Show Notes
Description
Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy joins Dr Mike for the next conversation in our Ages and Stages series: the transition from early to middle career in academic medicine. Drawing on his experiences in clinical care and medical education, we explore career setbacks, self-doubt, collaboration, promotion, and professional development. Also discussed: documenting meaningful contributions, choosing sustainable commitments, and growing into a leader who opens doors for others. We hope you can join us!
Learning Objectives
At the end of this activity, participants should be able to:
- Identify institutional programs, professional societies, and peer networks that can support the transition from early to middle career.
- Explain how career setbacks and exploratory roles can clarify professional interests and direction.
- Apply a documentation framework to a teaching or improvement project to record contributions and evidence relevant to promotion.
- Evaluate a proposed faculty role using career alignment, service responsibilities, workload, available support, and competing priorities.
Guest
Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy
Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics
Associate Program Director, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency
The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Links
Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy — Ohio State Profile
Ohio State — Faculty Advancement, Mentoring, and Engagement (FAME)
Ohio State — Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure Toolbox
AAMC — Managing Career Transitions and Succession
AAMC — Midcareer Faculty Leadership Development Seminar
Episode Transcript
[Dr Mike Patrick]
This episode of FAMEcast is brought to you by the Center for Faculty Advancement, Mentoring, and Engagement at the Ohio State University College of Medicine.
[MUSIC]
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of FAMEcast. We are a faculty development podcast from the Ohio State University College of Medicine.
This is Dr. Mike coming to you from the campus of Ohio State. It’s episode 29. We’re calling this one Ages and Stages, the Early to Middle Career in Academic Medicine.
I want to welcome all of you to the program. We are so happy to have you with us. In our last episode, we began our Ages and Stages series with a look at the early career in academic medicine.
Today, we are exploring what happens as that early career begins to grow into the middle years. You’ve gained some experience, built some relationships, and taken on new responsibilities, but the path may look very different from the one you had imagined. What happens when a leadership opportunity does not work out?
How do you recognize that you’re ready for the next step, even when you feel like the junior person in the room? And how do you make room for growth without simply adding more work? We’ll explore collaboration, promotion, and professional development.
We’ll talk about choosing commitments that fit your goals, documenting the impact of your work, and opening doors for the people coming behind you. Our guest brings a personal story of unexpected turns, meaningful relationships, and a growing identity as an educator and leader. And while his experience comes from clinical and educational work, our conversation about purpose, support, and sustainable growth will reach across all domains of academic medicine.
Our guest today is Dr. Vignesh Doraiswamy. He is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency Program at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Before we get to him, I do want to remind you that the information presented in every episode of FAMEcast is for general educational purposes only.
Your use of this audio program is subject to the FAMEcast Terms of Use Agreement, which you can find at famecast.org. So, let’s take a quick break. We’ll get Dr. Vignesh Doraiswamy settled into the studio, and then we will be back to talk about the transition from early to middle career in academic medicine. It’s coming up right after this.
[MUSIC]
[Dr Mike Patrick]
He cares for children and adults, teaches medical students and residents, and helps colleagues find opportunities to grow. And his path into educational leadership has included a few unexpected turns along the way.
Our guest today is Dr. Vignesh Doraiswamy. He is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and an Associate Program Director for the Combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency Program at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He also practices hospital medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
He joins us to explore the transition from early to middle career, including the lessons that come from setbacks, collaboration, and taking the next step before you feel completely ready. Before we dive in, let’s offer a warm welcome to our guest, Dr. Vignesh Doraiswamy. Welcome to FAMEcast.
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Thank you so much for having me here. I’ve learned a great deal from FAMEcast over the years and happy to be able to contribute myself.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Well, we are happy to have you here. And I wanted to start with your own story. What did you imagine your academic career would look like and what happened when those first medical education leadership opportunities didn’t quite work out? I love this story, by the way.
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
I came to Ohio State as a new faculty member, having just finished residency somewhere else. And my residency superlative was actually most likely to retire and die as Program Director of a MedPage residency. I won’t say that I knew that would happen or that I even expected it to happen.
