Okay, so thank you Doug, Lisa, ASGE, thanks to all of you for being here, I'm excited to talk about this topic by way of introduction. So I'm an assistant professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and an interventional endoscopist. One of my academic leadership roles that I'm most proud of is serving as the VA site director for the UCLA fellowship program. I love working with trainees, it's very rewarding, I've always been drawn towards innovation and education and simulation, ways to improve our teaching methods to meet the needs of new generations of learners. And sort of in line with my interest in mentoring, I'm often asked to write letters of recommendations for residents or fellows each application cycle and this, you know, usually involves providing detailed feedback on their CVs and cover letters and in fact I also have sort of a small obsession with improving my own CV. And so one of my favorite things to do is that when visiting faculty come and they send out the CVs in advance, I always read them and try to pick up like little tips and tricks and things that I like and that I want to emulate or things that I don't like. And then also just my background with the ASGE, so like many of you, in 2017 that was when I attended the first year fellows course and I've remained really involved since. I wanted to take on volunteer leadership opportunities to be part of ASGE and so I joined my first committee, e-learning committee in 2020, that's where I participated in online educational gaming initiatives, those are hosted on GILeap, that's where Golden Scope came from, grew out of that committee, I've been on two other committees as well. And then I've been part of the senior fellows course through my involvement with Golden Scope and I remain very committed to ASGE and sort of academic promotion and resident and fellow training. So what did I just do? Does anybody, is everybody in here convinced that I am qualified to give the lecture on CVs at ASGE? Yeah. Right? So I'm really only giving this talk because I'm here. I just want to say, so I have three things that I ask everyone when I'm interviewing or that I'm looking in their CV, and you may talk about it, but leadership traits, how you're a team player, and how you want to become a leader. And when I see it in someone's introductory letter and CV, we can talk about my interest in the Beatles and any other activities I like or what you like and we get to focus on everything else. So she's already done all of that for you, so I think that's really important to take home. All those things are buried in there. So this was just to illustrate, right, this is not a typical way to sort of start a talk, but this is my cover letter for why I wanted to give this talk today at ASGE on this topic. But the reality is I'm really just here anyway for GoldenScope. I'm in academics, I have a CV, and I said yes, right? There's lots of other people in this room who could give this exact same talk, and basically that's how it is getting a job and when you write a cover letter. Pretty much everybody has the training and qualifications for whatever position you're applying for or whatever promotion you're going up for, but it's about crafting a narrative to show why you are the one that should get it, why you excel. So we're going to talk now more about what this cover letter is. And so as I've sort of illustrated, you have to say who you are, right? You need some of the basics, your background, your pedigree, where you trained, some of the objective stuff, but you can also say what your values and interests are in a way that's unique. What have you accomplished? Again, going beyond just listing off the accolades that will be in your CV, when you're writing these types of cover letters, what are you most proud of? What are the things that may or may not stand out as just a one-line item? And then what are your strengths? So these are where you really try to mention those leadership qualities. What are maybe unique personality traits, right? Things that are not as tangible in a CV, or what are your unique skills? And then what are your goals? You have to be specific here, right? What are your ambitions, plans, and what's the deliverable? Everybody is going to become a clinical or academic or researcher or this, right? Everybody's going to do that, but it's like, what are the other things that you're going to do? And so I'm going to talk about cover letters. Has anybody created a cover letter or started to apply for jobs? We have third-year fellows here. Show of hands. Okay, so some of us. And there's no uniform cover letter. I would say it sort of depends if you're applying for a job, if you're going for promotion, if there's something you're applying to. But regardless, you're probably going to have to send an email at some point stating who you are and that you're interested in something. And rather than writing it in the body of the email, my approach had been to send a letter like this. So I'm happy to share these. It's just grayed out just for the sake of efficiency today. But basically, you want some sort of a structure, tier blank. I'm writing to inquire. This is actually my letter, by the way. I looked back at when I was an interventional fellow and I was applying for a job. And so I would send these to chiefs at divisions. So you say who you are, then you have all the stuff we're going to get into. I think my experience would align. This is my phone number. References I think are really important. So if you feel comfortable, if you have the opportunity to, I would list a reference. I think I listed three or four that have sort of different... They're from different institutions, they're different aspects of references. So a clinical, maybe a research, maybe a personal. Because whoever's reading your letter might say, oh, I know this person. Just like, oh, maybe this person interviewed with me in the past or I know them. I'm going to reach out. But the meat of the letter