image from Dall-E via Bing Chat. “2 physicians with a hilarious and terrifying mentor experience.”
This is an interview between Dr. David Bar-Shain, originator of the PACmentor program. The PAC is the Physician/provider Advisory Council comprised of physicians who attend the Epic User Group, and Dr. Bar-Shain is a senior informaticist at MetroHealth in Cleveland, Ohio. I took the transcript of our 30-minute conversation and broke it down into about 2-minute reads.
- I. Find a mentor. Mentor’s job. Confidence. Curiosity. 1-pager. Stories.
- II. Book club. Being Boring. War Stories.
- III. Is Mentorship = Therapy? The Psycho 80.
- IV. Meetings. Coaching. Peer Mentors. Networking. Blind-spots. Listening.
- V. Lateral thinking. More Book Club. Persistence of Memory. Stumbles.
- VI. Failure Resume. CT ruined healthcare. Mentor a mentor? Downstream.
Ready? Here’s part 1 of 6. If you have time to listen, the full 30-minute audio interview is here. Here’s the audio-only interview (33 minutes).
PACmentor program
CT: Thanks, David, for inviting me to have this chat.
DB: The PAC Mentorship Program started four years ago, and we’ve had more than 170 people involved. CT has been an incredibly impactful and productive mentor, and so I thought we’d take a couple of minutes today to download the secret software. and figure out what does CT do that other people could learn from in their mentorship pairings and see if we can improve mentorship with an experienced mentor telling us his experiences.
How to find a mentor. Need more than one?
DB: Can you characterize your style or what you think about when you meet somebody? How would you suggest people go out and meet somebody?
CT: First of all, a disclaimer, I don’t claim to be an expert in this area. I enjoy it, and I’m sure I have blind spots on things that I don’t do well. One of the things I read about recently before I get into how we start is the idea that was earth shattering to me, that one of the jobs of a mentor is to ensure that your mentee has more than one mentor because in many cases one mentor won’t be able to serve all of the needs of a mentee.
If it’s financial budgeting for research project, I’m going to be terrible at that. And asking enough questions to understand: “You need to find someone else who could complement the skills that I can bring to the table.” That’s one tip.
DB: And are people able to go and find a mentor outside of the aegis of the program that they came to you in them?
CT: I think each mentee is different. Some have great agency and they say, “Oh, got it. Good idea.” And off they go. And others say, “How do I start with that?” And then you can help explore that.
DB: So what would you tell somebody who says, “Oh, I don’t really know. I got to you because I filled out an application and somebody said you’d be a good mentor for me, but I don’t really know how to find someone else. How would you suggest that I go and find somebody else? How can I approach somebody to be my mentor?”
CT: It becomes a Q &A and an exploration. ‘Who do you know in your organization? Do you have any connections? What thoughts do you have?” And sometimes mentees will just be really tentative and say, “Well, I don’t know.” I have two or three ideas, but I think they’re stupid.” And I’d reply “Say more about that.”
A mentor’s job: confidence
CT: And sometimes a mentor’s job is to infuse a little bit of confidence. You might say: “That’s a great idea.” “Well, maybe I will reach out.” And sometimes just that, it can just be a nudge in the right direction.
DB: When you were younger, did you have experience with that where you were able to approach someone and ask them to mentor you?
CT: I was not great at advocating for myself as a mentee. In my organization, Informatics didn’t exist until 1997.
I was chief complainer. And I basically bootstrapped my way into a job by complaining enough that they said just put him on the committee because he’s just gonna cause problems otherwise. He’s this squeaky wheel. We will make him own the problem.
Being curious
CT: In terms of meeting a new mentee, I think about it like meeting a new patient. The primary idea is curiosity. I’m interested. This is a up-and-growing person who is eventually going to blossom in this field. And I see this as the way we grow our expertise and informatics nationwide, worldwide. And the more they can have a foothold, a step up, the easier it is for everybody, a rising tide.
Who sets the agenda for a meeting?
DB: Do you find that mentees come to you with an agenda, or do they come to you with, “I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to get out of this relationship?”
CT: I’ve really enjoyed working with the mentees I have. It’s the entire spectrum. Some sit down and say: What are we supposed to talk about? And you have to co-invent it. Hey, what’s your job like? Tell me what you’re struggling with. Maybe I ask: Tell me the things you’re proud of. And we take it from there. And sometimes it’s not at all what we expect the conversation to be
Other times people come with, “I have three questions. First, I’m going to allocate 20 minutes to this question, 20 minutes to the second question.” I reply: “This is great. You are super organized. Fantastic. Let’s just go with that.”
DB: And who takes the initiative to set up that first meeting and then the second and the third meeting?
