And I, yes, this is, I'm in pediatrics, but I have always liked this concept of, are you my mentor? Because I think that fellowship, a little bit of that, certainly the first and second year can be trying to figure out who is mentoring you. I guess the corollary there is you never know who you are mentoring. So what Doug didn't tell you is he was picking a fight with our dietician service, and I wasn't sure why. Oh, they picked a fight with him. Anyway, bottom line is you never know when you're stepping in, even at very junior levels, and I do wanna try to talk about that. But I'm gonna do the talk cognizant of the fact that you are all second and third year fellows. So to some extent, you all already have mentoring relationships going on, and you're probably already mentoring people. This particular talk, I have nothing that's a disclosure or conflict, but I do have a disclaimer. It's really, any talk I give like this is always just to initiate a discussion, and the discussion is really about how to be mentored, and then the corollary is how to be a mentor. There's a lot of challenges, realities, and strategies there. You guys are in the middle of this, so as I'm talking, I decided I could sort of try to play both sides, which is, theoretically, you all already have mentors, but some of those relationships are going well, and some probably are not going as well, and so I sort of want you to think about this in that lens. Maybe I can give you some thoughts about how to think about it. It's, of course, an individual and unique experience whenever you stand up and give a talk like this, so this is my approach, but there's a lot of collective wisdom, so I just want to point out, you can go on PubMed and Google, and there's tons out there on mentorship. People have written many, many books about it, but really, nothing I'm saying should be taken too seriously. So first off, what is a mentor? And, of course, mentor itself comes from the Odyssey, and mentor was a character in the Odyssey, but I think today, when we think about a mentor, it's an advisor, a supporter, maybe a tutor, an employer, a sponsor, a role model. That's really a lot to ask of one single person, so really, your goal always in life, I think, is to develop a mentoring group, and that mentoring group really may focus on your research, could be a professional development mentor, could be your lifestyle mentor, could be a networking mentor, so basically, you're just always looking. I think this goes throughout your career. You'll be looking for individuals with unique knowledge that can help you. It's really important to know yourself whenever you're in a mentoring relationship, whether you're a mentee or a mentor. Really be very present and intentional when you get into one of these relationships, but if you're out there looking for a mentor, you'll be looking for someone who you respect, but you also are hoping they will respect you. You'd like them to have experience. Ideally, they're enthusiastic. It's helpful if they have no particular vested interest in your decisions. A common thing that can start to happen in really excellent mentoring mentee relationships is after a while, the mentee grows up, and now they would like to go out and be their own person, and maybe even mentor other people themselves, and all of a sudden, their mentor, that doesn't work for the mentor. That relationship has been so productive that it can actually be difficult to have it mature. It's helpful if a mentor really can be a little bit, it doesn't really matter what you do. They're gonna be there for you either way. Ideally, they're a good listener. They're helping you to examine difficult choices. They should be nurturing you, but also encouraging you to be self-sufficient, and the most important thing that mentor probably needs to be able to do is to establish protected time for you. So a big red flag always for me is when somebody says, well, I'd like so-and-so to be my mentor. I think they're my mentor, but I can't get them to meet with me. That should be a red flag, okay? So if someone can't find the time to meet with you, they just don't have a lot of time, and you can't be a priority. So you wanna be super careful. It's not that you can't have them in your mentoring group, and I'll talk more about some things that different people can do for you, even if they don't have as much time, but make sure that they have protected time for you. An ideal mentor also needs to be professionally competent, and I say that, and it sounds so easy, but it's really important. Try not to pick somebody who's struggling because your needs will compound what they're going through. So that's a tricky thing to say, but we're all adults, and you wanna be feeling that you can pick somebody who really can help you with what you need, and to do that, they have to be able to do it in their work life. They need those necessary experience and credentials. Ideally, they look kind of similar to you, so they've traveled the path you're traveling. They're willing to share experiences, and ideally, they're also sharing their mistakes, so they're really able to tell you what they've done wrong. And then if they're actively involved in professional and academic life, that is the biggest plus because they can bring you along into that life, and that's really what you're looking to them for. I think it's also important that the person be interpersonally skillful. So another big red flag for me is, I went to see my mentor, and I felt intimidated, or I felt like they didn't like anything I was saying, or I've even had somebody describe a relationship once as it felt abusive, like they were psychologically, didn't