But if you ask me what my dream was, I think that’s what I had envisioned for myself. But these sort of roles don’t always just pop up. You know, people tend to stay in them for a long time because they’re so rewarding and wonderful.
But our College of Medicine has lots of roles that come up every year as new classes of medical students come in. And so, I dove in headfirst after working as faculty for about a year, which was around COVID, to be honest. I was like, let me start applying for some of these things.
And for the first two years, I think I got resoundingly rejected from every single one of them. And maybe rejection is a strong word. They chose someone who was maybe better and more qualified.
But I think I got a little despondent at times. I was like, man, I’m at The Ohio State, came here to be an academic clinician. And am I not doing what I came here to do?
Like, I’m doing the patient care stuff, but am I maybe failing at what I envisioned for myself? But I had a lot of great mentors and coaches and guides within my division and others who reminded me there’s so many other ways to pursue my passions. Did I really just like teaching residents or did I just love teaching in general and learning and collaborating with people?
Turns out it was really the latter. So, my early roles included, you know, being patient safety and quality director for some of our cancer medicine service lines, being a medical director at University Hospital at Ohio State University and even working on a lot of clinical practice guidelines for things like COPD and asthma and ultimately even the COVID guidelines. And there was so much education and collaboration and joy involved in a lot of those things.
And if you asked me, was that medical education when I was a resident? I may have said no, but how wrong was I?
[Dr Mike Patrick]
The reason I love this story is because it’s so true for so many folks and that we can all relate to that. And I think if at the beginning of your career, when especially in your early career and you have, you know, specific goals in mind, absolutely strive to reach those goals. But also enjoy the journey and because it’s going to take you places that you don’t necessarily expect, but that you likely will find rewarding and that sort of builds one experience on the other until you get to a place where you may not have imagined, but you’re really satisfied with where you are.
Would you agree with that?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Yeah, absolutely. I think you have to enjoy the journey, and you can sort of learn a lot from these experiences, right?
You can see, do I need to sort of reassess whether I actually enjoy what I’m doing or not? Am I having a good time from this? Am I getting good feedback?
You know, is this still something that, you know, I wake up and say, I’m kind of excited to do this. And to tell you the truth, I kind of was, I didn’t think I would be. If you told me I would enjoy being an administrator, I would have kind of laughed at you and said, “Ha Ha.” You clearly do not know me.
But turns out, you know, maybe administration gets a bad rep sometimes, but you get to do a lot of things that are really related to your passions in roles that you may not have envisioned. And so, you really got to enjoy the journey and learn from it along the way.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
There are times when you may select an opportunity that is really not helping you grow in the way that you intend. And maybe you’re not enjoying the work quite as well. How can faculty tell when it’s time to sort of move on to something different or, or whether it’s best to stick it out?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
I think you said it right there. You know, if you’re not enjoying that journey, if you feel like you’re not gaining from it, or the work you’re doing isn’t meaningful, or you feel like it’s not something that is helping you or what the work is supposed to progress, maybe that’s not a great long-term fit. And in fact, I think it takes a great deal of strength and measure to be able to say, hey, I need to take a step back.
Maybe someone else is better suited for this and go talk to whoever you’re working with in that and say, hey, I’m not really gaining as much out of this. And you might be wrong. There was a time during the early parts of my medical directorship where I said, hey, am I actually doing a good job?
I don’t know that I’m seeing progress in ways that I thought I would. And turns out I was doing maybe a little better than I anticipated. And they’re like, well, what about all these things that you’ve done?
And I kind of just neglected those. I was like, oh, they didn’t seem as important to me. So, you know, your version of what might be a good job may not be as what everyone else is perceiving or seeing.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
When you found out that an associate program director position opened up and this was something that at least in the beginning was your goal to get involved in that kind of a role, you nearly talked yourself out of applying. And I think, you know, having had those experiences of being told no, you know, can make it be more likely to say, well, I’m not even going to try because I’ll just get the no again. How did you move past that feeling of, you know, kind of feeling like an imposter and maybe didn’t really belong in that because of those past not rejections, but, you know, not now?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Yeah, I like not now. So, you know, I think that was essentially I thought that this was going to be another not now. I was like, Do I really want to put the time and effort, even though this is something I’d always envisioned for myself, and perhaps even others had envisioned for me?
