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Conversations in Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine by the American Thoracic Society
Hello everyone. My name is Amy Attaway and we are here with another episode of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. And I am really delighted to have Dr. Joshua Denson here at, to speak with about his development of the ATS Storytelling series. We're really excited to hear about that.
Dr. Jensen is an associate professor of medicine at Tulane ICU, director of their medical intensive care unit and vice chair of education for the Department of Medicine. He's also a physician scientist with research interests in patient outcomes in the ICU provider burnout and transitions of care.
So welcome Joshua. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks, Amy. Josh is fine, by the way, Josh. Okay. So I think we're excited to hear about how you developed the a TS storytelling series, and that's talking about mid-career transitions, I believe. Can, can you, like, how did that kind of [00:01:00] develop and it, it's a personal story right, for you?
A little bit. I've been involved with the a TS for a long time, probably since I was a resident, and, um. before even early career. Still as a trainee. And I've been going for over 10 years for sure. And um, as part of our, the committee work that I do we had a, a new initiative where we really, we have great development on early career programming.
We have a roadmap for early career. We've done a lot of work around that area. That's part of how I got involved and, and part of what our committee at the time was working on. And then there's also a fair amount of stuff for people towards the end of their career that are able to come back and give back to the community.
But what us and the, at ts recognize is there's a bit of a gap of programming for people that are in their, the middle of their career. And as a response to that, the A ts kinda asked me and some other colleagues why can we develop some programming and some work geared towards the [00:02:00] mid-career a TS member?
Like anybody that's probably listening to this, what does that even mean? And that's exactly my initial response. I I didn't really know what, what does mid-career mean to anybody? I thought I didn't really know where to take this. We spent some time talking about it, brainstorming and ideas.
At the end of the day mid-career is not defined by any one thing. Every person is gonna have a different takeaway of what those words mean to them. And the only way to really figure that out is through reflection, right? And like we came up with this idea of. People, I find that people in the middle of their career at least are, they've already done a lot of the networking and early career things and meeting other people that maybe get people in the door at a TS, but now they're just ready for something new.
So we thought about this idea of a narrative session where people get to discuss [00:03:00] their accomplishments, but also their struggles. I find that conferences, international conferences like this. There's a lot of talk of, oh, I did this great thing and here's how I succeeded. But I don't find enough talk about the struggles that.
Everyone, you, me and everyone else in the world are, are facing, whether it be personal career based health based, whatever, whatever it may be. Everybody's got their own struggles. And so this is meant to be an avenue to provide an area of reflection, to hear other a TS members who have been through hard times and good times and made it out on the other side.
And that we don't lose our at s members once they get off into, into, into further down their career. So that's how it came up. That is fascinating. I have to say I think that I've heard like people go through their career and they talk about all the high points, but I really love this like, when they actually talk about the [00:04:00] struggles.
And I always wonder do people just omit those or they, they don't wanna relive it and I just lo I think it's such a great story to hear the struggles. Yeah. People don't want it's hard to talk about those things, right? you have to be quite vulnerable to speak about hard times, right?
I mean mm-hmm. It's, I think that's just being a human nature, right? You don't necessarily want to relive hard times, but sometimes it's very therapeutic. And it also is, I find more meaningful to hear stories and reflect on. How people were facing challenges. That's a classic Disney movie, right?
They were challenged and they succeed at the end. Not everybody succeeds and it's okay. I think that it's good to hear these types of stories and there I felt that there was a gap of this type of programming at the a TS in general. And that's what, that's where this came from.
And it's been a few years now that we've been running this and it's been amazing. it's really a passion [00:05:00] project. It's, you meet such interesting people from around the world and you really hear just different, different walks of life, and that's really what we're trying to do. Yeah, I think, there's the class.
I don't know if you've seen this like flow, flow chart, but it's like people think that success is like the straight line, right? When in fact it's like you like work like crazy, life happens, you fail a thousand times and it becomes this like big squiggle. But I, yeah, I feel that the same way that I feel like the, the stories are a lot more compelling when you're honest and just talk about.
