Show Notes
Description
Dr Eugene Oltz visits the studio as we consider the art and science of being a great mentee. Discussions of mentorship typically focus on the mentor’s role, but the mentee’s role is equally important. What does it take to build meaningful relationships, maximize opportunities for growth, and take ownership of your professional development? Tune in for answers to these questions and more!
Topics
Mentorship
Mentors and Mentees
Building a Mentoring Team
Learning Objectives
At the end of this activity, participants should be able to:
- Analyze the characteristics of effective mentor-mentee relationships in academic medicine.
- Develop a diversified mentoring team that supports multiple dimensions of career growth and professional development.
- Apply strategies for proactively managing mentoring relationships and career development conversations.
- Evaluate mentoring relationships and determine when modifications or transitions may be necessary.
Guest
Dr Eugene Oltz
Professor and Chair of Microbial Infection and Immunity
The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Links
National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity
Inside Higher Ed
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Professor Is In
Nature Careers
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 24. We’re calling this one How to Be a Great Mentee.
Want to welcome all of you to the program. We are so happy to have you with us again. You know, mentorship is often recognized as one of the most important factors influencing career success in academic medicine.
But while much attention is given to becoming an effective mentor, less time is spent discussing the equally important role of the mentee. So, what does it take to build meaningful mentoring relationships? What do you need to maximize opportunities for growth and to take ownership of your professional development?
We will answer these questions and many more as we explore the art and science of being a great mentee. Of course, in our usual FAMEcast fashion, we have a terrific guest joining us in the studio to discuss the topic. Dr. Eugene Oltz is professor and chair of microbial infection and immunity at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Before we get to him, I do want to remind you about some additional resources from Fame and the Ohio State University College of Medicine. You can find them on our website. If you head over to FameCast.org and click on the Resources tab up there at the top of the page, you’ll find two links to faculty development modules. One group is called Advancing Your Clinical Teaching, and the other group is called Faculty Development for Medical Educators or FD4ME. These are two robust collections of learning modules developed by faculty development experts at Ohio State. The modules can be taken separately or as a full series, and they are designed to equip medical educators with advanced teaching skills in the clinic and in the classroom.
Group and institutional pricing is available for both sets of modules. Just contact Fame at osumc.edu for details. And again, you can find the links in that email over on the Resources tab at FameCast.org up there at the top of the page. And then one other thing I want to let you know, if you’re an OSU faculty member, you can take part in Fame Summer Bingo. It’s a lot of fun. There’s going to be some great prizes, and I’ll have all the details on how to play Fame Summer Bingo after the interview.
So, stick around after the interview and during the outro, I’ll give you all the details on completing your bingo card and winning some terrific prizes from Fame and Ohio State. Also want to remind you, the information presented in every episode of our podcast 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. Eugene Oltz settled into the studio, and then we will be back to talk about being a great mentee. It’s coming up right after this.
[MUSIC]
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Dr. Eugene Oltz is a professor and chair of Microbial Infection and Immunity at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He is a leader, educator, scientist and mentor whose career has been shaped by the power of meaningful professional relationships. And he has spent decades advancing scientific discovery, developing future leaders and guiding academic faculty through the many stages of their careers.
From building mentoring networks to navigating power dynamics and career transitions, he joins us today to share practical wisdom on one of the most important but often overlooked skills in academic medicine, how to be a great mentee. Before we dive into the discussion, let’s offer a warm FAMEcast welcome to our guest, Dr. Gene Oltz. Thank you so much for being here today.
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Well, thank you so much for the kind introduction and for the invitation. And as you said, this is really a very important component of anyone’s career development. And I’m very grateful for being able to discuss it with you today.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, I am really excited about it, too. We have talked about mentorship several times in past episodes of FAMEcast, but we haven’t really looked at it through the lens of what does it take to be a good mentee to get the most out of that relationship? And I think that thinking about that is important not only for mentees, but also for mentors, because you may be guiding your mentee on how to be a good mentee.
So, I think it’s important for everybody to understand. But let’s just start with the basics. And that is why is mentorship so important in academic medicine?
Why do we talk about it so much? And then how has that shaped your career?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Well, I mean, there are so many facets to being a successful academician, no matter what field you’re in. And we all start out really not trained in a lot of the areas that we need to be trained in. For speaking for my personal experience, I came out of being a postdoctoral fellow without a whole lot of experience in people management, managing a team of people.