CT: I rely on the mentee. When I connect with the mentee, the first thing I say is “You drive the boat. If I never hear from you, then it sounds like maybe you’re not interested. I would expect to meet with you, let’s say I on a monthly basis and then we could change it depending on whether this is useful to you. But I expect you to come with an agenda. What questions do you have? What do you want to talk about? And then we can explore it from there.” And that’s generally worked quite well.
Video or phone or in-person?
DB: Do you usually do FaceTime video or do you do phone calls?
CT: I’ve really liked seeing the faces of the mentee. In recent years, most of my mentee meetings have been during the pandemic and I’ve gotten very good at Zoom. And having a face -to -face over Zoom, being able to see the nonverbals, the hesitancy, the confidence, that’s been really helpful. There are occasions when one of us is not near a computer and will substitute a phone call, but I strongly prefer a video
DB: And do you prefer an agenda ahead of time, or are you really OK in the second and the third meeting with just continuing the…? conversation?
CT: An agenda ahead of time is not really necessary. Frankly, I’m busy enough. And I imagine most mentors are busy enough that you’re not sitting down and studying the agenda ahead of time and saying, oh, I’m going to bring these ideas to the meeting. Having an agenda presented during the meeting, I think, is sufficient.
Assignments? The 1-pager
DB: One of the things your mentees have told me– I know all three of your current mentees and have talked to them about their experiences– I’m going to bring these ideas to the meeting. I’m going to bring these ideas to the meeting. of the things they’ve told me is that you give them assignments. Can you talk a little bit about those assignments that you give them?
CT: I don’t know that I come with particular agendas. I find that in our conversations there will be recurring themes. One theme is, as an internist, I’m guilty of this as well, is overthinking a project or over-explaining a project.
Here’s where I’m going to launch into a war story that you’re gonna have to stop me.
But the danger of war stories from mentors is that sometimes it turns into a personal therapy session. And I was so frustrated, and let me tell you this 15-minute story. And I think we have to be very careful that any stories we tell need to be in the service of, whomever you’re speaking with. But one thing that I’ve done in my past was over-explain Open Notes. For example, we tried to, I tried to implement Open Notes in 2003.
And I wrote a 17-page white paper because, by gosh, I was going to anticipate and answer every possible challenging question that people could throw at me about Open Notes.
I wrote it and I distributed it. Who read it? Nobody. It was too long. It’s too much explanation, and it looks dense. And I’ve since learned that, write a one -pager. It is like a newspaper. If it doesn’t fit in your limited space, it doesn’t belong there, and if you can’t communicate it on one side of one piece of paper, you’re overthinking it.
One assignment I give to my mentees is, “Whatever project you’re working on, you have to explain it one side of one piece of paper.” “What do you mean? My explanation is seven pages.” “Well, you’re over explaining it. Can you get it down to one page?”
And, that one page needs to combine data for the left brain and story for the right brain, because no one’s mind is made up from reading data.
“Oh, the p value is 0.5? I had better change my behavior!” No, only a story has the change to change a mind. It’s someone who said, “when I did this, this happened to my patient. That’s why it’s better.” And I say, “Oh, that totally makes sense.”
I ask folks: “Why don’t you write an engaging document. One side of one piece of paper that gives story AND data?” And bring that to our next meeting.
DB: And have your mentees succeeded at writing those one-pagers?
CT: It’s been a lot of fun to see them evolve from, “Wow, that was six -point font, but you fit it all on there.” To “Let’s get rid of three -quarters of that text. Show me a picture, show me an image, tell me a story. There are no quotes on here. It’s all p -values.” “Oh, that’s right. I was supposed to include that.” And version 2, version 3, look, this is convincing. If I would see this in a board meeting, this could convince me that this project is worth it.
And they keep working at it and getting better.
DB: So you introduce the idea. They write it. They send it to you in an email.
CT: I’ve given some comments outside of a meeting. But most of the time, we look it over together at the next meeting. And I don’t edit it and say, “Here’s the finished sentence.” I say, “Here’s what I don’t get from your project. This is part is not well explained.” Or, “Yes, there’s a bunch of data, but where’s the story? How do you tell me the why?”
DB: And who reads those one-pagers? What do they do with them?
CT: Well, that’s the other problem, which is when I write one -pagers, I can critique myself and say, “Who am I writing this for? I’ve written it for myself. I pat myself on the back. Look how good I am.” And then I think: “who’s actually gonna read it?” Then I realize: “this is half for informaticists and half for frontline doctors. I need to rewrite this because I need to know who my audience is.”
And that’s what I get from my mentees, is I wrote this thing because I like it and then I realize, who’s this for? It is only for myself. At the same time I’m critiquing them, I’m critiquing myself.
CONTINUED NEXT WEEK
