we can go ahead and get started. Thank you all for joining us and I would like to welcome you to the Augs Early Career Research Leadership Program. We are so happy to have you join us tonight. I'm Dr. Carolyn Swenson, the moderator for today's webinar, which is the kickoff and introduction of the Early Career Research Leadership Program. To start, Dr. Ferrando will provide an overview of the Early Career Research Leadership Program and introduce today's mentors. Our mentors will then share their background and experience as well as what they did early in their career to set them up for success as a scientist. The last 20 minutes or so of the webinar will be dedicated to Q&A, so please feel free to put your questions in the Q&A box below. I'll be moderating that portion at the end of the session. Before we begin, I'd like to review some housekeeping items. This webinar is being recorded and live streamed. Again, please use the Q&A feature on the Zoom webinar to ask any of the speakers questions. If you have any tech issues though, use the chat feature as Augstaff will be monitoring the chat and can assist you through there. Without further ado, I will pass it on to Dr. Ferrando who will introduce our program and our mentors. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm going to briefly introduce our Early Career Research Leadership Program before we get started with our main event. For some reason, I no longer have... Here we go. My apologies. So, developing early career clinician scientists and researchers has become a top priority for the foundation. The aims of bringing together this committee and the program that we've created for everyone is to foster career development in your gynecology research. Also to provide early career clinical scientists and researchers mentorship and research training. We also hope to bring together NIH program officers and early career researchers to provide funding opportunities and career development through the NICHD, the NIDDK, and the NIA. We also want to provide research education and training on developing a research question, grant proposal development, and research budget development. So, we have an exciting program planned for this fall and winter. What we have upcoming very soon on November 8th is our NIA funding overview and opportunities. So, please sign up for that if you're interested. To follow that on November 29th is our NIDDK funding overview and opportunities webinar. And on January 31st, we will be doing a webinar on NICHD funding overview and opportunities. So, these are really an exciting program that's already been planned in a very short amount of time. To register, please go to this website. We'll be sending out emails as well to be able to provide the opportunity to register and to be part of this exciting program. The committee is also looking ahead and currently planning our 2022 programming. So, that will be announced as it becomes developed and we choose dates for it. I want to introduce you to our committee. We have a small but mighty committee. I'm incredibly proud to be part of this group. And with our fearless leader and chair, we've been able to come up with this program in a very short amount of time. So, I hope that it is enjoyed by all who get to participate. And I'm very proud to be part of this committee. I want to go ahead and introduce you to our research leaders, mentors, who are here with us today. And we're thankful that they could join us. We have Dr. Mary Achenbaum from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Dr. Heidi Brown from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Alexis Dieter from MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Georgetown, and then Dr. Tyler Muffley from Denver Health Medical Center. So, I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say this evening and I'm looking forward to an interactive discussion. I'm going to hand this back over to you, Carolyn. Thanks. Thank you so much for that overview, Dr. Ferrando. At this point, we're going to turn it over to our mentors, who will talk a little bit about themselves and speak to what they did in their early career to set them up for success as a scientist. So, we will start with you, Dr. Achenbaum. Thank you. Awesome. Hi, everybody. I'm Mary Achenbaum. I am an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh. I am in my fifth year now, since finishing fellowship. And then, in terms of my research course, I attained my master's in clinical research as a fellow. And then, once I started my position as an assistant professor, it started out with a K-12. And then, from there, I have been able to attain more grants. But to back up before that, in starting my position as an attending, the one thing that sort of got me jump-started was, frankly, a PFD research grant. And that has been, honestly, the springboard for attaining preliminary data that has allowed me to apply for other grants that has further supported to protect my time. So, it started out with that Augs PFD grant and being on the K-12, which led to attaining a GEMSTAR or a grade. And then, my work focuses on perioperative neurocognitive disorders. And so, I did apply to a Alzheimer's Association clinical scientist fellowship grant and received that support. And most recently, a K-23. I'd say the big things that the springboard, of course, of the PFD grant was