The challenges of having a career in science as a principal investigator and being a mom at the same time were becoming growingly difficult when a friend and colleague suggested Amery Treble-Barna, PhD, should step up to do something about it.

With scientist moms struggling dearly given the rigors of home and work life, and especially emerging from the COVID pandemic, it was apparent that something had to be done.

Dr. Treble-Barna began breaking the status quo by helping this vital segment of the academic community through a combination of leadership development, competencies, and coaching.

Dr. Treble-Barna joins the Faculty Factory Podcast this week to discuss this story and “the how” behind her mission for helping scientist moms navigate a system that quite frankly, as she underscores in this conversation, was not set up for them.

Amery Treble-Barna, PhD, is a Pediatric Neuropsychologist with UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. She also serves as an Associate Professor of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Psychology, and Clinical & Translational Science, and Director of Faculty Wellbeing & Vitality, Health Sciences, at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

In addition, she is Director of MOMENTUM, the leadership development and group coaching program for scientist mothers she discusses in today’s interview. She is also the Associate Director of the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research.

More Show Notes and Resources

The MotherMind Network

MasterMind Executive Leadership

MOMENTUM: Leadership Development & Group Coaching for Scientist Mothers  

MOMENTUM on LinkedIn

This week on the Faculty Factory Podcast, Heather Whelan, MD examines the health risks of a changing world and their implications for medical education and academic medicine.

Dr. Whelan serves as Director, Climate Ambassador Program, UC Center for Climate, Health and Equity with University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

"Healthcare professionals are among the most trusted people to talk about climate change with the public. We can take advantage of that opportunity to educate and inquire about how climate change is affecting people,”  Dr. Whelan said at the end of the interview.

Here are some of the links from today’s conversation with Dr. Whelan that we encourage you to visit:

Dr. Whelan is a colleague of past Faculty Factory Podcast guest, Andrew Orr, MD, MSEd. We are grateful to Dr. Orr for making the introduction to her as a referral to us for this interview! You can revisit the interview with Dr. Orr about How Introverts Can Excel in Academic Medicine.

As a side note, please feel free to send us your recommendations for a future guest by emailing the show through visiting this link and send us a quick note of who you’d like to nominate and why.

Adam D. Wolfe, MD, PhD, joins the Faculty Factory Podcast this week to discuss peer mentoring for faculty and the power of building a culture of mutual support in academic medicine.

It is his third time on our show, and we could not be happier to have him back for an important chat on peer mentoring.

He also shares the findings from his work co-authoring, "Outcomes of a Peer Mentoring Circle: An Innovation to Improve Academic Physician Career Advancement in a Community Hospital Setting," published in the peer-reviewed journal Academic Medicine.

You can read more about that article by visiting PubMed.

Dr. Wolfe is Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Program Director of the Pediatric Residency Program. He also serves as Assistant Dean of Medical Education and holds the Jann L. Harrison Endowed Chair in Pediatric Graduate Medical Education at Baylor College of Medicine in San Antonio at CHRISTUS Children's.

"I think creating a peer mentoring circle requires a group of people who have some shared goals and a little bit of willingness to work together, and you can go through the steps I outlined. I think these steps would be germane for any group that wants to accomplish, or help each other accomplish their goals," Dr. Wolfe said.

As mentioned, this is Dr. Wolfe’s third time appearing on the Faculty Factory Podcast, please be sure to visit his previous appearances here:

With a mix of pure motivational messaging and practical action you can start taking to deal with adversity, this week's episode of the Faculty Factory is a celebration of tenacity in the face of a tough time.

We also feature some very important clips and snippets surrounding post-traumatic growth in this best of the Faculty Factory "greatest hits" episode.

This "Best of the Faculty Factory" compilation episode features clips from three masterful episodes in the Faculty Factory archive. (If you're interested in hearing the full conversations, you can find the original episodes below.) Appearing in order are the episodes that were clipped for this podcast:

Although a lot of the conversation is shaped by a time of COVID (many of these interviews took place as we were still in the throes of the global pandemic, or emerging from it), there are gems of wisdom and storytelling throughout this broadcast that can help anyone looking to emerge from a challenging time.

As Dr. Ward mentions, there are reasons to be hopeful, based on the post-traumatic growth literature, for many of us to emerge from a traumatic event as "better than baseline."

"Leading Science Well" is more than an eight-week workshop; it’s a mindset. This week on The Faculty Factory we speak with our guest, Laurence Boitet, PhD, whose "Leading Science Well" initiatives aim to foster more meaningful connections to work and reduce burnout.

Dr. Boitet is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Education, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Cell, Developmental, and Integrative Biology (CDIB) at the Heersink School of Medicine. She also serves as Director of Biomedical Trainee Wellness in the Office of Wellness at UAB Medicine.

While burnout remains widespread, many interventions have failed to deliver meaningful results. Dr. Boitet suggests job crafting as a way to give faculty greater agency over their work, to better align job demands with available resources, and to promote their strengths and passions.

“As leaders, we need to ask ourselves: are we giving faculty the resources to accomplish what we are asking, or are we assigning an impossible task?” Dr. Boitet challenged leaders in academic medicine to consider in this interview.

Lillian Emlet, MD, MS, CHSE, CPC, ELI-MP, an academic physician and founder of Transforming Healthcare Coaching, makes her Faculty Factory Podcast debut this week.