feel, I guess the words now are psychologically safe. I mean, you do need to have a mentorship relationship where somebody's empathic, nonjudgmental, that it's really helping you to feel good about what you're doing. Some of that is they're showing you off. They're promoting you to others. They're introducing you left and right. That's how they're gonna open doors. They're willing to stand up for you, and at the same time, they're ideally pushing you, so you want someone who's motivating you to stretch your abilities, and there, they're gonna have high expectations, so you really want this perfect mentor to be unwilling to accept less than optimal performance from you, so some of that is you also can't be full of excuses to them, so I'm sort of giving you all of this from the perspective of what the ideal mentor should be able to do, but I think, again, I'm sort of mindful of you all are starting to also mentor other people, so how many of you in here have mentored a resident who might be interested in GI? Show of hands, yeah. No, definitely. So that means you're standing out to someone. You're just that little bit ahead of them, and I think that's a great thing to do, and I'll talk more about what that does. How many of you are in great mentoring relationships right now, with really good mentoring relationships? Yeah, so what I'll point out is not everybody raised their hand, so I think what I'm hopefully doing is, nothing's perfect, right? So these are all ideal mentors, and then there's many mentors out there that aren't quite living up to what I'm holding up as the ideal, so, and let's see, what else do I want to bring out in this one? I think this is all pretty similar. Okay, so what's an ideal mentor not going to do? So it's really important that you recognize at this moment that you're mentees working with mentors, because some of you are already having this as you're mentoring other people, but an ideal mentor is not there to finish your work, or to act as a full-time tutor. The mentor cannot actually sort of complete the project. The mentor can help you to get there, can give advice, but basically, that's not their job, and that would take a lot of time, then they're doing your job. They're also not gonna find you a job while you do nothing, so they're gonna give you thoughts and advice, but they're not necessarily going to be able to find you the job. Definitely, they can't read your mind about what you're worrying about, so if you've got financial worries, if you've got a fear of failure, doubts, family pressures, all of that is stuff that, again, in its own time, you should make sure that the mentor's aware that you're dealing with stressors, because I think those are real, and the mentor themselves is dealing with stressors, so these are moments when you may want to say, hey, how do I get to know somebody, and make sure they know me. Mentors cannot be your only source of support, they can't meet all your needs, and they can't magically know what you want to do with your life. Only you know that, and I really, I say that because, again, you're sitting there with a mentor right now, and maybe you want more from them, but I think it's trying to figure out how do you explain to them what you want. The flip is, as you start to mentor people, realize that they are hoping you can do all of these things for them, and you can't, so it's really starting to have that sense of what it's like to wear both shoes. If that's the right statement. Okay, so how do you choose a mentor? So the first thing I think most people will do is look at personality, so is somebody nice, basically, or are they approachable, or are they affable, or frankly, are they a leader, and I like how they lead, and I'd like to be mentored by them. The next thing you really need to think about is accessibility, again, are they able to make time, is it a good match, do you like their style, do you like the way they create an environment, how do you go around assessing all this, certainly you should feel this is one of those moments, especially when you're looking for a mentor, and then be aware people are doing this to you, is you should be talking to lots of people, so to some extent, that's an interview process, but I think the big way you can assess somebody's personality is you start talking to other people that they've worked with, so you wanna know other fellows, postdocs, student techs, labs, or you visit somebody. You also want to be speaking with those people, not only about what's this person like, and what's their personality, or what do you find them like, but you wanna understand what's the pace of the work expectations, so you may have been talking to, let's say, a postdoc who works with a mentor, and they're like, oh, this guy's the best guy ever, but the lab is functioning at a very high pace, and that tech is able to keep up with that pace, and that makes them a good match for the mentor, so you really wanna understand, well, what's happening. You also wanna understand the funding situations, whether that mentor's in a position to be able to provide you with resources that you might want, and that, by the way, also includes if you're looking at clinical positions, and even if you're looking for mentorship, let's say, in the societies, and how can we bring you more into the societies? You wanna understand what are the funding opportunities, and how can we match those up, and then, most important thing is, does it feel like it could be a productive relationship? There's a lot of debate about whether you want a younger person or an older person. My own vignette to the younger person is, in college, I was choosing a thesis