huge. But the other thing that has greatly attributed to my success is having an interdisciplinary or a multidisciplinary team. In starting out, I had co-primary mentors. One was a geriatric neuropsychologist. And the other one is an internal medicine doctor who is primarily a clinical trialist. And having those different perspectives, for me, was huge because it allowed me to have access or to learn about other opportunities for grants, for funding, for training that I wasn't already exposed to. And I think that was really key in getting me set up to launch or springboard into the work that I'm doing now, which has been great. Some of which has been supported by foundations like the Alzheimer's Association, some of which has been NIA, NIMH. And so, tapping into a multitude of resources, I think, is really key early on when you can. And I look forward to talking more about it. Next slide. I think I'm supposed to go next. Should I just jump right in? Yes. Thank you, Heidi. Hi, everyone. I'm Heidi Brown. I'm an assistant professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. And I finished fellowship in 2013. So, I think that's eight years now. And my research focuses broadly on how to bring information about solutions for incontinence to women who might not be seeking care. And to my undergraduate background was in community health, and I spent a year doing an applied epidemiology fellowship at the CDC in the middle of medical school. So, I had this public health background before coming to OBGYN and then urogynecology. But my research interest really emerged partly from the research project that I did as a fellow, which was sort of like handed in my lap. Like, here, there's this data set that needs to be analyzed. That's your job. And the questions that I asked as part of that analysis as a fellow are the first questions that I sought to answer as a researcher in my assistant professor position. And my experience was unique in that I joined a place where there wasn't another urogynecologist. The urogynecologist had just left. And they hired one other person at the same time as I was hired. And that person did not have a research background. And so, there wasn't anyone at my institution who could sort of like give me a roadmap. Or nobody in urogynecology who could give me a roadmap, I should say. And so, I was fortunate, like Mary, to end up getting an institutional K award through our Department of Urology. And none of those people do research even remotely similar to the work that I do. They're all basic scientists, and there's a lot of it's a veterinary school as well. So, everything that I did is completely wild to them. But they were the people who sort of showed me what like these are the opportunities you should apply for the Clinical and Translational Sciences Award at our institution offers these like springboard grants. You can use your startup money. But even though even if you have startup money, if you get one of these little grants, it looks good for you. And so, for me, finding mentors outside of OBGYN and urogynecology at my own institution was part of the part of helping me grow. The other two things that were really invaluable were identifying urogynecology mentors across the country. And we're so lucky in our field. You know, we're small enough that during fellowship interviews, we have an opportunity to meet a lot of the amazing leaders in our field. And there is so much willingness to mentor. So, I had interviewed for a job with Becky Rogers at University of New Mexico. And I didn't take the job. And then I reached out and asked if she would mentor me. And she was my like remote mentor on my K award. And that was like kind of crazy at the time because it was before COVID. So, these, you know, you had this, you could do the remote mentoring thing, but it wasn't as acceptable as it is today. But and then I also, like Mary, had interdisciplinary mentors at UW. I had a geriatrician, a population health scientist, and an epidemiologist, MD, PhD, health services researcher, and epidemiologist. But honestly, Becky Rogers monthly phone calls were more helpful to me than those other people who were at my institution. And then the other thing that I wanted to share is my participation in the core consortium. So, there were a number of us who finished fellowship and went to institutions that weren't, that didn't already have big, prominent urogynecology researchers and didn't necessarily have research coordinators. And they weren't necessarily places with established infrastructure. And so, we were a group of these like very, very junior faculty, one or two years out of fellowship, who were doing research projects together. And a lot of them were just things like retrospective chart reviews or small observational studies. But that, and now that's something you can join through SGS. But that was another thing that early on gave me exposure to and made things possible that wouldn't have been possible if I were by myself. So, those are the things I wanted to share about my journey and the things that I think helped me early on. And I think I'm handing the baton to Dr. Dieter. Yeah. Hi, I'm Alexis Dieter. I am an associate professor at MedStar. And we're joined with Georgetown Medical School. And I'm also, I guess, the director of research for our group. So, that's kind of part of what I'll talk about in