Burnout. 

Wikipedia.org:  “a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest (depersonalization or cynicism), usually in the work context. It is also used as an English slang term to mean exhaustion. Burnout is often construed as the result of a period of expending too much effort at work while having too little recovery.”

Just in case you don’t love Wiki, I go to my friend Merriam Webster to tell me his version:

burn·out

Pronunciation: \ˈbərn-ˌau̇t\ Function: noun Date: 1940

2 a: exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.

I bring this up as my second issue on this blog and my first since introducing myself because I think it is ever important…preventing burnout as a graduate student.  Now I know there are some among us here at Mayo that would scoff at such a comment…but trust me—I have seen it with my own eyes…people that are in the process of burning out, and that’s why I want to bring this up. 

It isn’t as if the notion of balance is new…it has been around a while, heck my parents (and their parents) always stressed the notion of making sure my life wasn’t all about work or play or one sided.  I steal the line from Tim Allen, Santa Claus 2, when he says, “I’m a rubix cube with pants!”  Like the multi-color rubix cube, I think it is very important to have many facets of your life, and I think sometimes, especially in this Mayo environment, one can get carried away with the work side of life.  Its an amazing place, don’t get me wrong, but I think it is important to know when to step back and let the hair down, so to speak. 

One thing that I have been privileged with over the years are amazing people that always stressed the importance of this.  Now summer is upon us, and I wonder if those people reading this, who are either a) scoffing at this blog in the first place, or b) know deep down that I am talking directly at them, will put the book down, the pipette down, and go have fun.  Whether it’s a bike ride through the countryside here in Olmsted County or a leisurely drive along the MN-WI border—try by Lake Pepin—its beautiful there—or BBQ with your friends or catching one of Hollywood’s blockbuster summer hits at Chateau, I think everyone here at Mayo owes themselves a little down time this summer.  Take a break from the lab work and relax. 

When I was in Scottsdale, AZ doing a rotation with Dr. Joseph Lustgarten, he always stressed the importance of having fun!  It was and to me, even more important than the work you do for a couple reasons.  I am of the mindset that your work improves when you take a break from it, because you come back energized.  Also, unless you are one of the lucky ones that gets famous doing science, and lets be honest, how many truly get famous, win a Nobel Prize, etc…not many—chances are, and this might be a pessimistic perspective, you won’t be remembered in the end for the science you did in the lab—you will be remembered when you are gone for the way you made a child smile when you volunteered at your local church, or an elderly person’s day when you sat down and listened to them for a moment.  You will be remembered for your work and the way you lived your life outside the lab probably more than your work inside the lab.  I know we all have inspirations of doing both winning a Nobel Prize and touching people in our own communities—and I know I do, but I think it is important to think about these thing…

So I urge each and every one of you—those on the process of burning out—and those who are balancing their lives just fine—to go out and play a round of mini golf, have fun with your friends, go to the Rochesterfest parade, concerts in the park (they’re free by the way), or enjoy whatever the plethora of activities you like to do in your free time.  Take a little more free time this summer and enjoy life.  I know, I know–We wouldn’t be at Mayo touching the world in the small way we do if we didn’t love what we do at work in the lab or in meetings, seminars, etc, but if you employ these concepts into your lives, the work will be even more enjoyable and productive than ever before.

You know who you are.  You overzealous, unyielding, never take a vacation, stay in the lab until 8 to 9PM daily, work the whole weekend, or even worse, one of our six Mayo holiday days, never go out, always working graduate student just trying to get a Nature or Science paper.  I’m not slamming you for having incredible work ethic, I’m just saying, that you have your whole career in front of you.  Don’t work so hard now that you don’t want to do this later.  Enjoy being a student—it has its privileges…just ask a faculty person…lol…remember you are a STUDENT at this stage, not a PI.