You know, I was I’d been in attending for three years here. I was relatively junior. We have over 100 Med Peds faculty, many of whom are exceptional, exceptionally, I should say, more qualified and more experienced than I am.
And so, I said, I don’t know if I should. I spoke to the program director about it. Actually, she was one of the people who said you should apply.
What’s the worst that could happen? And she encouraged me and talked about ideas that I had brought up, even though I wasn’t in the program or outside perspectives that I’d brought from a different program. And even the residents, a couple of residents actually said, hey, you applying for this APD spot?
And I kind of told them, no, should I? So, I think it takes encouragement from others sometimes. But you have to seek it out.
If I had to talk to those residents or if I had a meeting with the program director to say, hey, you know, what do you think? I truly was not going to apply for this at all. I was like, what’s the point?
I’m just probably going to spend some time on an application. But the way it was put to me was, what’s the worst that could happen? Vic, you’re going to apply.
You maybe get selected for an interview and you get to meet a lot of people then who know what your passions are, know that you’re excited. And when something else opens up in the future, they’re going to remember you and they’re going to reach out to you. Or you don’t get the interview even.
But still, then people have your CV. They look at what you’ve done. They saw your cover letter that talks about your ideas, and they still might want to reach out to you.
And so, I think, sure, at worst, I would have lost some time if you want to call it that. But I actually think it was a great process for me to be reflectful, insightful and reflect rather on, you know, what mattered to me and whether I really wanted to do this or not.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
You know, some folks may not have an opportunity because they lack experience in a particular thing. How can you build a track record before you have the formal title or the actual protected time?
How can you demonstrate what you can do while keeping that investment in what you’re doing sustainable, even though you don’t have the protected time or the title? No, I think that’s the age-old conundrum in academic medicine, right? Or for any folks who have like a strict job requirement that doesn’t always have protected time to do things that you’re passionate about.
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
I think starting off taking small steps as with anything is like in life, you know, small, focused projects where you can demonstrate that you have talent. Even if you don’t have the experience, you can say you have the talent, you have the diligence. You’re going to have the follow through.
You’re someone that folks can rely on. And in some ways, it really helps you build social capital. People get to know who you are.
You know, it’s not just the work. Sometimes people are like, well, I kind of like talking to this person. You know, they make me feel heard.
They take into account what I’m feeling. And they were very collaborative. They, you know, took everyone’s opinions before doing something.
And you can really create sort of, I think, a name or brand for yourself. But at the same time, I think it’s important if you don’t have protected time to sort of agree on some of those things beforehand. Like, what is my actual scope?
How much time are we going to spend on this? What are our deadlines? What sort of resources am I going to have?
And sort of making sure that before you commit to something, it’s also something that you can do in the midst of a very busy work and a very busy personal life. And then maybe you can use what you did to help propel yourself forward from there. You know, before being APD, I didn’t really have very many protected roles, but I’d involved in a lot of small little projects.
And thankfully, they all had good outcomes or they all progressed somewhere. And that was something that I was able to talk about when I was interviewing for this role.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
As I think about my own career, I did not have protected time to do podcasting right out of the gate.
I had to sort of start a podcast and show, hey, this is something I can do, and I can do it for you. And so, again, it’s just sometimes you do have to take on those extra things. But if it’s something that you’re passionate about, usually you can find opportunity to get involved and do those things and kind of prove yourself.
And then you have some experience when you do apply for those for roles in the future. Now, I know a collaboration really is important to you. So how did bringing learners and other faculty sort of into your projects change the opportunities that that came your way?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
A great question. You know, I talked about building that social capital earlier, and that is a big part of it. I think many of us in medicine and academia really enjoy working with others, but there’s other benefits to it, too.
It’s not just like, you know, having a friendly face or having someone to talk to. You’re not working in isolation. You have someone to balance ideas off of.