terms of my reflections. But I graduated from fellowship in 2015. So, almost five years ago. And in terms of my main area of research, I'm focused a lot on overactive bladder. I did a neuroscience major in college. So, when everyone else in our residency program was falling asleep during the like bladder neurophysiology talks, I was always really excited. And so, that's been an area of interest of mine. And then I also like, also just looking at sort of simple clinical questions that aren't really like groundbreaking, but can have a big impact on like patients' quality of life in our sort of clinical practice. And in terms of setting up myself for success, I still consider myself early in my career, but I guess I'm getting old. So, I have to maybe move out of that. But I think that a real key thing is finding mentors, as everyone's mentioning, either in your group or outside. And really trying to find a place where your interests are well aligned with what your division sees and is hoping for. You know, I feel really lucky with my current position because Cheryl Iglesias, my boss, is like super, super supportive of me. And I think we kind of work well together. She's kind of like the big picture person, and then I take care of like the details and things like that. And in fellowship, like Dr. Mudson was a huge supporter for me, and I still like would meet with her regularly and have like seek her mentorship. The other thing that I think was really helpful, I had a Thomas Benson grant through the PFD Research Foundation and actually did like a basic science neurophysiology project in a lab with like rats and sacral neuromodulation and stuff. It was kind of crazy. But that I think helps give some credibility in terms of like translational studies of just knowing, you know, how to talk with basic scientists and being able to sort of bridge that gap and get involved in that community. And I think just kind of making connections into different communities through like CORE, and then I was in the AUX, JFRN, which was a helpful support. And then at MedStar, we have a program called Research Scholars, where they kind of hone a group and mentor a group of people. And that's been really nice to get that transdisciplinary access and just learn about all the resources at our institution, since I'm new here. A lot of it is kind of like just getting to know the right people, I think. And so that's something, you know, when you start like early on at a new place that I think is really helpful. And I think that's all I have to say right now. I'll hand it off to Dr. Tyler. Thanks, Alexis. My imposter syndrome is really kicking in here. It's so amazing to be on this panel with so many people who I quote your research all the time. So, truly an honor. Thank you. So, I'm at a county hospital in Denver, Colorado, where I was born and raised and went to Cleveland Clinic and finished there about eight, nine years ago now. And I work with residents from the University of Colorado and mainly do resident research projects that focus on Urogyne workforce, looking at who matches into Urogyne, what fellowship directors want from their applicants, and then looking at the workforce of how many people do we really need to be training for now and for the future. So, kind of super nerdy stuff, but I really enjoy doing it. So, I think maybe one or two things that was very helpful for me early on, was learning how to do my own statistics. So, this was a big focus at Cleveland Clinic that, you know, they said, you don't need to hire a statistician, you need to learn how to do this yourself. And so I remember, you know, Saturday mornings, I would come in and work on my statistics, you know, right next to like Eric Jelosek and Matt Barber's office while they were doing their Saturday morning club. So and get their get their feedback. And so that helped me to learn how to evaluate my own data quickly. And once I had my own data sets, it got really exciting to start doing that. And then since then, I have continued to work with mentors like Eric Jelosek and have been able to use statistics and and coding as kind of a force multiplier for my research where we are able to, you know, even with a couple short lines of code, we can evaluate the the distance that someone needs to travel from their address to an Indian health service hospital or their address to a urogynecologist or match names of people who are in who have financial payments from drug and device companies with a list of names from the NPI database. And so that's been very helpful. Things that I couldn't possibly do in my own time, even if I was working 24 seven, but most of my research happens on nights and weekends. And I try and set up for every project that I have, I set up a 9pm meeting with the resident or the grad student or the medical student. And more most recently, we've found actually pre med students to be incredibly motivated and have free time that they and so we had a study where we were calling 800 visit OBGYN subspecialist offices twice. And so these pre medical students, we set them up with, you know, authorship and did some teaching and, and they did the calling and it was great. So I have really enjoyed kind of learning more about statistics and more about coding and answering some questions about the people who provide the care for urogynecology patients. And again, thanks