advisor, and I thought I wanted the old professor, and in retrospect, he was sort of like the, from a, now I'm more aware of things, but there was this unconscious bias on my part, and he was really the professor, he was a he, he looked like a professor, he had been around for a very long time, and I think he had the title of full professor, and in the end, and it just worked out, and I can't remember, because it was many years ago, but I do remember that I felt a little bit like, oh, should I have had that older guy, but he had no time, in fact, that I remember, he really had many people, he was nice, but he just had many people he was mentoring, and I wound up really getting along with a very young assistant professor, okay, this is gonna be embarrassing, but I went to Princeton University, which is an excellent university, and she was an assistant professor there, she went on to become provost, she's been now provost for the past 10 years, so don't be afraid of young mentors, because they're heading places, and if it really works, that can be an awesome relationship, and what's always been very interesting, we have certainly kept up with each other, and the relationship worked for her too, like my really working, and her able to meet me, we did a lot of meeting late at night at 8 p.m., she was, in retrospect, I thought she was so old, but she was 26 years old, and we would meet in her office at 8 p.m., and you know what, she was able to do that, because she was at a phase of her life that she could do that for me, and we really did some work together, and that played out, so I think really recognizing that that is sometimes the younger person is the right person is important. You do want to look at track record though, these days I get a little worried when my junior fellows are looking up, and my junior attendings, and the attending themselves is trying to get a track record going, and it is important that they have their own track record, do you guys know what the most important thing, what's the currency in academic medicine, anybody? What do you want when you're in academia? Yes, citations, papers, right? Okay, Doug, right? So who do we care, what do we need? We need the editor to accept our papers, but more importantly, we need to be either a first author or a last author, so when you're working with a junior attending as a fellow, the danger is that they need to be first author, and they have a mentor who needs to be last author, so you're really trying to understand that before you get into the relationship, because it will be very hard to get the citations that you're a first author, so just having awareness of that, it doesn't mean that that younger person can't be in your networking group, it's just whether they should be your primary mentor, let's say on your K award, that's where it starts to get, you do have to be a bit technical. You do wanna choose a mentor that makes you feel safe, but also challenges you, and then my strongest words are gut instincts, you have to have some sense that it's going to be a relationship that works, is that okay, everybody okay with that, okay? So again, mentors usually have mutual interests, they're motivated, directed, what are they looking for in you? They're looking for initiative, so I'm gonna start talking more and more about this, initiative is what you need to show as a mentee, and then you'll show it as a mentor too, so it's really important that to show initiative, you're proactive, so you're sort of thinking about things ahead of time, and then also looking for skills and strengths. Now flip this slide around and say, okay, somebody would like me to be their mentor, you want to know, okay, what they're interested in, is that what I'm interested in? If it's not, the nicest thing you can do for that person is say, I love talking with you, what you're talking about is so cool, but actually I know somebody who's really into that, let me connect you, so really focusing as someone's looking to you for mentoring, to really make sure those mutual interests are lined up, certainly have a sense of where you can help somebody to further their goals, if you don't think you can help them, it's really important to sort of state that straight out, you are looking at whether they have initiative, do they look to set up a meeting with you, that is the number one sign of initiative, they actually seek you out and try to set up a meeting, and that's a sign of proactivity, and then you're also trying to understand their skills and strengths and what qualities they're gonna bring to the table. All right, so mentees in a relationship are not passive at all, they're the ones who have to show this proactivity and initiative, and it turns out there are all these cute little cartoons out there on how we can write out what the rules and responsibilities of a mentee are, but I think just in black and white, you've gotta be open with your mentor, that's a little bit of open to what the challenges are, but also what your hopes and goals are for the relationship, you wanna be open-minded, so sometimes the mentor says, you know, I see what you're talking about with that project but I've got this other thing and I think you'd be great for it, and the classic for me in peds, people come to me and they say, I really love IBD, I'm like, okay, everybody loves IBD, but how do we get you to shift just a little bit and maybe think about EOE, okay, I'll sort of throw that one out there, and why is that, because I've got a nice project that I actually can connect you to, connect you on, that's a funding opportunity, there's a whole way I can move you forward with that EOE, and that actually, in the