Educational Landscapes

Camille Brockett, DNP, FNP-BC, AGACNP is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Nell Hodgson-Woodruff School of Nursing and the Interim Specialty Director for the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program. In this episode, Camille talks about her journey into academia (from senior clinical instructor through to a ranked faculty member) and how serving as an education leader requires skills that are a combination of leadership, mentorship, and collaboration in order to support both faculty and students. Her words of wisdom include "leadership, to me, is less about managing tasks and more about really connecting with people, whether those people are students, faculty, colleagues, and really just creating a sense of trust and collaboration among the people that you are leading. Taking the time to listen and understand what the needs are of the people that you're leading. So you can be an effective leader, you just don't want to be a leader in name, but you really want to be effective.", "don't forget to take care of yourself and also giving yourself grace. Not everything is going to work out perfectly all the time, all at once and as you want it. You want to be able to celebrate small wins, learn from your setbacks, and also trust that you are truly making a difference." and "Don't be afraid to use your voice. I think it's really easy for that imposter syndrome to take root sometimes in us, and just know that you are in a particular space at a particular time for a reason, right? Nothing is happenstance, and this is just my belief. And that you have something to offer, never feel like you have to prove yourself to someone or you have to change courses in order for someone to see you. Just stay the course. Do the best that you can be, know that you are worthy, you bring value to the table, and just be authentic to who you are and people will connect to that".

Resources

• Woodruff Health Educators Academy | Emory University | Atlanta GA
• National League for Nursing Home
• National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties

Philip Shayne, MD is the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and ACGME Designated Institutional Official at Emory University School of Medicine. In this episode, Philip talks about his journey from residency through private practice back into academic settings. He talks about recognizing early on that he wasn't as interested in research and instead pursued educational leadership roles, starting with Emergency Medicine program director, as an alternate path in academia. During his time at Emory, with support from his leaders, he has had multiple opportunities to lead locally and nationally which helped prepare him for his current leadership roles. His words of wisdom include "you need to find opportunities where you can influence a group of people, so you might make an educational or procedural or something like that. You've got to really love the job.", "There are a lot of people who think, "I have all this experience, but I've never done that," and they're more than competent to do the job. You really just need the aptitude and the love for the position." and "You've got to love what you do."

Resources

• Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education
• Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine
• Review Committee Members
• ACGME Home

W. Michael Caudle, PhD is the Director of Graduate Studies for the Environmental Health Sciences PhD program at the Rollins School of Public Health. In this episode, Mike talks about his journey from trained laboratory scientist to discovering his passion for teaching and mentoring.

He highlights how important continuing professional development is as the various skills needed to be an effective educator or leader aren't typically taught in PhD or postdoctoral training, therefore educators have to teach themselves or find other resources for that skills training. His words of wisdom include "really focus on being reflective, being able to reflect back on your own experiences and appreciating those experiences and being able to leverage those experiences as you're engaging with students, but at the same time, to be flexible. So understanding that each of those interactions is going to be different and that it's not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution to whatever the issue is." and "If you are someone who maybe doesn't see yourself in the educational space, don't close that door because there are a lot of different ways to educate. It does not have to be in a classroom. It does not even have to be in an academic setting. You are an educator in your community. You are an educator at your dinner table. So there are a lot of ways to educate, to mentor, and to facilitate."

Resources

• Intersections: The Education Journal of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center | Emory University | Atlanta GA

Calli Cook, NP, DNP, APRN, FNP-C is the Specialty Director for the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner program at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. In this episode Calli talks about her journey as a nurse, exploring various specialties (e.g., ICU, mental health) until finding that working in a neurology practice was a good fit. Calli talks about how important her experiences in various leadership roles from when she was an undergraduate student through nursing training until now as an NP educator helped her become the servant leader that she is. Her words of wisdom include "I think patience is really important. I mentioned that as soon as I graduated, I wanted to hit the ground running, being a leader, but each role prepared me for the next role. So knowing that your first leadership role is not going to be your last and it is a preparation for the next, and to be patient as you go through each of those roles, and to take something with you, and to really pause and enjoy each moment." and "Remember that it's progress, it's not perfection. It takes a life to learn how to live. It takes a career to learn how to be an excellent educator. Each step is a step to becoming a better version of yourself as an educator. So learn from your mistakes and move forward, innovate, and inspire the next generation of healthcare providers."

Resources

• English Teacher Weekly substack
• American Academy of Neurology: Neurology Resources | AAN

Danielle Roberts MS, MMSc, PA-C is the Associate Chief of Education for Advanced Practice for the Winship Cancer Institute, Director of the Emory Hematology/Medical Oncology Advanced Practice Provider (APP) Fellowship program, and a society leader in the Emory Physician Assistant (PA) program. In this episode Danielle talks about her journey, starting with her academic work as a "lab rat" writing protocols for clinical trials and discovering that she enjoyed having students or people that were learning with her as a preceptor. This led to opportunities to supervise people, but ultimately Danielle realized "[supervising] it wasn't for me. It was really the education part that I find joy in my job and really wanted to continue on." Danielle talks about the importance of mentorship throughout her ongoing career and the individuals who have played a role her professional growth. Her words of wisdom include "if you think it'll work, try it. It never hurts to try. And if you don't try, you never know. And just enjoy and love what you do because if you love what you do, you're going to be successful at doing it." and "we have to be willing to kind of work... sometimes work a little bit extra, work a little bit differently in order to achieve those goals."