The, the struggles. Yeah. Yeah. You should come and check it out this year we've set up the space to be different than the rest of a TS it's not a big room, meant to be a intimate space, a comfortable space. Past two years. Safe space. Yeah. Safe space, we even, we had an open bar, or at least beer and wine at the last, last couple years. And it's meant [00:06:00] to be somewhat relaxed and it's, we do it in the afternoon Sunday and Monday at 4:00 PM right before, after everything's wrapping up and people are either walking out, it's held in the I can, forgetting the name of the area, the main general area, the where, where all the other, industry Networking. Yeah, networking super center. Yeah. And so it's usually set up in that area, so sometimes it can be a little trickier to find. it's really a great space. People that come I have had, we've only been doing it for what I think three years now, and we already have returning customers that like, I love this.
I come every year and they make sure to come and they just it's, it's a getaway from the rest of the conference for people. Like a, like a little therapy session. Yeah. Yeah. It do you, and so you developed this, so it sounds like it's probably a personal story for you.
Do you, do you wanna talk a little bit about that? look, I, I love storytelling. I, I could tell stories all day, but no it's not, it's not necessarily [00:07:00] one specific thing that was the impetus to get this going. It's really, you know it, but it did come out of a lot of reflection. I guess I am technically now mid-career.
I'm associate professor and I have a few kids and a busy life with a spouse that works in family with health problems that you, we had to deal with. And to me, I think that is. What people need to hear. They need to know that everybody's dealing with a family member with cancer or taking care of an elderly parent or taking care of a newborn, but also being pressured to work really, really hard.
Um mm-hmm. And it's, so for me, myself, I, I, it wasn't one specific story that was the impetus for it, but I empathize with all of these stories and maybe one day I'd be lucky to be able to tell. Telling that story, but it's not as exciting as I, as I think maybe others think.
It sounds like you got together with a bunch of [00:08:00] people and developed this, defined it and talked about like how, what it means to be mid-career, I think, and you've, you've spoken before, it's things seem a little bit more laid out early career, but then mid-career you've at the stage where you are trying to define yourself.
You're trying to make that, that leap. So that's the thing. Early career, you come out of your training, whatever that may be and you're like, you're saying yes to a lot of things. You're like, yeah, you know what, maybe I like that. Let's try that. Or I'll try this. And take on a lot of things and you're working, you're staying up late, you're getting up early, you're putting in the time you're balancing home life.
It's, it could be a lot simpler at the time. And you have a path look, I gotta put my time in. I know I gotta work. Once you kinda get through that it becomes, I find for most people I talk to a period of transition in that. And, and, and, and, and I'm in [00:09:00] academic medicine, but this is not only in academic medicine.
You could speak to anyone in any career whether it be not just in medicine, but in medicine. I, let's focus on medicine. Anyone that's in private practice, that's in hospital employed practice, that's in industry, that's in a research PhD only there we're, we're attuned to have these several years of blocks where we're going through our education preparing for the next step. What I find, I tell my trainees all the time, I'm like, look, don't rush. Don't rush to the next step. 'cause once you get there, once you kinda get into your career, you're there. There's not a next transition that's set up to occur. And I find that that's where a lot of people that I speak to about this, they, they feel like they resonate with that because it's true there.
There's not, they're not going on to another fellowship. They're not moving on to another thing. They, they have life and it keeps moving forward whether, whatever that may be. And sometimes things get more [00:10:00] difficult things get more real as you get older. Some people are transitioning to maybe a new job.
Maybe they're, they, maybe they're like I'm tired of my job. I think I want something new or fresh. Or maybe it's a new project. or who knows, maybe they're getting divorced and they're, and they're going through those struggles. But there's all kinds of different transitions that are occurring in the mid-career that I don't think are talked about.
Like we talked about, the ones that are occurring in residency and fellowship and immediately post-fellowship, things like that. I think, I think one of my takeaways, I, I guess I think I'm probably still early career, but like sometimes you have to try things and sometimes you have to try things that you maybe weren't thinking you would like.
So I never thought I would love like. Working in a wet lab and doing pipetting. And I, but, and because it just your experiments fail and you have a smudgy, western blot it's just something fails. But I, I don't know. It's once you, you, [00:11:00] you get in it and then you just, all of a sudden you find yourself just.
Really enthusiastic about it. Really excited. So that's what I always tell. Yeah. My trainees like maybe just, even if you're not sure, you can always just try something out. You don't have to fully commit. Maybe just but that's, yeah. Sometimes you'll surprise even yourself. That's the thing. When we started this thing, they were like, Hey, let's do something. I'm like let's, let's see how it goes. And it was really fun. I look forward to this session every year, helping find the good, the good speakers, people there with a lot of energy.