So as a student, remember that as country crooners Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett sing—“its 5 O’clock somewhere”, relax, take a deep breath, and enjoy summer.  Then I hope you transform your thinking to the other 9-10 months of the year.  Because after all, that is what will make you more productive, more energetic, and might just get that thesis done faster—than wasting time repeating experiments that failed because you were too burnt out or in too much of a hurry to think through them properly.

Here’s to hoping I always heed my own advice.

JJ   

I’m still not sure how it worked out this way.  Was it good timing?  Good luck?  Not that it really matters any more – those days are probably gone forever.  Still, I’m glad I made it.  I’m not sure I’d be the same if things had been different. 

Yes, dear reader, it’s true – I made it all the way through college without seeing more than a handful of lectures delivered via PowerPoint.  I don’t know if that seems strange to you.  Looking at the fact that well over 90% of the lectures I have seen in medical and graduate school have been PowerPoint slideshows, it frankly seems a little strange to me.  How did I avoid these terrible things for so long?

It’s not like I was in college all that long ago (1999-2003), either.  Back then (I’ll tell my kids), lectures came in three basic forms: the basic “lecture,”  in which someone stood in the front of the room and just talked about stuff; the  “chalk talk,” in which the speaker utilized a chalkboard to draw diagrams, equations, write key points, that sort of thing; and “overheads,” which were plastic sheets (either pre-printed or written on in real time) placed on a projector and displayed on a screen.  I guess I also saw a few lectures delivered via actual slides, using a slide projector.  We considered that very “old school” (pun only sort of intended).

It’s not like I went to some tiny school out in the stix, either.  My beloved Alma Mater, Indiana University, is consistently rated one of the most “wired” campuses in the country (I was there during the golden age of Napster!  But that’s probably a story for another time…).  We had projectors and computers in our classrooms; people just chose not to use them.

“But Peter,” you’re probably saying (how do you know my name, by the way?  That’s creepy), “as informative and fascinating as this little story has been so far, I don’t really see the point.  PowerPoint is a fantastic presentation tool!  Aren’t you glad you get to experience it now?”

No.  PowerPoint is probably the worst thing to happen to education since…I don’t know, something really bad, like having to wrestle in middle school gym class.  Now, when I say this to people (the thing about hating PowerPoint, not the part about wrestling), they always say the same thing in reply, “But PowerPoint makes preparing lectures so much easier!”  And therein lies the problem.  PowerPoint is a great tool for presenters, not for audiences.  Specifically, as my undergrad research mentor used to say, “PowerPoint is a great tool for [presenters] with no personality.”  It’s ridiculously easy to put together a passable PowerPoint slideshow.  Once you make your slideshow, you can then use it for several lectures before you have to whip up a new one!  And it’s so reassuring to have everything you’re going to say listed out in little bullet points you can read to your audience!  And Remember! four bullets with four words each!  No more!  And use lots of clip art! 

I have seen some fantastic PowerPoint-based lectures.  Some people use the multimedia capabilities to great effect.  Others use the slides solely for displaying images while delivering traditional “walk and talk” lectures.  However, for every effective PowerPoint slideshow I’ve seen, I’ve seen several dozen that are beyond awful.  My “favorite” was a lecture I sat through in medical school that consisted of 300 slides (for a one hour talk) titled “Radiology Residents Conference: January 5, 1996.  It was neither January 5, nor was it 1996, and we were decidedly not Radiology residents.  The presenter hit “next slide” until she came to something that looked appropriate for a lecture to a group of medical students, read the bullets, rambled off a few additional remarks, and sped on to the next image that looked promising.  Ugh.  Things aren’t usually that bad, but they’re not usually that much better, either. 

The master of information design, Edward Tufte, has a wonderful essay addressing the problems with PowerPoint presentations (see http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte).  I won’t relist his complaints here (they’re neatly summarized in the wikipedia article). Instead, I’ll add that PowerPoint makes speakers lazy, because people don’t like to update their presentations once they are completed; and PowerPoint draws attention away from the gestures and “presence” of an engaging speaker.  Most importantly, PowePoint presentation makes it difficult for a speaker to tailor his presentations to the audience.  The best speakers linger over points that the audience does not understand or seems more interested in and quickly moves through information that the audience is already familiar with or finds of less interest.  This is hard to do in PowerPoint – the slides have all been made already, you can’t change them or rearrange them in real time (flipping between them out of order never works very well).