And finances, we always relied on our current mentor or PI for all of those things. So, there are really just too many facets to become adept in each aspect of a successful academic career. In terms of my personal experience, being a mentor and getting mentorship or being a mentee shaped my career in too many ways to count.
Starting from, in essence, high school, but I’ll just name a couple of examples. I and it wasn’t really a deep mentoring relationship, but I had a faculty advisor when I was an undergraduate. I went to Cornell.
I was what they call a townie. I grew up in the next town over and went to Cornell and I was really comfortable going to Cornell. And when it came time to look at graduate schools, I wanted to stay right there and go to Cornell.
And my advisor just looked at me and said, well, we could accept you, but we won’t. You need to get out and see the world. You need to see how things are done at other places as well.
And it was probably one of the most life-changing pieces of advice that I got because I ended up going to New York City, a very different place than Ithaca, New York. And just making connections with people from around the world. And it really helped me develop my career.
Besides that, along the way, I’ve had different mentors that they basically formed organically. I didn’t have a formal mentoring program that I was never a part of, but I had different mentors who helped me with my writing immensely. Gave me career advice when they were the ones that I could knock on their door and ask them, you know, this is going on.
What do I what do I need to do? But also, for advocacy. And even to this day, I have a group of friends who are academicians and we go away once a year together and we consult with each other all the time throughout the year.
And they’ve been some of my big, biggest advocates going forward in my career, but also learning work-life balance. It was it was pretty key in talking to them. So, I continue to be a mentee and hopefully a decent mentor as well.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I am sure that you are for sure. You know, there are a lot of misconceptions that folks have around mentorship, and I think one of them is that like you have one mentor.
This is your mentor and I’m the mentee and, you know, it’s this formal relationship. But as you mentioned, you know, you’ve had many mentors throughout your career, and each one maybe helped you with a particular piece of academia. What are some other misconceptions that faculty have about mentoring relationships?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Well, I think that is the primary misconception that all you need is one good mentor and that, you know, not one not a single person is not going to know all the answers that or be able to give the advice that you need. And if they think they can, then you may maybe beware. But I think another misconception is that people are afraid to approach more senior people to be mentors.
They are afraid that the faculty member will think it’s going to be a burden. But that’s truly a misconception. All good mentors and even mediocre mentors are usually honored to be asked to mentor a faculty member.
And you’ll find out how engaged they’ll be as you go along. But quite honestly, that’s one of the joys of being progressing in your career is passing it forward, being a good mentor to the people, the next generation of scientists, clinicians, academicians. Yeah.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Now, you know, oftentimes folks will have someone they consider a mentor and then down the road they have another one. They’re at a different stage of their career and maybe there’s someone different. So, we sort of have serial mentors.
But you really advocate for a team of mentors all at the same time. How does that work? And how do you recommend building that team?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
This really began when I was a faculty member at Wash U in St. Louis, and I was asked to become the vice chair of faculty development. And there really was no formal mentoring program for junior faculty in that department. And what we soon realized is that mentoring teams in a formal mentoring program could go a long way.
No single mentor, as we’ve already touched upon, no single mentor is going to be an expert in all aspects of career development that you need. But also, as I went on, went along and developed this program, which we now have in our department at Ohio State, you just realize that having a team helps you so much with networking, but also just getting a diversity of perspectives. And we require on the mentoring teams that we have that at least one or two of the team members be from other departments or even other institutions.
Again, giving you that perspective. And I think having a team also, it’s very interesting when you bring a problem to your mentoring team, an obstacle that you’re facing. I think you learn a lot by the back-and-forth discussion amongst the team members.
You get to see how different people think, how different people approach problems, even the same problem, and to try to come up with a resolution or a goal. And I really think I’ve learned a lot as being part of some of these mentoring teams, just also listening to people hash these things out. I also think it’s important to have a team because, you know, in reality, we’re dealing with very busy people and different personalities and the levels of engagement by various members on your team might be all over the place from very engaged to, you know, they rarely show up.
So, by having a team, whenever you meet, you’ll at least have a critical mass of people who are fairly engaged in helping you. And, you know, we’re all busy, as I said, so scheduling can also be very difficult. So, it’s good to have a team so that you have at least three or four people there.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. Do you recommend that meeting like all at the same time with your team or are you just meeting individually with different members of the team?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
The way that we do it in the program is that the team is supposed to get together and we have administrative help to schedule all of these meetings. But the team is supposed to get together as a group with the mentee every nine to 12 months. And the mentee will come prepared with a document, a bullet point, bullet point document that are the types of talking points here, the successes here, the obstacles that I’m facing.
