk and will potentially remove your frozen packs altogether if the liquid inside cannot be easily tested.

Special thanks to Natalie Chichetto, PhD, MSW for contributing to this post. Natalie is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Florida.

Additional resources:

Best Breast Pumps of 2022

Got Milk? When Packing for a Conference Requires Remembering the Breast Pump

How to Accommodate a Breastpumping Mom at Your Event

On the Interview Trail While Pregnant or Pumping

Inspire your young scientists with some amazing STEM-centered videos on YouTube.  (You can enjoy them too, because really, who DOESN’T want to see the world’s largest lemon battery, or learn how oxygen almost destroyed the world?)

Great channels to follow:

PBS Eons. This series, hosted by a paleontologist, a science writer, and some guy named Hank Green, provides bite-sized looks at momentous events and cool creatures from natural history.  From the “cat-sized deer thing” that evolved into whales to fungi as tall as trees, they shine a spotlight on the fossil record and explain how we know what we know about creatures of the past.

Mark Rober. Mark is really into winning, from science fairs to pinewood derbies to carnival games. He’s into winning through SCIENCE, though, and offers fun and older kid-friendly explanations for why certain wooden cars go faster than others, how some games are rigged, and more.

SciShow. Another Hank Green project, this one’s been around a while and has thousands of videos on everything from biology to climatology, physics to psychology, and a whole lot more.  (Seriously, I haven’t actually managed to scroll to the end of their list of videos yet.) Learn which organs you can live without, whether animals like music (featuring fMRI of crocodiles!), and the six longest scientific experiments ever, among a whole lot more.

Brusspup. This channel focuses on illusions, and for extra parent points, they’re often ones you can recreate at home using simple objects like water, food coloring, and corn syrup (for example, these 10 tricks that all use liquid).

Minute Physics. If you have a short time to watch (or just a short attention span), this is a great channel for quick, to the point answers to questions that vex the grade school set, such as whether walking or running through the rain will keep you dryer, why is it dark at night, and what if Earth were hollow?

It’s Okay to Be Smart. Another PBS series, this ranges widely from topics like why humans are upside-down lobsters and why nature loves hexagons more than squares or triangles, to why February only has 28 days and how come salt and pepper are the two spices on every table.

Veritasium. A motherlode of videos on every possible science and science-adjacent topic, from misconceptions about the universe to the most radioactive places on Earth to what the world looks like in ultraviolet.

Wendover Productions. Okay, it’s less STEM than “Huh. I never would have thought to ask that, but the answer’s cool,” but it’s still got some hilarious animation and a great narrator.  Learn how geography influences a country’s success, how airports make money, and why the northernmost town in America exists.

And don’t forget to watch videos curated especially for your career in our Video Vault!

As a trainee, I was a big believer in principal investigators (PIs) paying for all things related to the science, from poster printing to conference travel to lab outings. Luckily for me, my mentors shared my views on their responsibilities to trainees, and my science-based costs were reimbursed without question. There were, however, costs that I paid for out-of-pocket and continue to pay as a PI. By and large, these types of costs fall into the category of “career development.” These are some of the investments that I have made up until now, as a graduate student, postdoc and PI. As always these days, n=me.

The obvious investments: There are certain investments that are fairly obvious and not necessarily specific to careers in science.

Business casual attire for interviews, presentations, and meetings: These outfits do not have to be expensive, but they should fit well and be comfortable enough for a day of wearing. To guarantee their longevity, invest in attire that is more of a closet staple than this year’s hottest trend. Here are some tips.

A reasonable computer: Purchase a computer on which you can process data, write manuscripts, and engage the scientific community from the comfort of your couch. Invest a little money in acquiring some software, like Office and a reference manager. Most institutions have licenses for at-home software use at a discount. Having your own computer, which is not tied to grants or your institution, also gives you more freedom in using said computer. For example, if you own a side business or serve as a consultant, you want those records on your personal machine.

Data back-up: Be smart and back-up your home and work computer, either by external drive or cloud. Data storage has become less and less expensive, so spending some money on a cloud back-up service or a large back-up drive is well worth the investment. You will thank yourself when you successfully locate the protocol you used in graduate school, the colony management sheet from your postdoc lab, or have the only surviving back-up of your data following cataclysmic computer failure in one of your old labs.

The less obvious investments: There are other investments that are less obvious, but could make a big difference in both your sanity and career.

Social activities: Not all social activities you undertake at your institution or at conferences will be reimbursable (for example, networking happy hours). Take the financial loss and meet some new people, go to a nice restaurant with some senior colleagues, and enjoy the opportunity to talk science with new people who are normally inaccessible to you. PIs, this includes things like taking your lab out for celebratory lunches, birthday cakes, and team building events. Be the hero and help your people out.

Business cards: Faculty, this should go without saying. You need business cards. You will be passing these out like Halloween candy in your first year to new colleagues, potential students, program officers, vendors, and pretty much anyone who will take one. For the trainees, these are also a worthy investment. Some graduate school and postdoc programs provide business cards for free. If you institution does not provide these, the most basic versions cost roughly $10 for 500 cards. These are a great, small investment in your career as they provide your personal information quickly and point a potential collaborator, future mentor, or employer to your work and personal website.