It actually shares the workloads. You’re not even working as hard. And I think as faculty, you have a really unique ability to bring people up, people maybe who aren’t always traditionally considered.
You can get junior learners and engage them in the process. And they’re always very excited. It allows you to demonstrate mentorship and coaching skills as well.
And so, I think more often than not, I can’t think of a time when collaboration isn’t the right answer. It’s always beneficial in every single way. You just sort of have to, you know, make sure that everyone is working to their strengths.
You know, I can’t bring up a med student and say, hey, can you do, you know, the statistical analysis for this? And I don’t know that I’m capable of it. Right.
So obviously you have to really think about what each collaborator’s goals are and make sure they all have the right guidance and make sure we talk about, you know, how much do we expect from them? And what is a fair thing to expect from them in their limited time? Make sure they get the right, you know, credit for their work.
I think one thing I like to think about was there was a policy where I went to medical school where any project that a faculty member was involved in should do their best to have a resident or medical student learner involved in some way, shape or form. And I think that was like a, it was like not enforced, but I think it was a great policy to have because it made people think about it. It was on their checklist.
Like, is there a learner I can incorporate in this project?
[Dr Mike Patrick]
When we think about collaboration, networking is kind of involved there. And, you know, for so many things in life, it’s not about necessarily what you know, but who you know, and the networking piece of our careers can be so important. On the other hand, there are those of us who tend to be more quiet, reflective, maybe, you know, an introvert, as we would say, and networking can feel uncomfortable, sort of it’s more difficult to step out of our comfort zone.
What helped you build relationships in a way that felt authentic, even if you’re not necessarily, you know, a big extrovert?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Great question. And I’m glad you asked this of me, because many people who know me only at Ohio State would never believe that I’m introverted.
In fact, as wonderful as you are, Dr. Mike, after this discussion with you, I’m going to need 30 minutes to just sit down and not think about anything because it can sort of drain your social battery. So, I am naturally very introverted. And what worked out really well for me was I was told by my division director to create a social media account on Twitter, and I told him he was out of his mind.
I was like, sir, I am. My Facebook says I am a single undergraduate student, which was true 20 years ago, and I’ve been married. So, I do think those social media and networking, though both can get a bad rep, are areas where you can sort of be thoughtful and you can reflect a little bit more before you post something or say something.
For me back then, it was meant Twitter, which, you know, many folks don’t use as much these days, but I just created a LinkedIn account recently. And it really captures a lot of that great feel where people are sharing and collaborating and you’re learning from each other. And it can be a really great place to create some connections.
You know, it’s almost like the butterfly effect, to be honest with you. If I ever got promoted to associate professor and had the publications that I needed to be able to do that, I could actually trace it back to a single junior resident of mine who connected me with someone else on Twitter who got me involved in this transition work that we were doing with adult and pediatric hospitals during the COVID pandemic. And everything came from there.
It was a junior resident of mine. Like, he was still a resident. I was faculty.
And from there, you know, a lot more collaboration. They invited me to go present on a panel with them at a national conference. And I was the junior most.
I had no business in my mind hanging out with these senior folks to present at this national conference. But ultimately, it all started from a very, you know, small interaction. You don’t have to, you know, talk to everyone all the time.
But I do think it can be very helpful to sort of, you know, find a place or a specific shared interest that you can work with people to try and, like, build on those interests. And so, though networking is sometimes, you know, seen as, oh, my gosh, networking so bad. I think that I really like to reframe that entire term is just collaboration.
Maybe you don’t actually collaborate on a project, but maybe you’ve collaborated on a shared interest. And even just talking to someone about that can bring so much joy and wonder to what we do.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
One of the one of the big goals of the middle career is to really start moving forward with promotion. And the one of the criteria to go from assistant professor to associate professor is to have more of a national reputation. And so, you mentioned, you know, your experience with getting involved on a more national type of committee.
