Good afternoon everybody. My name is Eldon Tesoro. I am a clinical associate professor at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Pharmacy. I work primarily in the neuro-critical ICU there at UI Health, but a little bit about me I received my doctor of pharmacy Here in San Francisco at the University of California I did a first-year general practice residency at UIC before going on to do a two-year critical care fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University, and then after that I came back to UIC to start there as faculty Just a show of hands here. How many here are physicians? Great. How many are nurses or NPs? APPs? Good. Pharmacists? Hi! Respiratory therapists? Anybody? Okay, how many of you are trainees? Awesome. And how many of you are program directors or supervisors? Awesome. Great. So we have a good mix of people and I'm glad to hear that. So my perspective in introducing this session It comes from being a program director, a residency program director for PGY-2 in critical care pharmacy So I'm hoping that some of the things that I'm going to say here today will resonate with you Even though you may not be in the pharmacy world I do think that we share some values and I can show some perspectives as a residency program director That I've given to many of my trainees kind of as they start their careers. I don't have any disclosures here So I've been asked to kind of introduce identifying a career path. What makes you happy and These are the objectives for this session. I'm going to hit that first bullet there Determine your personal career path kind of on the way to happiness. I come from kind of the Generation X Cohort. I We didn't have Twitter back then. We didn't have Facebook So we had to find a different way to learn life's wisdom and the way that I did it was through cartoons So I learned a lot of wisdom from Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side. So I'm going to take you on this journey Through the illustrations of James Norbury and his two characters Big Panda and Tiny Dragon So the first thing I'm going to tell you today To recommend is to be patient. So for those of you starting out in your journey on your career path So new residents new fellows What I tell you to do is to be patient Your perfect job may not come along right away. You may be on the journey on the path to that job But don't expect to really find a job that Satisfies all of your objectives and all of your wants and desires You're just gonna you know end up a little bit frustrated Instead go into the job that you're looking at and see what can it give me? So that I can make my way towards that job. All right, maybe you know, you're building your clinical knowledge base Maybe you're starting up ICU services You know kind of establishing yourself as a member of the team a strong researcher strong patient advocate You know choose little things make little steps on the way to a much larger vision of what your career can be But don't beat yourself up because the first position that you got wasn't an academic faculty position in a large medical teaching facility You know, you know level one trauma center that's all well and good, but just because you don't get to that specific position doesn't mean that the Position doesn't hold value for it. You're there to kind of identify and find and search out that value for yourself The next thing I'll say is to network and this is really important I'll give you a couple of examples of it It's important to identify the people that you're going to work with and get a sense of you know What that community is going to be like yes, you're going to interview for the job You want to know the responsibilities the obligations that are associated with that job? But be mindful of the people that you're going to be working with I will suggest that you also in addition to interviewing your supervisor And maybe some of the colleagues that you're working with go ahead and talk to the staff You know talk to the nurses to the pharmacist respiratory therapist Try to get a sense of you know how they function daily in that position What your interactions will be with them if they feel like they're in a happy place. They're glad to see you They are excited about you coming on board That's probably a good sign and it's probably going to signal that that's a place that you really want to work at So when you're interviewing, you know Don't don't discount people that are not on your itinerary Look at the other people that you're going to be working with because they will lend such value to your experience The other thing I will say is to definitely get involved in professional societies just like SCCM So when I first started I was surrounded by clinical pharmacists. I'm at the College of Pharmacy So we have a lot of clinicians and researchers and faculty there so many of my early experiences in professional organizations were with pharmacy organizations And that's all in good You can definitely meet a lot of your colleagues and peers there and definitely collaborate and exchange ideas And I did that for quite a long time And then I found SCCM and SCCM is a huge society full of different disciplines and I really really enjoyed the culture of SCCM because it was so inclusive and I had even more satisfaction collaborating reaching out to Engaging with other disciplines that I really didn't have just with within the pharmacy circles. Yes I'm very active within the clinical pharmacy and pharmacology section of SCCM They're a great group of people to work with but you you basically enhance that Interaction by reaching out to other disciplines and getting to work with them I'm also a member of the Neurocritical Care Society, which is also an international Multidisciplinary society and you know, I found the same thing there working with and reaching out to physicians nurses and peas and getting ideas of how they Practice and how they started their careers really gave me some good perspective as to you know Where I am in