so much for having me. Thank you, Dr. Muffley, and to all of our mentors for sharing information about their backgrounds and kind of the things that have have made them successful. I learned a lot listening to each of you. So thank you so much. So we're gonna the plan now is to kind of open it up to questions from our attendees. To the mentors, you know, you can ask any anything you want, just put your question in the in the q&a. These four researchers are valuable resource here. So don't be shy, put your questions in. To get us started, I had one question. I don't want to put you on the spot, Dr. Brown. But since you mentioned that you kind of sought mentorship from Dr. Rogers, who is at a different institution, I was wondering if you could speak to if you had any advice to early career researchers who don't really know how to go about asking someone to be a mentor, that can be kind of an awkward conversation to say, hey, will you be my my mentor, but do you have any advice on on how to approach that conversation or different strategies to kind of start building those relationships that could then turn into mentoring relationships for research? Um, well, the way I did it, so first of all, Dr. Dieter said something that really resonated with me about like, early on, when you're at a new place, and you're like, just kind of like meeting people and learning the landscape. I felt like the first like, two years that I was in my faculty position, I felt like I was speed dating across campus in terms of like meeting people who are doing research and trying to figure out if there was synergy. And I think the mentoring thing is kind of the same, like, you know, you send an email to someone who published a paper that you're interested in, and you say, like, I really liked this paper, I'm interested in doing some research, I know how very busy you are. But if there's any way we could connect for a 15 minute phone call, I would be so grateful. And, and if and if this isn't a good time, like, no harm, no foul, I will still, you know, like, say hello to you at Augs, or, you know, hope to catch up in the future. But I have found that that like, cold email approach, really, with, with our subspecialty, is so helpful, like, people are so willing, and so generous with their time. And what often happens is that they say, I'm really not the right person to help you. But you know, who might be a better person to help you is X, Y, and Z. And would you like me to make an introduction? And so, for me, it's been that, and then I always offer to, like, buy people a drink, but most of the time, they don't let me in the end when we do see one another. So I'm always paying it forward and trying to, like, buy the trainees drinks and, you know, like, but the but I think just the email, getting the email address from either the institutional website or a paper they've published is a great way. And also, if there's someone that you're interested in approaching, and, you know, we're a small enough society that if you know someone who might have trained with them, like, that can also be a way to leverage our connections. And if you don't, you can email any of the people on this committee, and we will, we will help make the introduction because chances are one of us has a connection. And that's the whole goal of this whole program, right, is to help is to help folks make those make those connections. Thank you, Dr. Brown. That was a great answer and good advice. We have a question about time. This is something that comes up on a recurring, it's a recurring theme when we were when we had our luncheon event at Augs. This was at my table, something that almost everybody mentioned as a barrier to research. So, you know, especially right out of fellowship, we tend to want to be very clinically busy, because, you know, that's what we're comfortable with. Do any of the mentors have any recommendations for how to negotiate time for research early on? I'll try to talk about that a little bit. I think it's always a challenge, I think, but it's part of the negotiation process. And so, you know, we all need to be better negotiators. So you can kind of buff up on that stuff in general. But I do think it helps to have a really specific goal and plan and sort of like a timeline of, you know, initially, I want to be more clinical for this period of time, then I want to apply for this to get, you know, funding to support my time, because that's just the reality of how things work. And have kind of clear goals, but give yourself generous timelines in that I think, you know, you don't want to be overly ambitious when you're laying that out, because you will be held to that probably as you move forward, you know, in your academic career. But I think being really specific and saying, you know, how your goals are going to align with the divisions and the departments and like the institutions, because, you know, ultimately, they want your success, but they also want it to feed into, you know, it's easier to get support for you if it's seen as more supportive towards the institution. So I think being sort of strategic in preparing that discussion and plan really will help you be more successful in achieving some support for your time. Thank you, Dr. Dieter. Did any of the other mentors have any anything to add to that? Any pearls of wisdom for seeking, securing time for