This is all by way of saying that we need to bring back the chalk talk!  Students, for your next presentation, walk in, turn off the computer, and lecture with handouts and a chalk board!  I had a friend who did this in our seminar class and people were absolutely shocked! He actually had to wheel in a chalkboard from another building, as the lecture hall didn’t have one (it had a dry erase board, but that is sub-optimal.  The markers are always dried out and the boards are always covered in unerasable marks from previous presentations.  If you want color, use colored chalk!)  Initial resistance (people honestly were a little taken aback) gave way to every subsequent speaker using the chalkboard, generally in combination with figures from papers displayed via PowerPoint.  We’ve quickly found that some things are best discussed via the chalkboard – diagrams, equations, sketches of graphs – while others work best on the computer projector – mainly high resolution structural images, actual charts and graphs, that sort of thing.  Preparing such a multiformat talk takes a little additional work, but for the audience, it makes an enormous difference.   

Check out Edward Tufte’s essay (it’s cheap and it’s worth having a copy – it’s really good), think back to the last really effective PowerPoint presentation you saw (this may be hard), and think about changing things up for your next talk.  Don’t use PowerPoint just because it’s convenient – use it only if it somehow makes things easier to understand.  Try making some handouts with key information or nice copies of important figures.  Try using the chalkboard.  I bet you’ll give a better talk.

This little story ends on a funny note.  We’ve kept the chalkboard in the seminar course room.  However, after next week, we have to take it back where it came from.  The title of this essay refers to the official request we received.  I will not be attending that conference.

Peter Conrad is an MD/PhD student currently in Mayo Graduate School.  He will introduce himself in a future entry, as he got a little carried away talking about chalkboards in this entry.  His interests include Psychiatry, Receptor Biology, and antiquated presentation tools.  He does not spend all his time railing against PowerPoint.  Honest.  Sometime he talks about interesting stuff too.

If you make great PowerPoints, he probably wasn’t talking about you.  You’re good people.     

It’s my last week in Rochester and I never would have thought that I’d be so sad about it. Allow me to introduce myself – my name is Natassia and I’m a second-year post baccalaureate hailing from Los Angeles. I lived all of my life in L.A. with the exception of a semester spent in Chicago for school, so you can imagine how crazy people thought I was leaving sunny CA for a little town in the Midwest that’s 40 times smaller than the city I grew up in. I did it, though, and couldn’t be happier. Since I’m departing soon I don’t know how often I will be contributing to the blog (which is a shame, since I’ve been with it from the beginning ). Therefore, this might be a longish read.

My senior year of college was full of questions. What career path (M.D., Ph.D., or both)? What area of research? What institution? Can I leave my family? Can I leave the life that I’ve known for the past 22 years? Well, I decided that it was going to be M.D. Ph.D., out of California, and heck yes I could leave my life! After weighing my options I applied to different Post Baccalaureate Research Education Programs (PREP) around the country. PREP is an NIH sponsored program geared at increasing the number of minorities in research. The decision came down to California, Boston, or Rochester. In the end I decided on the place that would 1) get me farthest away from my family (parents on both coasts), 2) give me the best research opportunities, and 3) allow me to grow the most as a person. Mayo offered all of these things. One of the biggest things that roped me in was the quality of Mayo’s PREP. They offer the option to join a wide variety of labs, allow us to attend graduate courses, and really work to do more than just provide a place to sit and do research. As part of the Initiative to Maximize Student Diversity (IMSD), I would get to work on grant writing, give presentations, and socialize with people in the same position as myself. And honestly, I had no idea exactly how renowned Mayo was until I got here!