end, if you really love IBD, you'll be able to parlay that back to IBD. But I think you want to be open-minded and try to understand why is the mentor trying to get you to do something slightly different from what you might have said. Obviously, if I now said, well, I think you should look at hepatology, I'm not being a very good mentor. Now I'm not listening to what you're interested in. But if it's may have, ask them. Say, how do you think that could be relevant to what I like? Definitely, responsibilities of a mentee are to be prepared. So do your homework. Walk in, understand what I do, how I can help you, what you think I'm working on. Ask questions. Take suggestions and criticism positively. The number one place you get criticism is you write the whole paper or the abstract, you send it to me, and it comes back with a lot of red. Because I've now used the review function, and I'm definitely tracking my comments to you. And I don't want anyone to panic. That's OK. That's actually how you'll learn. And I have watched many, many people learn how to write abstracts. And it's just something that takes time to get there. So I think you take it positively and know that that's part of what the mentor is supposed to do. A number one thing you can do is schedule appointments. I think people will say, well, you didn't ask to meet with me, so I just never met with you. And that's not being proactive. You need me. I need you to schedule an appointment with me. You have to send me an email, tell me you want to schedule the appointment. Ideally, you're going to set a timetable for meetings early on in the relationship. And then you're going to keep the interactions mutually beneficial. So lots of ways to mentor. These days, even e-mentoring. And then there's other words that are starting to be heard. So there's mentoring, there's coaching, there's sponsorship. I am mostly going to focus on mentoring and sponsorship, but to appreciate that there are these different ways that you can mentor. So I think I like this sort of little schema the most. So a mentor is talking with you, a coach is talking to you, and a sponsor is talking about you. And it's taken me many years to recognize that it's actually sponsorship, and we're going to talk about promotion. But sponsorship is actually what leads to promotion. Mentorship is helpful. Sponsorship is what promotion is all about. So you want to know that. What you want to know from a mentor's perspective, as you more and more are being asked to mentor, is if you compare all of these different ways you can work with people, you can see that the mentorship is the biggest relationship of all. It definitely takes the most time. And versus sponsorship, which is really relatively much easier. Career coaching takes a lot of time, but they get paid for that. So there are lots of reasons to mentor. I think the biggest one is you're building leadership skills. You are basically building your legacy. Doug Fishman. I get to show off people who I have mentored over my life, and who have gone on and done amazing things. And it is exciting that people grow up and go on and do these fantastic things. They will remember way more than you will remember, is what I've learned. So be careful with what you say to your mentees, because you never know what they are learning from you. But you are teaching all the time with mentorship. You're leading all the time. You're building empathy skills. You're building leadership skills. And of course, you're also giving back to your profession and to your field. So I think being a successful mentor has a lot of positives to it. It definitely, though, can involve challenges. The number one thing is it takes time. Mentees, in particular, can be unfocused. And they don't follow through. So I think that's one of the hard things, is it's a little bit like having a child. How many of you have teenagers? Teenagers? Anybody with teenagers? No. OK. Yeah. I think that's probably the close. When you have teenagers, you're officially mentoring all the time. You're parenting. But mentoring, a lot of it feels like that type of relationship. I think it's important also, again, as you're in this cusp, you want to be looking to your mentors and realizing they can be burning out. They can be running into situations where you might need professional help that goes beyond them. And figuring that out can be tricky. Mentors can definitely forget boundaries. And then you can find yourself in odd situations. So I think recognizing all of that can happen and those can be challenges is critical. And understanding that any of that could be happening for your mentor right now is important. Mentoring is definitely a little different from parenting in that I cannot demand that my mentees do anything. In the end, I am simply giving them thoughts. And so there are these wonderful, useful phrases. I try to remember them when I'm listening to someone, really to say, in my experience, or one thing you could need to consider is, things to watch out for. And then very importantly, connecting. So you're always trying to connect. Call this person for advice. Whether the mentee takes you up on that is, again, a piece of their proactivity. Sponsorship is really comparatively efficient. The only thing about it that's very important, so be on the lookout and then do this yourself, is you have to think of names and to avoid unconscious bias with that. So what's sponsorship? Sponsorship is when somebody says, hey, can you think of somebody for this talk? Or I'd like you to put together a course. Or I'd like you to, can you guest edit this issue of clinics, or something like that. And now you're actually trying