research early on? Kind of piggybacking on something that Dr. Dieter said, you know, aligning what you want or what you desire in your job with the department or the division's mission and vision is huge. And if you can do that, and you have the skills coming in or the desire alone, right? Skill and desire coming in saying, I want to, this is how this is going to help you to meet your vision. They'll invest in you, right? The worst they can do is say no. But if you put it out there on the table, like this is what I can do for you. And here's how I can do it. And you come and show that you thought about this, and you have a plan in mind, it's likely that they're going to support you in that. So just, you know, it is a skill to negotiate, but absolutely ask for ask for what you want. Why not? They might say yes, maybe get money in time. That's great advice. It'll definitely be a no if you don't ask, right? I think being thoughtful about sustainability of what you're asking for. So if you're, if you're arguing for protected time to do a research project to determine, you know, like, which, which type of apical suspension lasts better at five years, but you don't have the reason why that trial is going to give the data that are necessary for your subsequent grant funding or to make your site competitive for the next round of PFDN calls, or, you know, if you have, if you, you see the value in this individual research project, but your larger organization might not. So if you can give them the 20 year roadmap, like you're investing in me now, because the dividends are going to be, you know, this is what this will give me. It's just like writing a grant. You're telling, you're telling the funder with this money, I'm going to do this. And then I'm going to do this. And with, you know, like, so that you're giving them the, the end result. I also think we, we, I think a 50-50 balance is really hard. So I always caution people early on, like, if that the 50-50 can be, you can feel like you're failing at both things. And so figuring out where your, where your priorities are and aligning to get what you need to, to get where you need to get. So a career development award that protects more than 50% of your time for two years can set you off so that you then can do that 50-50 split in a way that is productive. And I think junior folks are always really scared of not, of like not being clinically active enough. But the truth is that like the patients will come and the, the clinical creep is real. So even if you feel like you don't really need, you know, 30% protected time, if you can argue for 30 or 40% protected time for the first two years while you're writing the foundation grants and getting that time, you won't lose your skills. You'll still be an outstanding surgeon and clinician. And the patients, it is much easier to expand your clinical time than it is to cut back your clinical time. So don't be scared to, don't, I wish that somebody had told me not to be scared because it is hard to dial it back. I like that. Patients, patients will come. That is definitely true. We have a couple of good questions here in the Q&A. So this question is about grant writing and whether you apply for grants based on your specific research interest or whether you kind of tailor the proposal towards the funding mechanism. And then there's another question about industry funded proposals and whether it's worthwhile to seek funding from industry. So anyone can, can jump in and answer one or both of those questions. Hey, it's Heidi. I think it's a, I think that's the million dollar question about the, you know, like whether you tailor your research for where the money is or whether you go after money to support your research, because obviously if there's not money, it's going to be hard. But if you don't love the research, you're not going to be able to do it. So I think it's really dangerous to tailor your research goals to funding opportunities. Well, you know, you can, if there's a funding opportunity that you can, that you can get excited about, then for sure, you know, write a grant in response to that. But, but I do think it's so hard to do, like, you know, Tyler has nine o'clock meetings, right? I mean, like you're doing it on nights and weekends. You, you do have to love it as opposed to it just being like, oh, there's a ton of, like a few years ago, I was getting so much pressure to do, to like include cognitive impairment stuff in the work I was doing, because there was a lot like the pay line for NIA research that had a cognitive, mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's was so much, you know, like, there are so many more grants getting funded. But the truth is, with my self management and public health background, that really wasn't like, I didn't feel passionately about it. So it was very hard to do that. So that would be my, my suggestion would be, like, this life is hard, you've got to love what you're doing. So if you can find RFAs that align, that you can allow you to write a grant that you are, that if it's not fun to write the grant, it's definitely like, you shouldn't be writing it. It's kind of what I think. And you know, when you're doing like, you know, when you're writing a grant, you should be writing. And when you're writing a grant that maybe doesn't, that's maybe not a good fit. I'm and then as far as