What are some other ways that folks can start to make those steps into networking beyond their institution? Social media is certainly one great way. What are some other ways that folks can get out there and start to build a national reputation for themselves?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
I think the wonderful thing about all that we do is that every single field has one or more major home sort of academic homes that you could find for yourself. I’ll give you some examples as a hospitalist in medicine and pediatrics. You know, I have a litany of places to choose from the Society of General Internal Medicine, the Society for Hospital Medicine, the American College of Physicians.
And that’s just for medicine. PTAS, AAP, PAS, PHM for the Smaller Hospital Medicine Group. Each and every single one of these have a task force, a committee, a group.
They want volunteers to judge at their national conference and their posters and abstracts. They have so many groups and task forces, and they often struggle to find people to do it because we are all often siloed in our own institutions. And we’re not thinking nationally.
We wonder that is national too big for me or is even regional too big for me. You know, there’s a regional Ohio American Academy of Pediatrics, a regional Ohio American College of Physicians. Maybe start there that all of these organizations have regional and national committees and work and have something that you’re interested in that they’re doing.
And they often struggle to find people to fill it. I’m on some committees and, you know, our committee like Constitution says we need to have at least three people and we’re struggling because we haven’t found a third. So, we just emailed a bunch of people.
And then we got a lot of them responding, oh, I didn’t even know you had opening. So, you know, maybe it takes a little bit of proactivity here. But I think that can be a great way.
In fact, I would argue that sometimes getting a national role on a task force or a committee might be easier than your home institution, because, you know, everyone tries to do work with their institution. Not everyone realizes that you could find an academic home outside of where you work.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
It’s such an important thing as we think about promotion and another one of your stories that I love is that you were already doing meaningful work and someone had to point out that you might be ready for promotion. What do you have to say to the junior folks behind you who may be in a similar situation? Like sometimes we don’t take what we do as valuable.
And yet it really is.
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Yeah, I think a couple of big lessons here is one, I could have been better about planning early. My promotion and tenure documents were given to me on day one when I first started working.
And yet I don’t know that I referenced them always. I kind of had an idea as to what I needed to do and sort of thought about them in generalities. But I think I was sort of just pursuing my passions and telling myself promotions meant to happen.
It’ll work out. And so, when I did my interview with and I haven’t mentioned any name so far, but I’ll say Dr. Kim Tartaglia, because she was the one who did my interview and she does a lot for our fame program here. I checked the box and said, I’m not ready for promotion.
And she said, what do you mean? You’re absolutely ready for promotion. And so, she sat with me, went through what I’d done in my CV and why she thought it met criteria.
And so, if I had looked back and started from day one, I probably would have realized that I was on my way there. But I think it’s a good opportunity to remind us that there are others who know more about these sort of things than we do. And they’re all happy to do it.
You know, multiple departments and divisions have folks in academic affairs that are happy to help you out and go over things. And your own group probably has an annual review process that shows you where you’re at. So, I think, you know, doing the work yourself is great, but also sort of having mentors or promotion advisors to help connect those dots and contributions can be very helpful and meaningful, too.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
You know, we do so many sort of one offs as we think about, you know, you’re asked to give a lecture on a particular thing or you put together a workshop or, you know, something. How should we be documenting as we go so that the impact of those contributions is easier to explain later? Because it’s more difficult to remember what we did like, you know, three years ago.
So, as you go, how do you go about documenting what you’re doing and the impact that it’s having?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
This has changed a little bit over the years. The nice thing about Outlook is, you know, almost everything’s on an Outlook calendar.
So even if you forget, you can go back. But what I’ve created is even simpler, just a simple online OneDrive Google Doc. As soon as I finish something, I just put some details about it onto a sheet.
So, I have like a linear record of what I did on what day, how much time I spent. I now do a little bit of a better job. I know exactly what a dossier asks for.
So now I basically have an Excel sheet. And if I gave a talk or, you know, I’ll be honest, as soon as I’m done with this, I’m going to put a little line in my sheet that says, you know, did a FAMEcast episode with Dr. Mike. We talked about this and I’ll leave some blank spots.