So that happens at least on an annual basis. But in between, I think what happens when you have these team dynamics is that you realize that there you realize what the expertise and the value of mentorship from one person to another is. And it’s made very clear that in between these annual meetings, everyone is open to ad hoc, one on one meetings that can take place if problems arise.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. I love that you brought in having someone from a different department be one of your mentors or even from a different institution.
And, you know, as difficult as the digital world is these days and social media creates all sorts of problems for lots of people, it also connects us in a way that we wouldn’t really have been able to do that in a very efficient fashion, even not that many years ago. And so, you know, it really is possible to have mentors at other institutions. Absolutely.
Yeah. And then so as you’re putting together the team, so from the mentees point of view, what are the different roles that they should be thinking about to include in their mentorship team?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
I think especially for people who are just starting out, faculty members who are just starting out, I mentioned this before, management of hiring and then management of a team of people in our field, lab members, hiring technicians, grad students and postdoctoral fellows to be part of your team. We all know that, again, there are different personalities at play here. So usually coming in as a junior faculty, all you’ve really had experience with is maybe mentoring one on one with an undergraduate or something like that.
Now you’re dealing with people who are much further advanced in their career, looking to make their mark. And sometimes issues can arise that need to be, let’s say, mollified or you need to assuage sometimes some insecurities, et cetera, that people are having. I think having a group of people who’ve experienced many aspects of these personal interactions is really important.
Also, having people on your committee that can give you confidential career advice, including, you know, where you are in terms of this this box that you need to check for promotion and what are the most important aspects that you need to work on for getting promotions or getting national recognition. I personally I tell people when I hire them as a faculty member that I for not to be on your mentoring committee, not because I won’t enjoy it, but I want you to have a safe space to talk about all of these aspects without me, without me being there. And I will serve if they insist and give me a good reason.
I will serve on a mentoring committee. But I take off my chairman’s hat when I do that.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And I’m sure that’s something you enjoy doing, too. So, you know, I mean, I understand that conflict, but I’m sure you’d be a very great mentor for some of your junior faculty.
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Well, and I also meet with all of my faculty on a regular basis. So, there is there’s one on one mentoring outside of the team mentorship. And I also am on mentoring committees from for faculty from various other departments.
But I also think it’s important, again, most folks when they when they join a department and become a faculty member have really relied on their P.I., their senior advisor, in terms of writing papers and grants. So, it’s really important to get a team of people looking at your first grants, your first papers, giving you advice on teaching and service, what what’s important and what may be less important in terms of your promotion or what are your passions and following passions. And I think really you can tailor your team to some expertise that might be specific to your career needs, like you want to commercialize certain aspects of your research.
You want to do more translational work for me, get involved in clinical trials, et cetera. Or if you’re a clinician, of course, patient care, getting people on your committee who are known, well known for their expertise in patient care.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
You know, you’ve mentioned that your department has a very strong mentoring program and a lot of departments within our College of Medicine has similar programs, but then there are others that may not have formal mentoring programs in place, both at Ohio State and other places beyond for faculty who don’t have access to a formal program, where should they begin?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Yeah, that that that just came up with somebody who was hired in another department in the College of Medicine. And my advice to them was to meet with a leader in a unit that has a successful program and learn the structure that they have within that program and then find a primary senior mentor and then work with that person to create a team and try to follow as best you can. You can you can tailor it to your own needs but try to follow a structure of a successful program.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, I think that’s going to be really important because, as you said, there are just so many aspects of academic medicine as we think about the clinical side, research, teaching. You know, there’s just so many roles that we that we play. And as you said, you really do need a team because no one is going to be great at all of those roles and necessarily help you with where your specific career is taking you.
Why do you think that the formal mentoring program offers more than just informal relationships? I mean, you really push for that team approach, right?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Yes, we do. In fact, we it’s mandatory in our department. Yeah, well, I think the word that I mentioned a couple of times in answer to the last question structure, everyone’s busy and things just kind of fall by the wayside because you’ve got a grant deadline or you’ve got a paper that you’re afraid you’re going to get scooped on.
So, it provides structure, gives you a mandatory time frame for the meetings, especially if you have administrative help to make sure that happens. I also think it’s important to provide a structure for the meeting itself. So, in our formal our formal program, each, as I mentioned, each mentee gets a gets a questionnaire that they can prepare talking points, just bullet points.