industry funding, I think get take the money where you can get the money, like, there's a lot of money there to be had. And I do think we're changing our perspective, but to understand that, right, like the, in the interest of sustainability, we need to have partnerships with the, you know, diverse stakeholders. I'll stop, I feel like I'm monopolizing. You're not, I like what you're saying. I will, I will say, when I first heard this, I was like, Oh, yes, you just got to go where the money goes, right. But I agree with you and that you want to be passionate about it. Because at the end of the day, when you're doing this, and it's late, and you're editing a grant again, like you want to be excited about it, that's going to get you to push through the work that you're doing. With that being said, you would have asked me when I started fellowship, Oh, Mary, do you think you're going to be doing research on Alzheimer's disease? When you're when you're a professor, I would have said, absolutely not. No, Pittsburgh's a pit stop. And I'm getting out, I'm going to be a clinical urogynecologist. And I never would have thought so, right. But when I started doing this work, I started seeing patients coming back clinically post operatively having these issues. And that's what got me excited. So yes, I'm I was focused initially on okay, well, what's happening in the immediate post operative setting. But then it did dovetail into Okay, well, is this related to dementia? Is it not? And so I saw it as an opportunity. So what I would say is, if your work poses potentially an opportunity to expand into an area that's novel and innovative, and maybe not what you thought you were going to do initially, but there's an RFA for it, and there's money for it. And it's interesting, then why not? And you already have the bones. That's the best part about, I think, with grant writing, is you've got the bones there. You know what you're interested in, look at what the announcement's for, and then don't tailor it. And tailor it for that, that announcement, and see if other people are interested too. Get it, write it so that other people aren't interested in your work too. And then, in that sort of way, I kind of think of, like, trying to get grants and funding, almost like a business, right? Boom, and how can I get people to support the work that I'm doing, see that it's important, and where do I go for this? So, industry, absolutely. There's opportunities from industry. I definitely think this would be something you look into. I've also expanded to looking at local, you know, community grants that are here, just within Pittsburgh, as well as, like, donor funds. I've looked at that too. There's just lots of different ways that you may be able to get supported. And it could be just, you know, for little things, five grand here, ten grand there, but it all adds up and potentially can lead to you getting more data that will lead to you being able to write a grant that's bigger, right? So, I think keeping an open mind is important, but at the same time, you know, don't, don't do work that you're not interested in, because it's going to be really hard. It's going to be, like, pulling teeth to be able to push your way through it. But if you're interested in it, and it's an opportunity, by all means, go for it. Thank you, Dr. Achenbaum. Maybe you and Dr. Brown should have collaborated on that research project. You know what? There's always opportunity, so... Keep her in mind. Okay, so kind of along the funding questions about writing, you know, grants and that kind of thing, I was just trying to think. So, a couple of you have had PFD grants. A couple of you have had career development of awards. All right, you know, for those of you who have current funding or who have had funding in the past, are there any key steps or things that you remember that were, like, critical to getting that funding successfully? And that could be, like, a grant writing course, that could be having someone external review it, you know, whatever that might be. Were there any things that really helped you with that, especially the first grant that you put in to be successfully funded? So, I know for some of my early work, and I mentioned that I got a master's in clinical research, so I did take some courses in grant writing, but it wasn't about the course. What was really helpful for me, I ended up being a basic scientist, and I was like, oh no, this is going to be awful. This is not going to be great at all. They're not going to understand my work. It's going to be me having to explain it, but then I realized, like you were today, it's an opportunity. If I could explain why I'm doing this, if I could explain why this is important to a room full of basic scientists and make it make sense, that makes for a strong grant. So, what I would recommend is, as you're writing these, send them out to people. Red is love. The more feedback you get, the better, right? If it makes sense and it speaks for itself, that's fantastic. So, get as much feedback as you can from people who aren't necessarily in the area that you're planning to study, and make sure it has, you know, good face value. That's what I would recommend. Yeah, I'd say, I think having mentors who can help you through grantsmanship. I took some, like, grant writing courses, which I think is helpful just to know how to, like, break