Week 98
View from the Houseboats
I’ve been mulling over advice about integrating leadership and service into a research career from an amazing surgeon and geri/pal researcher, Dr. Zara Cooper, who gave UCSF Geriatrics grand rounds this week (video should be posted soon). I’ve been discussing the ideas with a friend through iterative interchanges of mini voice memos, which has been a nice way to connect despite our schedules not aligning for an actual meeting.
The first piece of advice was a quote of Dr. Diane Meier (another giant in geri/pal research): “find your highest and best purpose”. In other words, what are you best suited to do, what is your unusual confluence of skills and passion? The places where you can best deploy those skills should be your top priorities for things to say yes to. Dr. Kemi Doll’s podcast consistently asks people to figure out their purpose and use that to inform boundary settings.
Second, we talked about setting personal goals for service and leadership opportunities. Define what “success” would be for you in taking on that service/leadership role, and what hope to learn or get out of it. Ideally, it would relate back to your purpose. Examples might be understanding how things work and how decisions get made or getting visibility with leaders further up the institutional hierarchy. This can help you figure out which opportunities to say yes or no to. Once you say yes, periodically assess whether you are hitting your goals or the “success” benchmarks and what you are getting out of the opportunity. These assessments can inform when it’s time to make a change.
Third, Dr. Cooper recommended succession planning early and often. How will you know when you’re done with a role (see item #2 above re: benchmarks for your own personal success in the role)? Who might be someone who could take that role after you – can you hand-pick a more junior colleague (ideally where the role is aligned with their purpose) or is it a role where a national search is appropriate?
All of this is inspiring me to carve out some time to reflect and re-define “my purpose” and goals/benchmarks for my service opportunities, and then reflect on implications for priorities for upcoming grant &. paper writing plans and mentoring/advising requests. Let me know if you want to join a zoom co-working session with this focus.
Gratitude
Not out of toxic positivity but a genuine attempt to counteract the dismal news
I’ve felt better enough from my mystery congestion to exercise again this week
So many sunny days!
Theo’s amusing love of leopards and cheetahs this week – enacting and drawing and researching
Opinion piece I wrote with colleagues about needing systemic supports for grieving was published in StatNews
Interesting things on the internet
Amazing initiative celebrating 80 San Franciscans over age 80 by a colleague (who’s a physician and parent in a pandemic doing this in her “free time”)
On my reading list: This Chair Rocks, a book about the joys of aging
Old School, an anti-aging clearinghouse
Frameworks Institute, which uses research to recommend how to frame social stories
An essay by a colleague about the inequities of aging, and the challenges of aging while impoverished
Initiative providing dementia care training to home health, hospice, and long term care agencies
Amazing interactive essay: Before Roe
Study indicating that more kids masking is associated with fewer childcare/daycare closures