My mother and I set off on a three-day road trip and traversed the U.S. in my little silver Corolla with nothing but a map, some food, and anything I could pack in the car. Once I got here I excitedly looked for research labs, places to live, and people that I could identify with and make my friends. All three of those tasks I’ve thankfully accomplished in these last two years, but all have been quite a roller coaster that I will not get in to. I’ll get to the heart of the matter…

I’m currently in the Poeschla lab studying the mechanism of HIV nuclear import. For the past year I have learned tissue culture, wet bench work, writing skills, and most importantly how to do real science. It’s not just, “Hey, post-bac, do this,” or, “Hey, this is what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how.” I’ve had to learn things on my own, be in charge of my project, and really take responsibility for exactly what I want to get out of my time. It’s helped having an amazing mentor and lab mates who actually care about me and my work. If you’re trying to decide on a lab at any point in the future, please (please, please) consider the environment you will be in and not just how cool a project looks.

Personally, I’ve done what I said I was not going to do – I fell in love with a local. Knowing that I was going to be here for a limited amount of time, I decided I would stay away from any relationships (especially since it was hard enough leaving one in Los Angeles). Well, it didn’t work. I blame it all on Caribou Coffee. If I hadn’t gone down to the subway for that delicious light roast I never would have gotten into this. Haha. No. It’s been amazing. That, coupled with a handful of people that I have grown to absolutely adore, has gotten me through one heck of a transition period in my life. It’s been hard. I’m not going to lie. Taking the MCAT, taking the GRE, doing research in two labs, applications, presentations, etc., all while trying to have some semblance of a normal life… tough. How did I do it? How have I managed to keep sane? I know that I am doing work that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Am I curing HIV? No. Am I going to publish a Science paper this year? No. Have I grown up as a scientist and a person? Yes. I have accomplished things here that, in my opinion, are just as important as getting that Science paper.

In less than two weeks I’m going to be a Hawkeye. I’m starting at the University of Iowa in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) and will be embarking on a 7-8 year journey towards an M.D. Ph.D. This is what I came to Rochester for. My two years here were never looked at as a means to an end. It’s been a formative journey every step of the way. I achieved my goal. I made it happen. Now will someone tell me why am I so sad to leave?

We all fear change to some extent. I knew I feared it coming here exactly two years ago, and I fear it for Iowa. What makes some of us stand out is that we face it. We look at the fear of loneliness, uncertainty, and failure in the face and say, “I got you.” Most of us who have come to the College of Medicine aren’t from Rochester. We’re from L.A., San Antonio, Florida, Detroit, Thailand, and Seattle. You name anywhere else we got ‘em. We did it, though, and we’re still here. We have our work, each other, and the bigger picture in mind. If moving halfway across the country is going to do as much for me in the future as it did coming to Mayo, I’m never settling down .

I am sure all of us have been there. You know… the doctor’s office where you sit down and tell that random person in a suit what’s wrong with you.  Ninety percent of the time, it feels like that guy isn’t even listening and at the very end gets up, smiles a no doubt “genuine” smile, and passes you off as another patient with another disease who no doubt needs the same treatment as the last one. Ok, so maybe I grew up in a place with a lot of terrible doctors… Maybe I am just paranoid and don’t like doctors, but that’s not the point. The point is that the title of doctor is a respected title that carries with it a lot of prestige. This is tenfold true outside of the U.S., and a lot of people get into the profession for all the wrong reasons (good pay and good status in society). The most ironic thing is that here at Mayo, probably one of the most prestigious medical institutions in the world, is that there is relatively little of that nonsense. I am not going to lie to you and tell you no one here is like that. If I read a blog that said something like that I would probably stop reading right there on account of too much B.S. to handle in one sitting.