You know, there’s spots for episodes that talk about, you know, how many downloads did it have and everything else. And so, there’s some metrics that your dossier may ask. But that’ll flag me to reach out to you in a little bit and say, hey, Dr. Mike, any idea if this was downloaded or listened to at all?
And so, I think doing it in the moment is so much easier. Some people say, you know, set aside once a month where you sit back and do it and maybe take an hour or two. But for me, just doing it right after I’m done with something has taken me no more than 30 seconds to a minute.
You can do it on your smartphone. And I found that to be the easiest way to keep, you know, sort of a record of everything that I’ve done.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
In academic medicine, we call ourselves lifelong learners and particularly in medicine. I think anyone in the medical field, just with the way things move so quickly, you have to be a lifelong learner. And I know you have continued to be a lifelong learner through formal graduate study programs and, of course, fame programs.
How has being a learner changed your teaching and how can faculty decide which development opportunities are worth their time?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Yes, similar to what we said at the very beginning, anything that gives you happiness and joy is worth your time. But I also think anything that helps you become better at something you want to be better at is absolutely worth your time.
So, you mentioned graduate programs. All I have left is my thesis, which I have to defend in a little bit for my master’s in education that I got through Ohio State. Lots of great fame programs for which, you know, I had to listen to some podcast episodes that were really great, but like the master mentorship certificate, for example.
And I think that these are all just opportunities for us to be lifelong learners in spaces that might not just be our actual clinical or medical work, which is obviously lifelong learning as well. And I just love that we have these opportunities. You know, there’s lots of tuition waiver or assistance programs for these graduate degrees.
And Ohio State, as an example, does a really wonderful job. So, wherever you work, look to see if they offer those sort of things. You know, I basically the master’s was flexible.
It’s taken me four years, but I really didn’t have to pay very much monetarily, which is a is a benefit. But they’re also geared towards clinician educators. I have busy schedules.
So those were things that allowed me, you know, those are logistical things that helped me pursue it. But ultimately, you know, if you find that there’s a gap in your skills or there’s something you want to be better at or even maybe something you are good at and you want to understand why it works. You know, a quick story here, if I may.
I thought that, you know, I’m a good teacher because I emulated all the good teachers, I’ve had before. But I didn’t have any knowledge of the underpinnings and theory behind what makes good education great until I did the master’s. Like, I didn’t have the terms to describe what my best teachers and educators were doing.
I kind of was doing them because I was mirroring their practice. But turns out that, you know, it’s all built on the work of others. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
And, you know, I just hope to be one more person that someone can stand on my shoulders. And this was a great opportunity and a great way to do so.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
How do you say no to opportunities? And how do you decide whether you should say yes or no? Because, you know, if you took every opportunity that came along, every committee role or every little side project, every little lecture, you can get overwhelmed. And then your work-life balance is really sort of out of whack.
So how do you decide what to say yes to and what to say no to? And then how do you say no?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Oh, great question. So, I, when I first came to Ohio State, was told by Dr. John Mann, who’s a pediatric nephrologist and a big-time medical educator here. He did a workshop for new faculty. He said that you need to have a mission and vision statement.
He did it for all of us. And I was like, I’ve heard of these things. I have no idea what they are.
They’re very easy to do these days. And I would really encourage you to come up with what is your personal mission statement. It allows you to identify what you value, what gives you the most, you know, happiness and joy.
And it’s also a great way to say yes to things by saying, this is very mission aligned. I’m very happy to do this. It’s still important, I think, to like, look at the workload, see what sort of support you have.
What is the timeline? You know, can you actually do this before you say yes? But it’s a really great way to be able to say no, because it’s not just a no, it’s a no, but, and I can often find someone else who is really suited to that ask.
If someone is asking me to do something and I feel like I’d be great at it or not, but I just don’t have the time, I can still say no. You know, thank you so much for thinking about me, but here’s someone else. And again, this is a great opportunity to be more inclusive and help bring up someone else, perhaps, who may not have been traditionally thought of.
It’s what happened for me. I was that person for many people. I was a lot of people’s no’s.