my career and where I should kind of see the future I put I remember one particular moment where I was at a international meeting and we were kind of waiting to go to dinner with a group of friends and I sat with this physician and You know, we talked not on clinical things. We didn't talk about patients or you know presentations or anything like that We talked about life. We talked a little bit about running and you know Work-life balance and what we're going to do What kind of things that we wanted to see in the city that we were in and it really opened up a lot of opportunities for me Just by getting to know this physician and it kind of led me to where I am now giving this this talk That physician was Lori Shutter It was really honestly So you never know who you're gonna meet at these meetings and this is such a large Society that it really does hold value to just go out and talk to people because you never know he might come across and if you're a residency program director or a supervisor just definitely You know encourage your trainees to go out to Professional societies particularly multidisciplinary societies and just go out and talk to people Be open to change All right things happen in your career that may seem insurmountable They may be challenges or roadblocks or obstacles things change all the time But it might instead of thinking. Oh my god. This is an obstacle. I'm never gonna get across this Just think of it as an opportunity for you to learn something about yourself challenge yourself This might actually lead you on the way to a better position You never know what the opportunities might that might arise from just treating an obstacle as an opportunity You know, you're you're bound to make mistakes in the future You just have to kind of learn from them and a lot of times what will happen is people will come to your aid That you may not have considered maybe supportive or collaborative in nature But they see you and they want to see you succeed and I feel like that happens, you know in those moments where You know you're kind of lost somebody will step in and kind of show you the way and Again, the more that you network and collaborate the more of these opportunities will be open to you And I tell my residents this all the time is that you know You're you're bound to meet some challenges in this first position. It may not be the most ideal position but learn from it You don't have to learn exactly how to be the best person in that position There may be opportunities or experiences in that position that may show you This is probably not the way to practice or this is probably not the right area for you, but you learn something about yourself and then you can use that to kind of move forward to the next level of your career As you progress in your career you will be faced with a lot of asks Can you do this lecture? Can you do this presentation? Can you help me with this research project? Can you take this weekend shift for me? Can you write this chapter in this book? Can you take on more residents or fellows? And it can be very Daunting and insurmountable, but I will say that as you progress in your career You don't always have to say yes and these situations offer you an opportunity to actually get your trainees involved maybe you have a junior colleague or a new colleague you can easily bring them into this ask and mentor them and Oftentimes when I'm faced with this I'm like, well, I really I do want to do this But I feel like it doesn't really hold that much value for me What is valuable to me is if I bring in my trainee to do this and Mentor her or him through this and that to me is much more valuable than actually doing the ask itself so for those of you that are kind of mid to more advanced phases of your career When you're faced with a multiple ask definitely get your trainees involved and it doesn't have to be trainees at your own institution I have graduates that have gone to other institutions that I bring back in when I have asks from you know societies or Collaborative research endeavors. I'll bring them back in and say hey, this is a great opportunity for you I'd like you to meet so-and-so and so and you know It really brings them brings their level of engagement up so that they can kind of move forward in their career So, you know find ways of turning nose into yeses, especially when it comes to your trainees And then finally Definitely revisit your priorities not every day not every week, but occasionally just revisit your priorities things change family matters may come into the The field where you may have to make a decision that really doesn't affect you but definitely affects family So if you're searching for jobs, you know Maybe you have to consider bringing your spouse into the conversation about where to go So maybe that position, you know out west is in close to home but it's a very valuable program for your spouse and maybe they sacrificed a year or two or three or ten so that you could go to the program that you wanted for your training and Now that you have opportunity to go somewhere for your first position Offer that conversation up to your spouse or your family to see what their priorities are and that will make your career a little bit Happier because you've involved people who matter to you in that decision So, you know your career is not your own it also belongs to the people around you your family your spouses your kids So consider their input in making that decision You know, they may have a little bit stronger idea of where they want to be But it opens up a conversation that really should be had So with that I'm gonna leave you there I'm hopeful that that those kind of perspectives added some value for you as program directors and for you as young trainees I will say just ending this that I'll give you one last word that you know Looking at the next speakers the best is yet to come. So thank you for your attention. I really appreciate it

career path

happiness

networking

fulfillment

work-life balance