Resources

• WHEA Teaching Fellowship | Emory University | Atlanta GA

Dimitri Cassimatis, MD is a small-group advisor and course co-director for the cardiovascular pathophysiology course in Emory University's MD program. He is also Chief of Medicine at Emory Midtown Hospital. In this episode Dimitri talks about his journey from being a physics student to biochemistry student (working as a patient transporter) to pre-med student to internal medicine resident to cardiology fellow to ultimately his current roles as an attending. Dimitri also talks about his experiences being open to opportunities and enjoying the process of becoming the various roles he's taken on. His words of wisdom which include "I tell that to students that they should not stress themselves out about picking the one right thing that there are usually lots of right things. You just have to pick one of those right things and make the best of it and go with it."; "your job that you start out with right after training is just a starting point, and that from that you tailor that to where you enjoy spending time first by volunteering in those areas and then looking for paid opportunities in those areas to really shore up the amount of time you can spend there and that you can really tailor your career in many different directions depending on where your passions are." and "remember that education is a skill. You build it by practicing it and by paying attention to the feedback and trying to do things better, so look for opportunities to practice it. I would also remind everybody who's going to become a clinician that education is part of what you do every day with your patients. If you're going to be patient-facing, you're going to be educating your patients, and having skills to educate them is extremely important in being a good clinician for them. So even if you don't consider yourself an educator, if you're a clinician, you are an educator."

Melissa (Moose) Alperin, EdD, MPH, MCHES is director of the Executive MPH program at the Rollins School of Public Health and runs a training center, funded by HRSA, providing training to the public health workforce in the eight states in the Southeast. In this episode Moose talks about how, while pursuing a liberal arts education, she stumbled into public health by discovering something called community health, then eventually went on to get a master's in public health, specializing in health promotion education. Further, while she initially pursued a PhD program in in instructional technology, she ultimately entered a different program and completed an EdD in higher education management. Moose's words of wisdom include "I think it's so important to like what you do and to more than like what you do. And then I think once you have found what it is that you love to do, that we talked about this earlier, but surrounding yourself with smart people and capable people and a team and being willing to take risks when something isn't working."

Resources

• National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)
• Home - Society for Public Health Education - SOPHE
• Home - GPHA: Georgia Public Health Association
• American Public Health Association — For science. For action. For health.

Kelly L. Wiltse Nicely, PhD, CRNA is program director for the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, Nurse Anesthesia, DNP Program and educator director on the board of directors for the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs. In this episode Kelly talks about her journey from rural Michigan in which access to the healthcare system meant folks left their community and didn't have their social support systems with them through to lead a successful DNP program that is built with the idea of community; building clinical sites and a program with the idea of meeting our community's needs. Kelly's words of wisdom include "find yourself in a place where you get to be comfortable being uncomfortable. You can do more than you realize and find those people that can see your potential, who will cheer you on, who will open doors for you. Those mentors are priceless, and they will help you realize all of the dreams that you want to realize. And also know that those dreams will change, and it's okay that they change. And go with what your passion is, go with what's going to make you happy because this life is too short and your work days are too long to not enjoy what you do." and "I always recommend finding the most accomplished people you can to join your team and then make it your mission to provide them with the resources and support to do the things that they love. If people love what they do, they're going to want to spend time doing it, they're going to want to spend time with their colleagues teaching them and helping them learn and grow. And then you'll find that the work that you're doing, you're able to do it better, faster, stronger."

Resources

• International Association for the Study of Pain

Ryan Haumschild PharmD, MS, MBA, CPEL is now Vice President of Ambulatory Pharmacy at Emory Healthcare in the Winship Cancer Institute. At the time of recording this episode he was Director of Pharmacy at Emory Healthcare in the Winship Cancer Institute. In this episode Ryan talks about how he recognized his passion for pharmacy early in life thanks to his dad's role modeling, and how he recognized the importance of obtaining pharmacy and business knowledge and skills in order to be successful in his roles as a leader. Ryan's words of wisdom include "I think none of my successes are with me personally, but it's that huge support structure [e.g., parents, wife, daughters, trainees, employees] that I think has enabled us to be so highly successful for our patients and our providers." and are summarized in the following quote: "Education is so important, and the impact you can make on the lives of others I think is invaluable. And also at the end of the day, when you are educating others, it brings value to your life and theirs, and you have such meaningful relationships. And never underscore the importance of what you're going to be educated on by teaching others and how much you can learn from others in even kind of that educational environment. Even if you are the teacher, I think there's so much to be learned. So enjoy the journey, understand where people are coming from, be passionate about what you do, engage people in the process, and you'll be able to make such a positive impact in this world."

Resources

• ASHP Certified Pharmacy Executive Leaders - ASHP
• ASHP
• AJMC - Managed Care News, Research, and Expert Insights

Rachel Corbett is Associate Director of Academic Programs, in Rollins School of Public Health's department of Behavioral, Social, & Health Education Sciences. In this episode, Rachel talks about her journey as a first generation college kid who always wanted to be in a role where she was helping people but didn't know what that looked like. Her journey working in higher education started as a reentry and enrollment specialist, involved going back to school for a masters in counselling, and ultimately led to her current role, serving as a hub of support for students and developing a comprehensive approach to helping students navigate these spaces. Rachel's words of wisdom include: "lean into that network at work so that they can share opportunities with you and things that might enrich your experience even more beyond just the service you provide for students, faculty or whoever's in that space that you work in.", "If you want to work in an educational space, don't think just about K through 12 or about being a faculty member, but think about those supportive roles that also enrich the student experience.", and "I don't think there's any wrong path to take to where you want to be. And sometimes we don't even know what, sometimes we have no clue what the steps are going to be, but be mindful of, again, what makes you feel well."

Resources

• GLTalk LLC. (Girl, let's talk.)
• BLKHLTH
• Organizational Development | Emory University | Atlanta GA
• Home - Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH)
• Rollins School of Public Health | Departmental ADAPS