Personal and/or lab website: If you are a new faculty member, consider setting up a secondary lab website, independent of your institution, specifically for your lab, paid for with your own money. Personal websites are much easier to maintain and can include more information than your institutional page. Moreover, should you change institutions, you will still have your website. Tips for making a great website can be found here and my thoughts, here. If you are a trainee, setting up your own website can highlight your accomplishments and is particularly important if you are considering non-PI careers. Moreover, this will move with you throughout your career and will provide a space for your writing samples, medical illustrations, technical skills, and curriculum vitae.

Membership dues: In graduate school, I joined a society relevant to my research interests, and have paid the dues out-of-pocket yearly. Membership dues are usually smaller for trainees than faculty. Being a long-time member of a society provides built-in networking and opportunities to serve the society throughout your career. Moreover, senior members with whom you serve and interact are likely reviewing your papers, grants, and conference abstracts. Think of that $50 membership fee as an investment in your future in a specific field.

Career development workshops: One of the biggest investments I made as a postdoc was attending a career development workshop. There was no money in the lab budget to send me to the workshop, so I used the airline miles I had collected over the years through personal and business travel to buy the airline ticket. I paid the registration fee, which included lodging, out of pocket, and attended one of the best and most transformative workshops I have ever attended. Am I suggesting you pay for conferences and workshops out of pocket all the time? Absolutely not. This was simply a workshop that I could not skip, and I made a careful decision to spend the money and invest in my career.

How to decide what to invest in: For me, this has always been a sliding scale: the higher the cost, the more value must come from the investment. Spending $10 on business cards that I might never use seems reasonable. Paying $2,000 out-of-pocket to attend the giant Terrible Disease conference where I am not giving a podium presentation seems outrageous. These investments are also likely to change throughout your career. As a postdoc, I did not travel enough to warrant TSA Pre or lounge access. These days, I travel most months, and TSA Pre has been well worth the investment.

I hope that I have convinced you that there are certain out-of-pocket investments you should consider, regardless of your career stage. In my next blog post, I will cover some of the strategies I am employing in deciding where to invest my time. Stay tuned for more tales!

Did I miss an important point? Do you have questions or concerns about the post? Or perhaps an anecdote to contribute! Feel free to send some electrons my way in the comments, via Twitter @PipetteProtag, or through traditional electronic mail pipette.protagonist@gmail.com

We recognize that things happen to everyone—a health crisis in the family, financial dilemmas, ongoing caregiving needs, or extraordinarily stressful life events. Recent data from a survey of early career faculty document that most face a significant caregiving challenge or stressful event each year. Partners are diagnosed with cancer, parents are in hospice, and children are hospitalized or have chronic debilitating conditions. Our family members and friends have crises, pets die, we experience physical violence or verbal abuse, marital relationships dissolve, and natural disasters shock us.

We are fully human in all its wonderful, messy joy and sorrow. But not at work. At work, faculty avoid disclosing challenges even when they confront crises that could disrupt or redefine their career paths. As part of planning and implementing a site receiving funds from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to assist faculty in research-dominant careers in keeping their work on track during extraprofessional caregiving challenges, we’ve had the chance to hear many personal stories, to host focus groups, and to identify these themes underlying why faculty are reticent to disclose to others when the going gets tough.

Striving and Equity:  Both mentors and early career faculty note that researchers are accustomed to working hard and pressing on against long odds. We seek to avoid any possible perception of being weak or having poor judgement. We want to reinforce our identities as hard workers who are thriving. Faculty report these views even while acknowledging that crises are not caused by weakness and that seeing crises in such a way is “blaming the victim.” They emphasize that academic scientists “have earned what we have” and “don’t want favors.” The broader theme includes a desire to reject resources to which peers and role models would not have access if those resources existed solely because of life circumstances. “Lots of people have it rough; it could be worse.”

Fear of Pity:  Individuals and discussants describe discomfort with receiving empathy or sympathy from others, especially in the work place. As scientists we are aware of the discordance of being in a “caring profession” and rejecting the care of others. Yet we want to avoid a perception of weakness or need and want to avoid favors. But most of all we want to avoid loss of privacy in tandem with “people feeling sorry for them.” We worry we won’t be able to distinguish between ordinary kindness and adaptability from peers, for instance in changing call schedules or trading seminar dates, and people “treating me with kid gloves.”

Another Shoe:  This theme is rooted in the belief that “another shoe could drop.”  So we “hold on to requests for help in case it gets worse.” Discussants joke about common cultural references like “bad things come in threes” and “this is only the first strike, I’m not out of the game yet.” In reflecting about the thought process during challenging circumstances when problems began to multiply (e.g. recent divorce, followed by hospitalization of a child, or parent in hospice care out of state, followed by partner’s diagnosis of progressive autoimmune disease), many note a sense of dread about what comes next. Counter-intuitively, greater pressures make this instinct to wait to ask for help even stronger.

What antidotes can we pursue as peers, mentors, and institutions?