down and organize the grant, but really, like, when I was in fellowship, you know, I mean, I still have, like, people's voices in my head when I'm writing grants, like, VSCO being, like, all right, what's, you got to make them feel bad for not funding you, like, at the end of the grant, and, but I think that stuff is really helpful because, you know, it is a strategy, and there is some sort of, like, art form, I think, to writing a grant, and as Mary was talking about, like, having people read it, because you're so in the details of it, and in all these, you know, like, minute kind of questions, and then someone reads it, and they're like, wait, what's the overall thing that you're trying, you know, so that's very helpful, because, you know, your eyes kind of crisscross at some point, and you can't really see that whole overview. I would agree with Alexis 100%. You know, if I can explain to my wife while we're making dinner and feeding our two kids what the project is about and why it's important, you know, and, you know, that's the one thing. I think that's the test for me, and then the rest just kind of falls into place. Thank you. All very, very good advice. Thank you all. One other question, and this might be the last one. It looks like we're kind of slowing down in the Q&A chat here, but, you know, from the mentor's perspective, since this is kind of the goal of this whole program, is there something you can identify as kind of one thing that AUGS and this Early Career Leadership Research Program can do to best support early career researchers moving forward? Well, I think they're doing it with this program, and it's my key word for today is opportunities. By being able to have these meetings with these different agencies, that's huge. Being able to, like, meet with NIA in a program, I don't know if it's program officers, but whoever's coming to represent NIA next week and hearing about what are their priorities, where are their, like, where is their focus from a funding standpoint, that is huge. So, that way you can learn and figure out, okay, where are my interests, and how can, like, how do these align? And they're not only doing that with one agency, they're doing it with multiple. It's fantastic, and then you have a bunch of people who are here and ready for you in terms of wanting to mentor you and give you advice and whatnot as you're starting on this journey. So, I think that's, I think that it's being done. It's the opportunity in setting you up with the information to know potentially where you could go and what to consider next. I promise we did not pay Dr. Ackenbaum to say that, but thank you very much. Anybody else have any input on that? I would just echo her points. Like, I think really being at the table and being at these discussions, it's, was what's so important, and that's how we, you know, bring pelvic floor disorders and all this stuff back into people's, you know, minds who are then making these decisions of, like, what's going to go to what in the funding world. And just being able to talk to people and realize, like, oh, hey, maybe my research does sort of align with what's going on in the world, and I can sort of, you know, hone it to address what they're looking for and things like that. Yeah, I think creating the, this sort of, like, you now have a go-to group, right? There's this group of people who are here to answer questions on service supports. I think that's really helpful. Another thing I think is helpful is the volunteer opportunities that AUGS creates, because those volunteer opportunities give you more, especially if you're not at a place with people who are already established researchers, those volunteer opportunities give you a way to get to know folks outside of your institution and build bridges that can be helpful for mentoring. So I think that this program is exceptionally valuable, and I think another thing that AUGS does is provides those volunteer opportunities. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Dr. Muffley, did you have something to say there? I was just gonna chime in and say, you know, there's always, like, a crux problem to every project, it seems like, and by feeling comfortable and willing to ask others for help, that can really turn a painful slog that you're trying to teach yourself or get over this hump into, like, a really enjoyable project. And so I think that I went back through my email, and I saw that in 2007, when I was a resident, I emailed Dr. Handa and asked her a couple questions about urogynecology. And so thank you so much for writing me back, and I just think that that level of openness and willingness to help is key in urogynecology and one of the benefits of having a smaller specialty like we have. That's a great point. We did have one more question that just came in the Q&A, and this, again, is kind of about time allocation. So the question is, if you have X amount of time for research, how much do you allocate to mentoring trainees through their projects, which tend to be smaller but more of them, versus doing bigger projects, like NIH grant writing and that sort of thing? That's an excellent question. Thoughts? I think it depends on your mission and your institution's mission for you, right? If you're trying to become an independently-funded investigator, you should only be mentoring trainees on projects that are