to reach out and find authors. So there, I think it's really important to avoid unconscious bias. But it's actually comparatively efficient. It can really help people. And I will actually take up opportunities like that, because I know I can help people. So it can be useful. Sometimes I'm thinking of one person I want to help, but it's usually helpful for other people. And sponsorship can work for a long time. So again, it's nominating people to committees, authorship, opportunity of speaking. And this is, again, just a cute little cartoon. But the mentorship is like, you're sort of saying, hey, have you tried applying to speak at conferences or meetings already? Have you had that experience? And then sponsorship would be saying, hey, I recommended you for this speaking gig. Can you do it? What's the answer when your mentor says that to you, by the way, or a sponsor says that to you? Yes, you want to say yes. Somebody takes the time to sponsor you, again, be open-minded. It might not be exactly what you think you're an expert on, but they think you can talk to it. So trust me, you can talk to it. So just take that time and effort. And that opens the door to other things. I want you all to be aware that women, in particular, are likely over-mentored and under-sponsored. So women need to be very aware of this. We often are looking for mentors. Everybody's looking for mentors. But for whatever reason, that could be the unconscious bias on the person who needs to be thinking carefully of women. But it's also a little bit of our own biases where we're like, am I really ready for that speaking gig? Yes, you are. OK? Everybody? Yes. OK. Just very, in the last few minutes, I think whatever the relationship is, whether you're a mentor yet, a mentee, you're both. Most of us are both at all the times. You always want to be defining your relationship. Is it formal or informal? Is it goal-driven, topic-driven, or task-driven? That really is going to determine the meetings. So how frequently are you meeting? What's your degree and level of guidance that you're expecting to be giving or to be getting from somebody? And then what's the accountability? So what is someone doing? So very exciting things that can happen for me. I'm working with someone who actually was once upon a time my research assistant. She then went off to medical school, did residency. Yeah, she did residency. She did fellowship. I actually left while she was doing her fellowship, which was one of the people I walked away from and took a different job. I came back. I don't want to say anything, but luckily, it didn't quite work out with her mentor. And she's around. And we are working so well together. And the accountability is extraordinary. I'm like, hey, can you put in the IRB? And like three weeks later, I mean, the IRB is in. It's done. It's amazing to me how she has. And you can just see that she is ready certainly to be mentoring other people, not to mention promoted. And I'm sponsoring her as much as I can. So understanding what relationship are we in and really who's accountable for what is critical. There's a lot out there. I won't get into this, but whether it's directive versus supportive and how to think about these different situational mentorship things. But I think, again, in terms of this relationship, you're asking yourself key questions. What, when, and how much time do you have to invest? Did you consider this potential mentoring relationship to be a good match for you and the other person? Do you have a clear understanding of everyone's needs? Do you have ideas on how to address them? And then if you're going to mentor, if someone's saying, will you be my mentor, are you going to be able to consistently be enthusiastic, positive, and willing to engage and support them? And if you're not sure, say, you know, I don't know. I can be in your mentoring pool, but I don't think I should be your primary mentor. It's very important to really have that sense that you can't take everybody on. This is a five-phase mentoring relationship model, but the bottom line is be prepared. It should be a fairly structured thing. So I want to just end with, again, trying to straddle this concept that you guys are probably at both ends of this right now. If you're not sure that your mentoring relationship is going well, I would ask whether you have defined your goals and expectations with that mentor. And maybe it is time to try to do this. Set a meeting and say, you know, I'd like to review what are my goals and expectations in terms of what I'm trying to get to. And there, I think, there are all these consideration of mutual expectations that you're going to try to think about. And then you say, you know, this is what I'm trying to do. I want to get this project done over the next year. I want to get an abstract in for DDW in December. I want to complete something. Whatever it is, I think at that point, you say, OK, from here to December, what are my steps and approaches? The more proactive you are, the more you say, I think this is what I can do. I think this is my timeline. That lets the mentor say, you know, that's great. But I think you should give yourself more time for this piece of it. Or you're not going to be able to get all that done. So if you can start that process of defining it yourself, that will really help the mentor agree on the steps and approaches that you can get to what you need. And again, always the ideal mentoring plan is understanding the relationship, how you're going to communicate, and then scheduling, scheduling and logistics. So that, I think, ideally is something that the mentee does. So I try to ask a mentee to come up with what