Welcome
back to our series on career tips for young stroke professionals, last week we
addressed Step 1. of Mentorship, what makes a good mentor? This week we are
looking at tip 2. with
Assistant Professor Dar Dowlatshahi from the University of Ottawa, Canada.
2. How to find
and meet a mentor
Many aspects of
your career will benefit from mentorship: the research direction, the clinical
practice, and even achieving work-life balance. Therefore it is reasonable to have
more than one mentor, and finding them depends very much on the mentorship context.
For example, it is a good idea to seek a local mentor to help guide your
academic development at your own institution, as they are likely to know of the
local pitfalls and opportunities that will present themselves in your near
future. But when it comes to growing your research profile, you may benefit
from a mentor with a strong international academic network, who may be at
another institution, or even another country. These are the mentors that can be
challenging to find, and meeting them requires persistence, planning,
networking and, as with anything else, luck.
First, identify
your area of interest, whether it’s a clinical subspecialty, a procedural
skill, or a research focus.
Then identify
the experts in that area; much of this can be done through online research, or
even word of mouth from local experts.
The next step
is to reach out to your prospective mentor, in the hopes of securing a
fellowship or similar training program. If at all possible, ask an intermediary
to introduce you (such as a local mentor who may know the person). If not, then
meeting them in person at an academic meeting may be your best bet. In this
scenario, it would be helpful to try and connect via email ahead of time. Keep
in mind that some experts are highly sought after and very frequently get
approached, so they may at first be dismissive. You should come prepared (with
project ideas, a specific training plan, or a proposal for a manuscript), and
you may need to be persistent, perhaps approaching them again at other
meetings, or in follow-up emails.
The process of
meeting and getting to know a prospective mentor can take months, so it’s a
good idea to plan ahead, and approach more than one person in parallel in case
things don’t work out. While the mentor-mentee relationship does not
specifically require you to undergo a formal fellowship, it is definitely
helpful to spend a reasonable amount of time working closely together – this is
how you will learn from them, meet their collaborators, and grow your own
network.
ddowlat@toh.ca