Anyone, everyone's got a story to tell, so it really, it, it can be anybody. It's just what is their energy and ability to captivate the audience. we've had just some, some great speakers, people from around the world I'm thinking about we, one speaker come from Brazil and it was just such a great experience talking with her.
And, and the other thing is a lot of our speakers are usually a bit more senior just 'cause you have to have gone through mid career, the mid career period to know how to [00:12:00] talk about that period. You need to have had a lot of life experience. and a lot of our, our speakers have a lot of former trainees or friends or people that come to these sessions, and it's it's just, it's, it can be every one is unique and there's a lot of just memories that are being shared.
And I, it's really, some of these sessions are really lovely. Yeah, I think Dr. Stoller, Jamie Stoller, he always talks about the serendipity, like when you look back and you're just like, I can't believe, like this thing popped up and I wasn't expecting it. And I think you have to keep your mind open in your career because you'll have these things.
Yeah, that's for sure. I, I, I. I'm not a big proponent of, of, of saying no, which is also how I end up doing too many things, but you never know what's gonna come. Like I've, I, I've said yes to tons of things that I just didn't think I would love. Nothing really lasts forever anyway, so it, it is a brief amount of time, yeah. And I think you also. In my opinion you changed [00:13:00] throughout your career, right? Like the person you were as a first year resident is so different, right? And then the person Yeah, slightly. But it makes sense that you would change in your career like certain, like different things because you've changed, right?
I always saw it that way, but but I think, so we also talk about, there's this feeling like for some people, unfortunately, like a feeling of being stuck. Is there some takeaways like from that and like your discussions with the mid-career group? Yeah, that's a great point. I haven't, I, we haven't had a lot of some of our speakers talk about major life events and I, and a lot of last year we started recording these and we're doing podcasts of Lisa that people can hear them, but major life events that you'd be shocked that people are able to get out.
Of these positions. Sometimes people don't have any major event. They're just stuck, and, and then they're looking for some avenue. And then those are the [00:14:00] people that really, I think, tend to enjoy these sessions. they get to just hear different, different perspectives and takeaways of what other people have done and maybe which avenue they should go.
You just need that time to reflect, yeah. Yeah, I think I, I totally, I agree with reflection. I think that you're supposed to reflect a little bit every day. I'm not sure I always do that, but I think hearing, I definitely don't do that. Yeah. I, I should, I just, I don't know.
I don't have time. I haven't do that. Yeah. Meditate. I don't do that. I think it's really helpful though to hear that it's not like a straight line like these, like really these people who are just you, they, you think they walk on water and they're Yeah.
Nothing bad ever happens. Their grants always get funded. It's not the case. No, it's definitely not that. And they're, they're dealing with, they're dealing with struggles yeah. And somebody, I, I find it really interesting 'cause they're, they're, it's not just it's grants, it's, they didn't get the [00:15:00] job.
They were hoping they're, yeah. And then there's major things that people just don't talk about. Miscarriages family members dying major very personal things, which not everyone feels comfortable talking about. And sometimes it's good though to hear that other people have these things.
Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I, we're really excited to hear see this at a TS. Is there anything any like previews we should know about? Any sneak? Yes, there are a few things. Yeah. There's a symposium this year that's actually focused around mid-career that's, from the Professional Development Committee, which I'm on it's, it's on let's see, it's two, 2:15 PM I believe on Sunday.
It's called Breathing Li New Life into Your Career, thriving Through Transitions. 88 is the title. There's also a mid-career roadmap that we've created to outlined some sessions and of activities that you may find beneficial. If you're in, you think you're in this [00:16:00] area of mid-career you're like, I've like moved outta my early where I'm networking all the time and I maybe I just wanna relax a little bit and find some sessions that are interesting to people.
Similar to me and then, like I said, we have our, at these storytelling takes place Sunday 4:00 PM and Monday 4:00 PM and, and Tuesday, 4:00 PM and this, I think this year, Tuesday we're doing a special one, which we haven't quite ironed out fully yet. So it's usually after ever all the sessions are ending at the end of the day, but before any assembly meetings and such occur, oh, that's a great, so we're all sticking around for the assembly meeting, so you have, you should definitely go to Yeah, it's easy story. Yeah, it's easy. Pop in, pop out, whatever you need to do okay, great. Thank you so much. Thanks for participating in the podcast and really looking forward to seeing the mid-career roadmap and your all the programming at ATS.
All right. Thanks Amy.