             I will try and explain why I think this is true in the best manner possible. In the first few years, I arrived here I was shocked but pleased by how nice and helpful everyone in the various medical professions was. Coming from Lebanon, I was constantly looking for the façade… the truth beneath the surface. Most doctors back home are just there because there is a severe shortage of professions that work in that sort of economy, and when kids are young they are all encouraged into that profession. After all, what could be better for a mother than to have a well off, well respected doctor as a son? Honestly not much going by the old fashioned sense that has persevered in our world. Here, in the United States, it is much better, but there is still a lingering essence of the same beliefs. I believe that the work ethic and the way the system is set up here at Mayo (and probably at other institutions I have never been to) are strong at combating this.  

First off the “Midwest work ethic” is especially puzzling to someone like me. The truth of the matter is that people here are the way they are because a lot of them, themselves grew up on a farm or had a parent who grew up on a farm. If any of you are familiar with farm life or even know anything about the history of Superman ( the most noble boy scout that never existed), then you know nothing builds character more than old fashioned farm work. Most farm people are honest and kind too. Those are obviously ideal characteristics for any doctor to have. 

As for the way the system works, there are conferences happening on a daily basis and although they cover a broad array of topics, most of them attempt to use the mistakes committed to learn how to better the quality of the medical care. It’s common for smart people to learn from their mistakes and more importantly the mistakes of others, but to see it done on such a grand scale is impressive. These conferences also happen to have free lunch which of course is not the reason at all why I go… (I hope you didn’t buy that line), and a surprising number of the ones I attend actually focus entirely on what some people find obvious and others don’t: putting yourself in the patient’s shoes. Even the one’s that don’t focus on this almost always include a section where they discuss how the patient could have been cared for more.

Every institution is like a tree bearing fruit and no one tree can produce solely good fruit, but a tree is considered of excellent quality if the majority of the fruit is good. After all, bad apples fall from every tree, but never have I seen tree of this quality. This quality really does show in everything Mayo does and translates over very well into the graduate school, but I will talk about that more in the next blog.

Amine

 

My blog

               Mayo Clinic is known around the world for its great practice of medicine and ground breaking research. One aspect of Mayo Clinic however seems to be a hidden secret, its second shield…..Education. Yes, the Mayo Clinic’s logo contains three shields and these represent “Patient Care, Medical Education, and Research”. It seems that the education here at Mayo is overlooked by many. This is quite unfortunate due to the high quality and opportunities that one can obtain from getting an education here. It is one of the few schools that unite all three aspects to increase the knowledge and experiences of each student. This is where I come in. My name is Jessica and I am from sunny, hot South Texas. I had also never heard of Mayo Clinic’s schools until I was searching for an internship when I was in college. I came across the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) where I was able to gain research experience then learned about its graduate school and here I am a second year student and hanging on. I also joined the Initiative to Maximize Student Diversity (IMSD), which focuses on increasing the number of researchers among underrepresented ethnic minorities. This outlook gave me the idea that Mayo Clinic is not only a medical and research facility but also an educational and diverse one.

            This now leads me to introduce the goal of our blog. We as graduate students, medical students, residents, post-docs, and enthusiasts want to introduce you to the world of Mayo Clinic’s education and diversity from our eyes. This of course came about with lots of hair pulling and nail biting from our ‘Mother Mayo.’ However, since we are a research and educational facility it has been shown that you would preferably hear about Mayo from someone at Mayo. It makes some sense doesn’t it? So get your minds ready and your questions rolling because we are here to open the lines of communication and answer any of your questions about diversity, education, living in Minnesota (or other sites), science updates, what it is like to be a student at Mayo, and any other topics your little heart desires J. We have intelligent, serious, intense, knowledgeable, and hilarious bloggers that are inspired to give you their honest opinions/experiences.

            I will begin by asking how did you learn about Mayo Clinic? As I explained earlier, I knew they had an amazing medical practice, research, and medical school, however had no clue they had a graduate school, continuing medical education school, graduate medical school, and school of health sciences. I found it quite impressive how there was a close interplay of the schools with the clinic and research. For instance, I am currently in a cancer genetics lab and we work very closely with residents and medical doctors who share an interest in our research. Many people learn about Mayo Clinic’s schools from previous students, residents, attending national conferences, other research facilities, and unfortunately, from friends or loved ones who are admitted to the Clinic. One thing is true however, many do not know what great education Mayo Clinic has and what doors will open when you come here. For this reason, we are here to open your eyes and share the nicely hidden secrets of Mayo Clinic.