is really how do you make yourself stand out to be one person who really should get this. So we're going to just do a few examples and practice. So I need you guys to help participate. So let's say you have this line in there that you want to say that in your fellowship you've completed several additional rotations with dedicated esophageal faculty and you're proficient in high resolution manometry. So think about what's the point of including something like that in a letter and what are you really trying to get across? A lot of people have been discussing can we be using AI, chat GPT, to write letters of recommendation and cover letters and whatnot. And I think that's something that chat GPT can write. But what I want to get into today is what can it not write? What does the AI not know? What do you guys know? So is there a volunteer who can... You can make it up. So what exactly, as someone who wants to go into being an esophagologist, what is the point you want to get across and how might you refine the statement? Too bad I can't give you extra points towards Golden Scope for volunteers. Any brave souls? Come on, we're all in it together. Okay, nobody's writing cover letters. Thank you. I guess the only thing I would change is claiming to be proficient because you want to come across as a little more humble if you're applying for a spot that is looking for somebody who's trained in esophageal motility, but they're definitely more trained than you are. So you want to come across as, I can build on it, maybe use your help to build on it. So I have experience, but I would come across as a little more humble. I would say I'm proficient, you know? Okay, great point. I'll come back to that. Yeah, go ahead. Maybe a little bit more detail as far as who you've worked with, what institutions you were at, just so maybe some people go, oh, I know that person. That would be nice. It could be an internal reference, if you will, and kind of knowing what your level of knowledge and skill might be. It also might be nice to tell what is the natural history of your knowledge and skill in manometry. When did you start? What are you doing with it? And things like that. Great. Those are really good points. So the first point is, what does it mean to be proficient, right? So I agree. We should be more specific. I have read 100 studies, and I can independently interpret. And then mentioning exactly, like the second comment, who you worked with, and if it's somebody who may be known in the field, and exactly what the skill set is. And then what you want to do with it. I want to run a motility lab. I want to see patients with complex esophageal disease, right? How does that skill set, what you've done, translate? I do want to talk about this a little bit more humble comment. So my personal opinion, I'm sure everyone feels slightly different, is that you actually can brag in your letters in a way that's sort of sophisticated and classy. And it shouldn't be bragging. You worked hard, right? We have all done so much, and we have developed skills and spent years training. And so if you really are good at something, and feel comfortable and confident doing it, and then also people above you think that that's a skill set that you truly have, you should say it. Because the only way that I'm going to know when I'm reading that letter that that's something you have is if you tell me. And so it's a balance between humility and bragging. But you have to be honest about what your accomplishments are. I won the award for best resident teacher. Any thoughts on this? What is that, you know? How many awards do they give out a year? Does everybody get an award? Yeah, thanks. I'm kind of going by the same principle of adding more details of what year it was, what's the criteria for getting this award, who do you teach, are you teaching medical students, are you teaching junior residents? Exactly, right? I was one of, I was the single award given to 55 internal medicine residents for being the strongest teacher for medical students. I have made a point to give lectures to the students. I am super passionate about education. I have aspirations to be a program director. Some of those things may or may not be true, obviously only include the true ones. But right, there's so much more that you could say about yourself, besides just what your CV says, which is that you won that award. So it's like using that information and synthesizing it in a useful way. Another one, I received an AGA pilot award to test a novel IBD biomarker. Any volunteers? There's two more after this, so I'm going to need three more people. Yeah? Tell me about what came out of that study. Exactly. What were the results and what do they mean, right? Not necessarily for the sake of the science, but what's the clinical impact and your personal impact? What's next for you? Are you going to be a researcher in IBD, or did this change how you want to treat patients in the private setting? Whatever it is, make it more clear. Okay, I work well in teams and I appreciate collaboration across disciplines, right? Those are those sort of personal qualities. I mean, that's something I hope all of us do, right? That's something we all do, but specific language that really highlights who you are as a person and how you interact. So for example, I was reviewing fellowship applications two weeks ago for interviews and somebody said in a letter, like, this resident is the first to get there in the morning and the last to leave. And that's a little bit more specific than just having a good work ethic, right? So think about that. And then my long-term goal is to be a clinician researcher with a focus in early onset colorectal cancer. So I think many of us sort of end these personal statements, cover letters with, and my long-term goal is, right? Be very specific, right? I wanna be 70-30 investigator, right? I wanna be a full-time clinician. I wanna have one day carved out for education. I wanna be a part-time person