components of your overall research portfolio so that you're building publications in your area. The advice to anybody who's trying to write grants is focus, focus, focus. Dr. Handa told me you should only be working on your one best idea at one time. Focus, focus, focus. So if you want to be an independently-funded investigator, you need to focus, focus, focus, which means you shouldn't be dispersing your time to support these trainees. But if it's not your goal to be an independently-funded investigator and rather it's your goal to build, to answer the important clinical questions in our field and encourage the future to come into urogynecology, then you want to devote more of your time to that. You just have to make sure that your institution values that and ideally that you're getting protected time and you're getting some title of educational leadership and resident research program director or something like that that's filling some other mission, some other thing for your personal development as well. That's how I think about it, but I'm very curious to hear other folks, how they break that down. I would, one thing, I just started laughing when the question was asked because I do think it also depends, I apologize, my dog snores and snarfs like really loudly in the background if you can hear him, but I think it also depends on the mentee and how productive and responsive the person is. I feel like it's hard because people are very interested in research at different times for different reasons and I think I'm more willing to do something that may be kind of outside of my focus if the person's extremely organized and I know that I won't have as much time that I'll need to dedicate to that. I've started making rules for myself of if it's a third year resident who's three months away from applying for fellowship, I'm not going to help them on a new research project at that point, but if it's a first year resident who's like, oh, I'm really excited about this and I want to do this and this is what I'm interested in, then maybe we'll think about it. That sometimes plays into it a little bit for me just to help sort of maximize your time and it's good, as Heidi was mentioning, for the department and to encourage people to go into your kind of have a positive and productive mentor relationship with students and residents. You know, I think it's hard. It's hard. You have to, or at least I've had to, figure out what the priorities need to be for me given my goals and wanting to become an independent investigator. So for me, it is limiting the number of trainees that they have and the type of trainees. Fellows, they're very independent, so it's easier to work with a fellow, but a mentor or even a resident, especially like an intern, they may just not have the bandwidth or the time and so you really have to be thoughtful about that. But then, because I know that I'm limiting the number of trainees that I'm working with from a research standpoint, I do try to think about other ways that I can contribute, right? I can have medical students come shadow me clinically, have them in the OR, great, and that's my way of sort of giving back and contributing and trying to get people to see what urogynecology is and get interest up in that way. But in thinking about my goal and my mission for my career, at this time, I have to limit the number of trainees that I have and the type of trainees that I work with. Or if I do have trainees on board, I'm significantly limiting their role. Like, is it a systematic review where they're reviewing abstracts and that's it? Cool, I can do that. But if it's going from beginning to end for a project, it doesn't make sense right now for me. And later on, I'll be sure to give back. So it's something to think about as you're thinking about what your ultimate goals are and what your mission is. I think it's always nice to find those people who are finishers, who can say what they're going to do and then do it and be honest with people and say, I'd love to work with you, but you've got to do this X, Y, and Z training. We've got to meet and you've got to bring something to the table as well that's going to be helpful. And hey, if it doesn't work out, so be it. But I really love working with learners, but teaching them the same thing over and over and over again is fun. But then it's nice when you get the small cadre of people who can help teach each other at that point too. Well, I think we are just about out of time. So on behalf of AUDS and the Early Career Research Leadership Program Committee, I would like to thank our mentors for their time and advice and recommendations this evening. And thanks to everyone who joined us on the webinar. Our next webinar is going to be next Monday, November 8th at 7 p.m. Eastern time. And we will be hearing from Drs. Kerr and Saliv of the National Institutes of Aging. So hopefully you all will join us and spread the word. If you know people that you think might be interested, please please let your friends know. And for more information, you can visit the pfdresearch.org website to sign up there and to get more information. So thank you all for joining us and have a wonderful evening.

video transcript

mentors

early career research

grant funding

finding mentors

aligning research goals

seeking opportunities

passionate research

feedback on grant proposals