They said, no, but Vig. And so, you have an opportunity to be, you know, you can be the no but and get, how about this person? But ultimately, you know, it’s again, it has to, it has to make sense for you now that I’m sort of, you know, in mid-career, I guess, as an associate and one day thinking about being a full professor, I’m.
Being a lot more thoughtful about what to say yes to, because if it doesn’t align with my personal or professional sort of well-being and advancement, I think it’s a lot easier for me to be able to say, hey, let me pump the brakes a bit. Maybe this isn’t the right thing for me right now.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
You brought up a really good point that as we move into the middle career, we really change from taking opportunities to actually being then a provider of opportunities.
And you mentioned one way there that that can happen if you’re asked to do something that you don’t really have the bandwidth or the passion to do and suggesting others. What are some other ways that we can start opening the doors for those coming up behind us? Because in that middle career, that transition does start to happen, right?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Yeah, and it absolutely does. And I’ve already seen it happen. I’ve only been, you know, been an associate professor for the last year and a half or so.
But I think it’s allowed me to sort of shift some of the attention from like my own, you know, personal visibility to sort of, like you said, developing people around you and, you know, building on work that can sort of happen in your absence or that you don’t need to be there for every touch point. Like people can continue to do the work and they can make it their own. Honestly, some of the best things that have happened to programs at Ohio State are because I’ve no longer been involved with them.
Like I stopped doing a lot of point of care ultrasound stuff with the third-year medical students and found a junior faculty member in my group. And he has taken it and run away with it and made it way better than whatever I was doing. And it’s allowed me to, you know, sort of take on a new role as a mentor or a coach and in his case, even sponsoring him to take this role.
So, you know, I think adding that advocacy to what we do or even, you know, if you see like awards being brought up, there’s always awards. It’s actually a lot of fun to nominate people for awards. We have so many different teaching awards and, you know, courage to teach as a society and, you know, the Dean’s Academy of Educators.
And it’s been kind of fun for me to put together a nomination package for these or work with others to come up with letters and read these letters to see what other people have to say. And it offers just, you know, a great meaningful way to give other people credit and support and sort of bring other people up with us.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Sometimes opportunities come up at places other than our institution. And maybe you hadn’t even thought about leaving wherever home is for you to pursue something. And I know this is something that’s really close to you right now as you prepare for a major tradition into the role of an assistant dean.
Tell us about that, because it’s exciting. And how did how did it come up? How did this opportunity land on your on your lap? And I think this will give some others insight into how this happens.
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Yeah. You know, so I am going to be an assistant dean at the College of Medicine at FIU, which is where I went to college many, many years ago.
They didn’t even have a medical school when I was there. But that wasn’t part of the plan. You know, though Miami is home and my family’s there, my wife’s family’s there, my I have a kid, his cousins live there.
I thought Columbus was home. To tell you the truth, I’ve lived in Columbus now, you know, almost eight years longer than I’ve lived in any single place in my life. So, if you asked me what was home, I would have told you Columbus.
But sometimes there are going to be external factors. And in this case, those family related stuff that prompted us to explore the idea of a move. And I sort of just reached out to folks and said, hey, you know, we’re thinking about this.
Here’s my CV. Here are things I’m interested in. Are there things that I could be involved in or roles you could see that fit what I’m able to do?
And I looked at the jobs board at FIU to tell you the truth. And I saw this. And again, I just skipped right past it.
I’m like, assistant dean, that’s not for me. I didn’t even look at the job description. I just kept going.
And yet that was the one that, you know, made the most sense. And, you know, they were really wonderful there. And they talked about why they thought it would be a good fit.
But I think it’s a good reminder here that sometimes there will be things that are perhaps a little external to your plans or external to your control. There may be things like family priorities that that change things for you. And it’s a good opportunity to sort of, I think, take a step back again and reevaluate what matters most to you, what it is that gives you joy and what you find yourself to be most passionate about and see, is there another way for you to be able to make an impact and contribute?
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Congratulations on that new role. It’s very exciting. And I’m sure that you’ll do good things there as well. I mean, we’ll be sad that you’re leaving Ohio State, but I’m sure that the folks in Florida are going to be very lucky to have you.