in the community practice, whatever it is that you wanna do, be very specific because the person reading this is gonna wanna make that decision. And think of your cover letter the same way we use social media in 2024, right? Like we've all gravitated, many of us, towards TikTok and Instagram, right? It's quick, it hooks you, it's addictive. It gives you the content you didn't know you needed, right? You get these videos. And I think that's in some ways what the cover letter is. Like these are read in 30 seconds and chiefs of divisions or whatnot will get so many of these. We were talking this morning about Kaiser. They get so many applicants. So like, what is it that's gonna make your writing stand out? So that's everything about cover letters. I'm gonna shift now to CVs. So if TikTok and Instagram are like the cover letter, right? The quick hook and keep you interested, I think like your photo roll is kind of like the CV, right? Now it's just like, it's so long. You have everything in there. There's so much unnecessary photos, but like why not keep it there type thing, right? It's always there in case you need it. You never know, right? But like the reality is a lot of it is not so important. And so the thing about a CV for us, and CVs are very different in all fields, but in medicine, CVs are not like a two pager. It's not really the resume, right? This is really a comprehensive statement of everything. And so you need it for basic reasons, right? You need to get a job. You may need to get promoted depending on where you work. You may need to give it to somebody if you're asking for a letter of recommendation, if you're inquiring about a position, if you're giving a talk, for example, like there's, you know, for the rest of your lives, you will be asked for your CV. There's a specific kind of CV called a biosketch, which is usually used for NIH grants and for other sort of grant related applications. We can talk about that. I didn't include too much about it because it's a little bit more specific, but that's also something to be aware of. And so why you need it though is a little different than the purpose of it, right? Its purpose is really to highlight all of your professional qualifications, what you've done, what you've accomplished, and to make you look a little bit different. So every CV is gonna have all the same major components. Again, I'm not gonna go through everything because these are just templates, right? You actually don't need to be too fancy. You just need to follow the template. So you're gonna have your general education, employment history, any of your research, any educational things that you've been involved in, teaching, mentorship, and remember all these things because sometimes we don't think about activities that we participate in that would actually be appropriate and valuable to include on our CV. So clinical, have you had any leadership roles? Service, have you been on committees? Any leadership, volunteer? These are sort of local, national, international. Many CVs are structured that way. Have you done any editorial work? Have you done peer review? Have you been invited to give any lectures, any talks, right? And of course, as you progress from your training and beyond, these things will grow. So who has a CV? I hope everybody has some template, some structure. Yeah, and this period, this phase is a little tricky because you may have some type of a format that you've maybe adapted from college through med school through whatnot, but seek out examples. These are not, CVs are not like private, secret, special. I would imagine most people are very comfortable sharing just for the sake of a template. I'm happy to share mine by email as well of what my CV used to be and what it is now, but what's gonna probably happen if you stay in academics is you're gonna end up having to use your institutional template. So your formatting will kind of be moot, but you just need something right now that's reasonable, okay? And this is longitudinal, right? This process of growing your CV is gonna happen over time. So you just wanna have the basics now, create the foundation, and then over time, you're gonna get rid of the old and update it frequently. So I'm part of UCLA faculty over the past three years. So the UC system has a very specific CV template that I have to use for promotion, and every two years I have to resubmit it. So all my fun obsession with CVs, which I exaggerated on a little bit, is now pretty basic. But this is what it looks like, right? They give you a font, they give you the format template, and it's all the same things that you're gonna need regardless of what place you go to or practice setting, and you can use these types of formats. So education, your boards, licenses, all that. So keep track of all that information. It will be important, right? So not too exciting, fill in the template. There's also resources available to help you if you need to get started with this. I think you can even put all the information in it and it self-populates. But what actually are some of the do's and don'ts? Again, these are just my thoughts on this. So it has to be accurate, okay? And there have been different studies, and basically there has been a lot of CV falsification okay, this is just not right or appropriate. So make sure it's accurate, keep it simple, revise it frequently, that's probably the most important thing. Be prepared to talk about anything. Like unfortunately, you might end up in a room across the table with somebody who went to medical school with the first author on a publication you did in med school that you're like a deep middle author and you're like, I have no idea, I just got thrown on this abstract, and like you have no idea if they're gonna bring it up. So if you don't want to be asked about it, do not include it on your CV. It's one less thing to add. What you shouldn't do, for whatever reason, sometimes CVs do get posted online as PDFs inadvertently, but if you're sharing