It doesn’t need to be full narrative that they provide to the members of their committee at least a few days in advance of the meeting so that the committee can members, at least some of them, can have time to think about what they might be able to advise the mentee. I also think in terms of formal mentoring programs, it helps the mentee approach some mentors they might be intimidated by or, as I said in the beginning, might feel like, you know, this is just going to be more of a burden for this person. He’s already busy.
He or she is already busy. And I think the invitations going out as part of a formal mentoring program relieve some of that burden or intimidation from the mentee. And then once they’re on the team, again, most senior faculty will go absolutely would love to.
It’s an honor. Once they’re on the team, it fosters these relationships. It makes it much easier.
Again, it’s not just a one-on-one interaction, which might be more intimidating, but everyone is just talking and usually joking and trying to create a very easygoing environment and safe environment in the mentoring committee. And that makes it easier for the mentee to approach these people they may have been intimidated by for one on ones, if necessary.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, as you mentioned, we’re all so busy and I can see how that the formal program, you know, you get it, you get the date on your calendar for sure, because it’s a part of the program when you just have an informal relationship because we’re also busy. Those meetings slide and the next thing you know, you sort of forget about it. It’s a year later.
And so, I do see how the advantages of the formal program in terms of just keeping it going and being able to assemble that team. Now, as we’re thinking about mentoring, this is an advisory role rather than an evaluation kind of role. And that’s why I think your hesitancy to be on a mentoring team, because as chair of the department, you are in an evaluative position over your colleagues.
But as we think about mentorship, it really is advisory. Can you kind of walk us through the distinction between those two things?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Sure. Yeah, we don’t want our mentoring. And this is an incredibly important point.
As I said, you need a safe space to air the challenges that you’re facing. Otherwise, the mentee is just going to come in there and say, everything’s fine, let’s go on our way. But advisory means not judging the mentee in terms of where they are in their career or what problems they may be facing, including mentoring people in their own team.
Instead, it’s just told us what challenges you’re facing and then discussing it, giving advice rather than saying, oh, this might be a problem when it comes to promotion. Or the other thing is, I make it very clear that they don’t really need to report back to the chair any of the things that are discussed in these mentoring committee meetings. If the mentee wants it reported back to the chair, if they want to discuss something with me, they know I have an open door.
But if they’d like to keep it more confidential amongst the committee members, that’s perfectly fine. And I think, again, it all comes back to having a safe space that’s separate from annual evaluations, promotion and tenure.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, it’s very important for mentees to take ownership, and I think that’s really where we’re coming at from having an episode that really just focuses on the mentee. I mean, we obviously have talked about teams and the importance of assembling and all the different members that we need. But at the end of the day, this is the mentee’s career, and they really ought to take ownership of it.
What does that look like? How do we take ownership of our mentorship?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Right, yeah. Well, first and foremost, as a mentee, you need to come prepared. You need to come prepared with a thoughtful list of items that you want to address.
Yes, it’s always good to start out with the positive, where the success has been since the last time we’ve met. Because that also gives a foundation for addressing where there might be obstacles that you’re facing, impediments and how to deal with those. In the end, it’s really the mentee’s responsibility to drive the relationship.
The mentor will be engaged and more engaged if the mentee is driving that relationship. So come to the meeting with an agenda, identify what you need as quickly as you can, and really importantly, follow up on action items or advice. One thing that I’ve heard, and I really like is that the mentor is a guide, not a manager.
So, the mentor is not going to follow up and make sure that you’ve done this or done that. What they’ll be looking for as a mentor is you come back to the next meeting or on a one-on-one meeting and say, you know, I thought about the advice you gave me and here’s what I did. Or what’s equally good, if you think the advice needed some tweaking or even if you disagreed with the advice, come back and say either one-on-one or to the team, I thought about this and here’s what I was thinking.
Tell me how we can get to a middle ground or why am I thinking about this incorrectly? And I think the back and forth is really important.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. As we think about folks in academic medicine, you know, there is sort of a trajectory of always striving to be on top. And you’ve needed that in the past to sort of get you to where you are.
So, you know, to get into a good medical school, you want to have good grades, you want to do well on your MCATs, and you have to be able to interview well and have research experience. And so, it’s really, you know, drive, drive, drive and kind of expecting to be on top. And then by the time that you arrive in academic medicine, I feel like you feel pretty proud of that.