they want to email it to me. It can involve them telling me what their goals are, what they're going to be doing to achieve it, and what they're hoping I can do. So they're hoping I can be prepared at the end of November to review their abstract. I need to know that so I can plan ahead of time. So again, emailing, developing a mentoring plan. I'm a big believer in preparing for that very first meeting. So anybody out there who's saying, sure, I'll happy to start mentoring you as a resident, you're thinking about GI as a career, send me your CV. What does that make the person do? It makes the person review their CV. But that's OK. That's good. Obtain and look at it. And then you're going to meet, you're going to share information, try to learn something new about each other. But again, really focusing on those expectations and ground rules is what's so important in the mentoring and mentee relationship. So did I do OK straddling this, whether you're in one side or the other, and how you could maybe go back and reframe. There is no formula for the perfect mentoring relationship. You got to really think about what are those visible differences that could get in the way, but also lots of invisible differences. And again, the visible is easy to spot. Invisible, if some of you are in relationships that aren't going as well, really try to see if you can think now on their flight back, well, what's not quite going as well, and what do I need to work around? It doesn't mean the person's not great. It just means that you may need to be able to incorporate that into your mentoring relationship. And I think the way you do that is really setting out your goals and expectations. OK, I'm going to try to do this. So concluding thoughts. Being mentored and mentoring others involves challenges and realities, and there may be strategies to adopt and implement. That's a nice, very succinct slide. Any questions, thoughts, disagreements, violence? Doug? Disagreement? Nope. I thought that was great. I think an important thing to keep in mind is that your relationship with the mentor is not always going to be the same. And they're people, too, and they have insecurities and foibles, and sometimes as time goes on, the relationship may get stronger or the relationship may end. I was lucky that I had a lot of good mentors, and some of them I'm really in good contact with, and some I'm really not. And some of them, as my career went well, were very supportive and would say things like, we're so proud of you. And others, the better I did, they got mad, and they got resentful. And I realized, oh, wow, I guess we're not close anymore. So just recognize that there are people, too, and the relationship may very well change over time. You want your mentor to be happy for your success, independent of them, not negative. And I would add that two things. One is you're a representative of your mentor. So I was this very exuberant person, and I had some very senior people. And I'm like, oh, yeah, you're now an agent of that person, and you're a reflection upon them. So I think that's important. And the other thing is, as a mentor, and thinking about it perhaps as a mentee level, when I am mentoring someone in a project, I am acknowledging and accepting that that is going to be theirs, and I have to be willing to let them take that. So in my example, enteroscopy is something I'm interested in. But I said to my fellow, who's now one of my partner, and she runs the International Pediatric Enteroscopy Database, and that's hers. And so I had to be OK giving that up. And there's a lot of things that you're involved in. So you have to be able to, say, take a piece and be OK with that, and also still be supportive and still mentor that. Now, there's certainly relationships that, again, they change. And you can still be a sponsor. You can still be a mentor in those ways. But I think those are just things to be thinking about, both for the residents you're working with, as well as the people you're choosing as your mentors. And so I think that, I don't know if that's right. Yeah, no, it's true. Yeah, I think many, well, everyone can suffer from FOMO, right? Fear of missing out. So I think recognizing when the mentor is experiencing that and somehow guiding them through it gets really important. But I will tell you that a mentor who cannot let you grow up, they're now officially no longer an ideal mentor. And you do need to figure out how to navigate out of that. And you know what you do? You go talk to other people and get mentorship on how you're going to get out of. And it's not to get out of the relationship, but you're really going to change it. Can I make one other quick point? So I was talking about this with somebody last night. And it's sort of relevant now is, when I was a fellow, I was very strongly associated with my mentor because we had published so much together. And then when I got out on my own as an attending, I purposely stopped writing and speaking on those topics that he was known for. And I went in other directions. Because at some point, you've got to leave the nest and show that you can come up with ideas on your own and projects on your own. So it's OK to track really close when you're in training. But when you're on your own, you're expected to have your own ideas. You can have them on the paper if you want. But you don't want to be doing the exact same work. Because if you do that, you're in a competition with your mentor, and you'll just lose. You can hear we're all thinking about various situations we've been in. But anyway, thank you all for your attention. And I'm out. Thank you.

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