them with, like ASG wouldn't do that, but if you're sharing them for talks or for whatnot, you just never know. So like I just would not include any like, if you're okay with your cell phone, I'm okay with that, but I don't include my personal address, that kind of stuff. No typos, right? This should be clean. Nothing that's fake or exaggerated. And do not hold on to outdated accomplishments. Now is the time where you guys are finishing up fellowship where maybe that medical mission in med school, if you're gonna be a global health person, if your focus is endoscopy abroad, that should definitely be on there. But if you're not, and it no longer is part of your story, then consider whether or not it should really be on there. A lot of, so ERAS and everything, you have these research experiences, and I think they use the word experiences a lot. Once you hopefully have turned that experience, that mentorship into a publication, you can start to get rid of the experiences and it should just be replaced with the line item, okay? So my approach, I keep a running Word document on my computer, it's a Microsoft Word, and every time I'm asked to share my CV for various different things, I take that and I just adapt it and I send off that version. But I have my main copy, which is what I use. And I'm gonna show you a few of my little things that I include, depending, you have to tailor to the audience. So if I'm being asked to share it for research, and this, again, this is outside of UCLA promotion, if I'm being asked to share it for a research-related thing, you better believe I'm gonna push my research grant section up, right? If I'm being asked to do it for something related to the medical school, I'm probably gonna prioritize my teaching and mentorship higher up. So when they're not asking you for a formatted CV, you can have liberties to sort of adjust the order of things. Add to it frequently, this is the most important thing, right, how annoying when finally you have to do something and you're like, oh, I wanna apply for this, but I need a letter, but I need to get an updated CV, and you're like, I haven't opened this document in a year. Right, so just add to it frequently. So what I do is I try to add in real time. So like, for example, after this weekend, probably on the plane, I'll just write real quick, like ASG Senior Fellows Course Golden Scope. I'm probably just gonna put it in a red font and not do it formatted if I don't feel like doing that right now, but it's a placeholder. So I know when I do have time to go back and update it, I kind of have things fresh. After DDW, after ACG, if you participated in something, just throw it on there as a placeholder, okay? And then the last minute, I'm just gonna show you three things that I kind of find fun and cool, Google Scholar, PubMed, and my vision statement. I'm not really sure what the point of Google Scholar is for most people. For me, it's, so I'm not promoting it from any means from Google, but what I think it's useful for is just keeping track of things, because it finds things before I can find them. So for example, if you have a poster that you present, the abstract form at one of the conferences, it'll email and be like, here's your new publication, and it's just in the supplement of like GIE, for example. So it helps me to keep track of things if it does give you some of your stats, each index, whatnot, but I kind of like it. Again, this isn't in my CV, this is just something that I kind of use on the side, so may or may not be useful. For your bibliography, so PubMed does have a bibliography, my bibliography, I don't know if we're gonna move towards like QR codes and links for our CVs entirely in the future, depending on what happens in this world, but I think this is a nice feature. And then I have a vision statement, depending where I send this, this is an old sort of screenshot of it, but I think it's nice, and nobody says you can't have this, right, again, this isn't for my institutional CV, depending where you're sending it, I like the idea of having a one or two sentence that tells you who I am. So I took this idea from one of my mentors from fellowship, and so just something to think about. Again, these are just ways to stand out. The last thing is to learn from gaps in your CV or portfolio, right? So I didn't talk too much about your academic portfolio, but everything you do is going to come together, and if you are in academics and need promotion, it's gonna be your CV, it's gonna be your letters of recommendation, it's gonna be your cover letters, it's gonna be your evaluations from residents and whatnot. And basically put it all together and see where there's gaps and try to focus on those things. A final word about letters of recommendation, these should be like the Cliff Notes, right? This should also be in some ways like a cover letter, but these are probably coming from people you're asking for. So 100%, if these are letters of rec where you've waived your right to view it and where you're not supposed to be involved, like promotion, this doesn't apply. But there are certain cases where you may be asked to template a letter of recommendation, again, only if this is sort of appropriate scenarios, or you may be asked to write letters, and you just wanna be specific, right? You wanna weave a narrative that is specific. And then the last thing I'll say is, don't assume that your letter writer will edit what you send, and don't send two people the same exact letter, right? Again, these are not for sort of necessarily resident job applications and whatnot, but there are certain things, oh, I wanna have this like position at ASG or whatnot, and you may need letters. And so just be thoughtful with what you're putting out there. So in summary, tell your story, make yourself stand out, and make sure to demonstrate where you came from and to illustrate where you're heading. Thanks.

medical training

cover letters

CVs

mentoring

academic leadership

innovation