And you have a good reason to feel proud. I mean, you’ve really overcome a lot of hurdles to get where you are. But this is now the time as a junior faculty member where humility can actually be advantageous.
Can you talk a little bit about the importance of humility and why that is so difficult sometimes for those of us in academic medicine?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Yeah, yeah, it’s difficult. It’s something actually that you can learn from a mentor. A lot of good mentors will say, oh, I messed that up or, you know, I really should have thought about that a bit differently.
But, you know, we all have aspects of our career that we need to improve. None of us are perfect, of course. And this is really what a good mentee mentor relationship is all about.
Then the mentee, as I like to say, needs to check their ego at the door if they want honest advice, if a mentee gets advice and they immediately become defensive and reactive. The mentor is going to be is going to be reluctant to give honest advice in the future. Now, if it’s scathing criticism that’s unwarranted, then that’s a different thing.
But that usually then you know that that’s not a good fit for the mentee mentor relationship. But really just almost like anything, sit with the criticism. Think about it rather than reacting.
Listen, and that’s you know, this is this is valuable input. And I will certainly think about that and let you know what the best what I’ve considered to be the best approach forward, given all of your input and my situation.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah. I think a particularly I mean, they’re all the all the parts of this are difficult and certainly worth the effort. But I think those sort of middle career folks who are mentors to some people continue to have mentors themselves.
So, they’re both mentors and mentees. And really, we encourage that throughout our career. But in that middle, that middle, you know, when you’re like an associate professor, for example, you may find your career is not as moving forward as quickly as maybe it was in the past.
Or maybe your drive is down a little bit. Things just aren’t really going well professionally. As a mentee, how can you really use your mentorship team to help you over those sort of professional low spots?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Yeah, I think I think that’s a real issue that a lot of mentoring programs, including our own focus on junior faculty pre-tenure. But now we also are including now our associate professors. And I think maintaining the contact with your team as you go along is really important.
And that’s the problem. I think once you get to the stage of mid-career associate professor, it’s maybe again, it’s an ego thing. But when things aren’t going well, what a lot of faculty will do is go silent as opposed and hope that things get better.
As opposed to reaching out to get advice. And we all know sometimes they do get better. All faculty, at least in my department, are trying, even if they’re hitting brick walls, they keep trying.
But they may not get better in a timely fashion. And it might take a lot longer if you don’t reach out for advice. So, it’s really the transparency that builds the trust between and continues the trust between a mentee and a mentor.
And maybe, you know, when you get to the point, the mid-career phase, you might also want to call that the mentoring team instead of we usually have five or six people on the mentoring team. But call it down to a few that that you feel like are most appropriate for the stage in career and what you’re facing. So, I think continuing those relationships is the best way to do it.
And maybe rebuilding your mentoring team for the career stage that you’re at.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
What does that look like when you kind of figure that the team isn’t working anymore and it is time to maybe rebuild a new team? How do you discover that that’s actually what’s happening? And then what do you do about it?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Yeah, I think quite honestly, it mostly happens organically and from both sides. So, the mentee will realize that either a member of their team is just not very engaged or wasn’t really providing them with what they wanted to get from that particular mentor. But also, one of one of the key things, and I always say this about being a good mentee, is acting upon the advice or the training that you’re getting from your mentors and absorbing it and really making it a part of your approach back and becoming successful in academic medicine.
So, you also realize on both sides mentor mentee when somebody has learned what they needed to learn. For example, if I were on a mentoring team and my primary role was helping the mentee with becoming an outstanding writer, once they become an outstanding writer, I’m no longer really needed. So, and I think both recognize that.
And there’s really no need to continue, at least on that level, the relationship. There will always be a relationship at that point. It might become the mentor becomes more of an advocate.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. And so that really can be initiated by both the mentee and the mentor. And again, just having that open communication and relationship and like, you know, it’s not like, oh, you’re fired because I don’t like you.
It’s because my career is progressing and now, I’m at the stage where I need different advice. And hopefully your mentor understands that. And I’m sure if they’re a great mentor, they are going to understand that and maybe even be looking out for it.
Right.
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Absolutely. And I’ve had several situations where people realize that somebody on their mentoring, they’d rather they think they’re going to get much more valuable input or advice from another person. And I just tell them that, you know, they’re not going to be hurt if you say, you know, thank you.