So, as we wrap up for folks who are finding themselves in that early to middle career stage of academic medicine, what advice do you have for all of us over the next 90 days to make that transition from early career to middle career more intentional?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
I would say perhaps imagine the life and career you want to build and create a mission statement or a vision for yourself already.
There are lots of resources out there. Fame has resources about that, too. And just, I think, take the time.
It might take some time, but the reflection is worth it. The insight you gain from that is very worth it. And think about what it is you hope for and then schedule a conversation with a peer, a mentor, a colleague, maybe someone you trained with who’s at a different institution or someone with your own division or department, and then figure out a way for you to review sort of your progress and crosscheck it with formal promotion criteria, but also crosscheck it with your mission statement and just figure out what your cadence is.
What is your timeline going to be for how often you’re going to keep track and record what it is you’ve done and what you’re doing and how you’re going to measure that impact? For me, it happens to be in the moment. For some people, that’s once a week, once a month.
Put it in your calendar, like make a time in there that says, you know, weekly CV review for 30 minutes or something along those lines. And I think that can just be really, really helpful. And then throughout this time, maybe identify one other person that you can help along the way who can move forward with you or someone who can move along right behind you.
Maybe you get promoted to associate this year and they’ll get promoted the year after and be the be the person to help them through that path as well.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, we really start taking on that mentorship role as we as we progress through our career. And I also want to mention the vision and mission statements. Those are living documents, right?
Have you edited yours?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Oh, my God.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Has yours changed over time?
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
I don’t know that mine has ever remained the same. So, another thing that’s in my calendar, thanks to Dr. John Mann, back when I was a brand new, I was in attending for two days, I think, when we had this workshop, I put in my calendar. I have a every six months I look at it and review it to see if it still makes sense for me and my priorities. And if there’s anything I need to change, it is absolutely a living document. It actually sits on my desktop.
My desktop is generally clean. It has like two files. One is my CV and one is this mission statement, which is also helpful to look at.
Sometimes you have a bad day, you know, you just do. And you take, and I go back and look at them and say, am I living towards this? Am I working towards what I have in my mission statement and sort of what I envision my life to be?
And I can say yes. So that I feel like, okay, you know what? We’re going to have bad days, but that’s okay.
But no, it is absolutely a living document. Thank you so much for reminding me to bring that up.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
We are going to have lots of great resources for folks in the show notes over at famecast.org. This is episode 29.
And we’ll have a link to the Faculty Advancement Mentoring and Engagement website, which sponsors this program. Also, the Appointments, Promotion and Tenure Toolbox at Ohio State. And then some great resources from the AAMC Managing Career Transitions and Succession and Mid-Career Faculty Leadership Development Seminar.
We’ll have links to all of those things in the show notes again over at famecast.org. So once again, Dr. Vignesh Doraiswamy, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency Program at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your experiences and giving us tips and nuggets to move forward with.
[Dr Vignesh Doraiswamy]
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This was an absolute joy. And, you know, I’ve learned so much from FAMEcast episodes and FAME in general. So happy to perhaps be a little part of someone else’s journey along the way.
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[Dr Mike Patrick]
We are back with just enough time to say thanks once again to all of you for taking time out of your day and making FAMEcast a part of it.
We really do appreciate your support. Also, thanks again to our guests this week, Dr. Vignesh Doraiswamy, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine and Pediatric Residency Program at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Don’t forget, you can find FAMEcast wherever podcasts are found.
We are in the Apple Podcast app, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Audible and most other podcast apps for iOS and Android. Our landing site is famecast.org. You’ll find our entire archive of past programs there, along with show notes for each of the episodes, our terms of use agreement and that handy contact page if you would like to suggest a future topic for the program.
Or if you just want to say hi, I love talking to listeners and meeting new folks through the contact page. So, it’s there for that too. Reviews are also helpful wherever you get your podcasts.
We always appreciate when you share your thoughts about the show. Thanks again for stopping by. And until next time, this is Dr. Mike saying, stay focused, stay balanced and keep reaching for the stars. So long, everybody.
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