Normative Data:  We need to collect and communicate local and national data that demonstrates that extraprofessional caregiving demands are common. At our institution, we’ve documented that more than half of early career faculty endorsed experienced one or more substantial caregiving challenges in the prior year. This included 23% (35 of 152) having a child or adult in the household hospitalized in the prior year and 24% (36 of 152) being responsible for healthcare needs for a child or adult in the household, or for coordinating elder care, assisted living, or hospice care. Stressful life events also affected the majority at the rate of almost two events per year on average.

These results indicate we should expect the majority of early career faculty researchers, both women and men, will experience substantial caregiving challenges and stressful life events in any given year. These are not rare occurrences. The data also imply that over the course of early career life all faculty will face multiple crises. They need to be aware of this fact to destigmatize being in such a situation and to encourage basic preparation to face unknown forms of challenges that are inevitable. This includes talking with family and friends about how they can marshal support for each other should the need arise, planning with spouse or partner about potential approaches, and building a firm financial foundation to weather the financial pressures that attend most caregiving crises.

Making Faculty Assistance Program Approachable:  In the best of worlds, all new faculty would not only hear about faculty assistance resources in a PowerPoint presentation but would be scheduled to visit the program office and meet key personnel as part of their faculty orientation. With proper assurances of confidentiality and attention to voluntary engagement these programs are resource hubs to reduce faculty burnout, provide career coaching, and refer those who could benefit from longer term counseling or support services. In screening our PARTNERs applicants in this setting we achieve multiple ends which include: affirming the power of addressing a need, reducing the concerns reflected in the themes outlined above for confidentiality, and connecting all who present with a broader array of resources. Faculty support services can also be safe ground for providing connections to healthcare concierge resources, legal support referrals, or community services ranging from bonded transportation services during a crises to ratings of eldercare services. As an example, financial distress attendants with crises or causing crises were sufficiently common in our work that faculty assistance now provides access to Smart Money training and coaching to help faculty restore financial stability.

Institutional Financial Supports for Helping Hands: Institutions, including the 10 participating in the Doris Duke Fund for Retaining Physician Researchers, consistently report the value of addressing such needs. Practical supports in the workplace in the form of additional technical support in the lab, research nurse effort to consent study participants, medical editors to polish a grant or buy-out of clinical time are promising options prioritized by awardees. Further assistance with household demands (food delivery, cleaning, transportation, consultants for organization or finances) is also appreciated.

Exclusive of the personal investments in education, training, and delayed gratification that attend faculty life, institutions invest substantial tangible resources in recruitment, space, start-up funding, taking on research positions, and mentoring early career faculty. We select faculty because we recognize their skills, intellectual qualities, and high probability of future contributions to building knowledge and enriching the work of the institution. Nonetheless a single stressful life event dramatically increases consideration of leaving academic life. Our local survey found such an event increased relative risk of “thinking about leaving academics” by 70% (RR: 1.7; 95% CI: 1.2, 2.4). We assume all institutions would like to prevent departures. Small investments in the short term can protect these investments and, more importantly, demonstrate that we are committed to a holistic vision for success of our faculty.

Mentors and Leaders Disclosing Experience: Our highest responsibility is for senior faculty who mentor and lead to share their experiences of caregiving crises and other circumstances that required regrouping to weather a storm. If we always portray smooth sailing and sunny weather in our career presentations and personal conversations we are doing a disservice. Indeed we are perpetuating the lie that those who succeed have everything in control, always. Life will happen, when possible we would do well to disclose what crises felt like, the concerns we worried over, our fear of pity or penalty, and what we wish we had known. Then we must work to assure safeguards are in place to recognize normative data and provide real supports to retain our faculty and maintain or restore their career success. That’s how academic research will flourish. It requires our action.

Additional Insights into the Needs of Academic Research Faculty

Hartmann KE, Sundermann AC, Helton R, Bird H, Wood A.  The Scope of Extra-Professional Caregiving Challenges Among Early Career Faculty: Findings From a University Medical Center.  Academic Medicine. 2018; Epub ahead of print. PMID: 29596083

Jagsi R, Jones RD, Griffith KA, Brady KT, Brown AJ, Davis RD, Drake AF, Ford D, Fraser VJ, Hartmann KE, Hochman JS, Girdler S, Libby AM, Mangurian C, Regensteiner JG, Yonkers K, Escobar-Alvarez S, Myers ER.  An Innovative Program to Support Gender Equity and Success in Academic Medicine: Early Experiences From the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists.  Ann Intern Med.  2018; Epub ahead of print. PMID: 29554690

Munson M, Weisz O, Masur S. Juggling on the ladder: Institutional awards help faculty overcome early-mid career obstacles.American Society of Cell Biology Newsletter. 2014; 37:9.

Jagsi R, Butterton JR, Starr R, Tarbell NJ. A targeted intervention for the career development of women in academic medicine. Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:343–345.

Beckett L, Nettiksimmons J, Howell LP, Villablanca AC. Do family responsibilities and a clinical versus research faculty position affect satisfaction with career and work-life balance for medical school faculty? J Womens Health. 2015;24:471–480.