Reframing the typical narrative around leadership coaching in healthcare means ensuring coaching is available to those beyond the C-suite.

Dr. Emlet joins us to share hard truths about changing that narrative so we can stop the repeating stories of quiet quitting and burnout that plague so many people as they juggle the demands of being in the thick of their careers.

At the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr. Emlet serves as Professor of Critical Care Medicine. She is also the Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine–Critical Care Medicine fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

More Show Notes and Resources

Despite all the opportunities it opens, retirement can be a hard road if you fail to engage in proper planning, as we explore in this week’s episode of the Faculty Factory Podcast with returning guest Skip Brown, MD.

As a clinical professor of pediatrics at UTMB in Galveston, Texas, Dr. Brown is a past vice chair for clinical affairs and a former chief medical officer at UTMB. A past president of the Texas Pediatric Society (TPS), he is a recipient of the TPS Charles W. Daeschner, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the health and welfare of Texas children.

You can check out his first episode with us, “The Definitive Guide to a Fulfilling Retirement Journey,” here: https://facultyfactory.podbean.com/e/the-definitive-guide-to-a-fulfilling-retirement-journey-with-ow-skip-brown-md/

When you retire and reflect on how you want to spend your time, be mindful of the 90/10 rule: 90 percent of the work gets done by 10 percent of the people.

“You can become much busier than you might want to be if you donate your time and skills,” he said.

Dr. Brown’s advice: guard your freedom, stay selective about your time, and resist the pull to take on everything just because you're capable. Equally important is learning to dial back perfectionism.

Perhaps the most powerful theme of the conversation was identity. He reflected on colleagues who stayed in their roles not because they wanted to, but because they had no idea who they were outside of their work.

The antidote isn't a rigid plan, but genuine reflection. As Dr. Brown put it simply: you're about to work for the most insightful boss you’ve ever had — yourself. It's worth getting to know them.

Anne Walling, MB ChB, joins the Faculty Factory Podcast this week to discuss some incredible stories of resilience she uncovered while researching her new book "Women in Medicine: Stories from the Girls in White."

Dr. Walling interviewed 37 women who fought for credibility, worked harder than is almost imaginable, and graduated from medical school between 1948 and 1975.

She wanted to learn why they went into medicine and how their experiences unfolded throughout medical school, residency, and entry into practice.

The work was conducted by Dr. Walling as formal qualitative research with IRB oversight and open-ended questions. She joined us at the Faculty Factory for her second interview on our show to share the stories and insights she gathered.

You can learn more about the book here: https://www.routledge.com/Women-in-Medicine-Stories-from-the-Girls-in-White/Walling/p/book/9781032873190

Dr. Walling is Professor Emerita at the University of Kansas School of Medicine—Wichita and is also the author of "Academic Promotion for Clinicians: A Practical Guide to Promotion and Tenure in Medical Schools." Learn about that book here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-84036-4

As mentioned, this is her second appearance on our show. You can listen to her first appearance “Episode 334 – A Deep Exploration of Academic Promotions for Clinicians with Anne Walling, MB ChB,” here: https://facultyfactory.org/anne-walling/

This week we’re excited to revisit some of the best interviews from this podcast’s +360-episode archive about making transformative, life- or career-changing transition decisions.

This “Best of the Faculty Factory” compilation episode features clips from three important episodes in the Faculty Factory archive. (If you’re interested in hearing the full conversations, you can find the original episodes below). Appearing in order are the episodes that were clipped for this podcast:

If this episode interests you, you can also revisit our episode called, “Making a Decision to Transition in Academic Medicine”:  https://youtu.be/hqr8yDx8rZk

Which featured snippets from the following episodes:

When’s the last time you heard a leader say, “I don’t know?"

As we learn in this week’s discussion with returning guest Binata Mukherjee, MD, on the Faculty Factory Podcast, those three words actually humanize a leader and signal confidence.

It’s an important point for this interview’s broader discussion on growth mindsets. Growth-minded leaders are willing to be candid about not having all the answers as they are there to facilitate learning and help find those answers. 

At the University of South Alabama (USA) in Mobile, Dr. Mukherjee serves as Assistant Dean for Faculty and Professional Development in the Whiddon College of Medicine and is Associate Professor of Internal Medicine with USA Health. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Management and Director of Healthcare Leadership Initiatives in the Mitchell College of Business at USA.

“Leader As Coach”

The concept of “leader as coach” describes practicing leadership as a facilitator who teaches people rather than doing the work for them or micromanaging day-to-day tasks.

It’s about continually reminding the team of the direction and shifting from a manager mindset to a leader mindset. As we learn in this discussion with Dr. Mukherjee, leadership is defined by behavior, not persona.

Dr. Mukherjee discusses Carol Dweck’s 2006 book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success," which explores the dynamic between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset and why that distinction matters.

 “Building trust and enabling an environment of psychological safety are the most important things about working with a team,” Dr. Mukherjee points out.

More Resources to Explore

Faculty Factory Podcast No. 327 - "Know Thyself: Keys to Self-Awareness Amid Uncertainty with Binata Mukherjee, MD, MBA": https://facultyfactory.org/binata-mukherjee/

"Mindset: The New Psychology of Success": https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322

Learn more about the growth mindset from the Harvard Business School: https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/growth-mindset-vs-fixed-mindset