It’s been great, but I want to add this person to my mentoring team because they can give, they can provide expertise and X, Y or Z.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. And then give them the opportunity to step away or maybe they still want to hang on.
And I’m still me. And, you know, you may discover advantages to that. And you just don’t know.
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Mine too.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yes. So, as we close, what are the main points here? What advice do you offer faculty who really are looking to become exceptional mentees?
And I think really that we all, regardless of the phase of our career, I mean, we all want to be exceptional mentees. As you said, we’re really this is academic medicine is about lifelong learning and lifelong growth. So, what advice do you have for folks to be really great mentees?
What are the most important points?
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Yeah, I think building or assembling a diverse team. Don’t just assemble people that are in your department or in your field. Build trust through transparency.
And then, of course, follow through. Be prepared for the meeting with specific asks. You know, don’t come into a meeting and say something like, oh, I just need some career advice.
Be very specific. Like a good example is I was approached by Dr. X for a collaboration. How should I approach the workload and the authorship?
How do I how do I have those discussions up front with somebody? I also think, you know, don’t hide when things aren’t going well. That’s the time you actually need the advice of your team.
And as I already mentioned, just follow through on advice. Even if you after reflection, you take a different approach, have a discussion with the mentoring team or the mentor and ask them how to learn why they crafted their approach and why you might take a different approach. I think those conversations are always some of the most enlightening.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been a terrific conversation and so helpful really for both mentors and mentees. And as we think about building mentoring teams and mentorship programs, all really important things.
And we appreciate you sharing your wisdom and expertise with us. For folks who want to learn more about being a great mentee, we are going to have some resources for you in the show notes over at Famecast.org. So, if you just search for the show notes for this particular episode and those will be right there for you with easy links to find.
So once again, Dr. Eugene Oltz, professor and chair of Microbial Infection and Immunity at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Thank you so much for stopping by today.
[Dr Gene Oltz]
Oh, thank you, Dr. Mike. I really appreciate it. And I learned something today, so I’ll take something away from this as well.
[MUSIC]
[Dr Mike Patrick]
We are back with just enough time to say thanks once again to all of you for joining us. 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 guest this week, Dr. Eugene Oltz, professor and chair of microbial infection and immunity at the Ohio state university college of medicine. Don’t forget, you can find FAMEcast wherever podcasts are found. So, there might be an easier way for you to listen.
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, reviews are helpful wherever you get your podcasts.
We always appreciate when you share your thoughts about the show. And I want to remind you one more time, those additional resources from fame and Ohio state. Again, you’ll find them on our website.
Just head over to famecast.org, click on the resources tab up there at the top of the page, and you will find links to advancing your clinical teaching and faculty development for medical educators. Again, those are two robust collections of learning modules developed by faculty development experts here at Ohio state. They can be taken separately or as a full series of modules, and they are designed to equip medical educators with advanced teaching skills in the clinic and in the classroom group.
And institutional pricing is available for both sets of modules. Just contact fame at osumc.edu for more details. And then I teased fame summer bingo at the beginning of the program.
Here is how you play. You just head on over first to famecast.org and we will have a link to fame summer. Once you get to that page, you just complete your bingo card using one of the following methods.
You can print it and fill out your bingo card by hand. When you complete it, just a scan it and email it to fame at osumc.edu or drop it by the fame office in person. If you’d like there in Hamilton Hall, you can also complete it digitally.
And then when you’re done, email it to fame at osumc.edu. You can also submit your bingo entries using the online portal. And there’s a link to that on the bingo page, and you don’t even need to send in your bingo board. We believe that you have the bingos that you say you do.
So how do you get bingos? Well, you just listen or participate in a various and sundry fame activities throughout the summer. And you get one bingo every time you, you do one of these activities.
And when you complete a row or a column or a diagonal, you get a bingo and there are 12 possible bingos on the card and each bingo earned gets you one entry into the grand prize drawing with a maximum of 12 entries per person. So, what is the grand prize? Well, you get an OSU fame swag, a bag, a $50 Amazon gift card, and five coaching sessions with one of fame’s faculty development coaches.
Your first five bingos are also eligible for a small prize up to five prizes per participant. All prizes will be distributed at the end of summer. Just submit your bingo entries by August 31st, 2026.
And again, you don’t have to remember all those details. They’re all available. Just head over to the show notes for this episode 24 over at famecast.org and you’ll find a link to the fame summer bingo page. 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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