¡Adios!   

Jess     

 Hi everyone.  Since this is my first blog entry (of many) on this “Mayo Clinic Education and Diversity Blog, Three Shields, Many Perspectives”, I wanted to pass out some introductions, some niceties, some meet and greet information—well the most you can do online.  My name is Joseph Jon Dolence (proud of my middle name—more maybe in later blogs) and I am finishing my first year at Mayo Graduate School in the Immunology track.  I work in the Medina lab on early events in B cell development with a healthy mix of cellular and molecular techniques.  In later blogs, I will surely talk about my research, classes, and other feelings I have about Mayo Clinic in general.  I want to state here—These are my opinions, not necessarily those of the Clinic’s so don’t take what I say and run with it as Mayo’s position on something.  They are mine.  Another thing—I love going to Mayo Clinic for Graduate School—I can’t complain, the Clinic has given me a wonderful opportunity and I honestly feel most every day that I am living the dream.  That might sound naïve and not callous to the fact that I have only been here for one year—but continued readers of this blog will know certain things about me—one of them is I take Tiger Woods approach to life (with my edits in parenthesis), he says, “I view my life in a way…I’ll explain it to you, OK? I want to take in every moment and appreciate everything. The greatest thing about tomorrow is, I will be better than I am today. And that’s how I look at my life. I will be better as a golfer (& researcher), I will be better as a person, I will be better as a father (son), and I will be better as a friend. That’s the beauty of tomorrow. There is no such thing as a setback. The lessons I learn today I will apply tomorrow, and I will be better.”  That’s my philosophy to life.  And you will no doubt see that attitude sprinkled on the pages of this blog over and over.

I might get political on the pages of this.  I might talk religion.  I will talk sports.  I will obviously talk about school, education, Mayo, and anything science based.  Just don’t ask me about X-ray crystallography or NMR.  Nothing is off limits.  Well—as long using vulgar language is avoided and the Biggs at Mayo allow it.  I speak from the heart honestly about how I feel—you will get my spin on anything I deem worthy enough to talk about.  The point of this blog is to expose the three shields to the world in hopefully a way they haven’t before.  Mayo has so much tradition and prestige, and I have the role through this medium to show Mayo to the world.

That being said, I think I have introduced myself and the concepts behind this well enough to go to my first issue I thought of while listening to a lecture in Cell Bio or Genetics last quarter…or a seminar, I can’t remember—all I know is that I came up with this idea that JT (Justin Timberlake) isn’t bringing sexy back, scientist are.  I know this is like one of these, WHAT?, moments—but I will explain…it seems that in today’s scientific community, anytime someone has a chance to slip in sexy or a word like, provocative, promiscuous, or even in today’s seminar, the speaker expanded “BS” to that expletive.  It makes me laugh, but I am wondering when this started?  When did science and its countless researchers make a conscious effort to spice up a lecture with these words?  You know what my goal is?  Use the word lascivious in a scientific journal.  If I can pull that off, you can tip the hat to me.  If not, I guess I will just have to settle for less provocative words such as sexy or promiscuous.  Maybe the answer is that since most in the scientific community don’t look the part (as Justin does), we need to throw these in to wake up those sleeping, bored out of their minds, or to remind ourselves that, yes, we are cool enough still to throw this hip words around.  I know one thing though—you have everyone’s attention when you infuse these types of adjectives into a lecture.  So at least for that nanosecond, everyone is listening and to them, the world is sexy, perfect, and wonderful.

Have a great day!

Till next time,

Yours truly,

JJ

Another quote to live by—one of the fave’s on JJ’s list:

“Love life, engage in it, give it all you’ve got. Love it with a passion, because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.” Maya Angelou.