SCCMPod-555: Breaking Barriers Through Mentorship in Critical Care

Dr. Lin: Hello and welcome to the Society of Critical Care Medicine podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Ludwig Lin, and today I'm joined by Dr. Fajun Wang, MD, to discuss empowering health care professionals through mentorship, specifically via the lens of SCCM's ICCP, Immigrant Critical Care Professional Mentorship Program. Dr. Wang is a neurocritical care specialist and an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at St. Louis University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Wang, welcome. Before we start, do you have any disclosures to report? Thank you for having me.

Dr. Wang: No, I do not have any disclosure to report here. 

Dr. Lin: Okay, good. Fa-Zhu, let's start by getting you to share your personal journey through medicine.

How did you get into medicine? How did you decide to get into critical care and neurology specifically?

Dr. Wang: Yeah, absolutely. And again, thank you for the opportunity. I think this topic is really close to my heart because my whole journey was filled with different kinds of mentors and that helped shape my career.

I was born and raised in China and went to medical school in China as well. So a typical international medical graduate story that I graduated from med school and decided to come over to the States to pursue a more advanced medical training in the United States. So I was fortunate.

I went to Case Western Reserve for neurology residency and during my residency training that my mentors, Dr. DiGiorgio, Dr. Hsiao, and Dr. Ramos sort of seed the seed of critical care in me and I enjoyed my rotation in the neurocritical care unit a lot. Then I decided to pursue a fellowship in critical care medicine and neurocritical care. Then I moved to University of Pittsburgh for my fellowship training.

And then again, all the great mentors helped shape my career that Dr. Shutter, Dr. Abdul-Majid, Dr. Garvey, Dr. Ulmer, and Dr. Kiner and many more that sparkle my love for critical care. The fellowship at UPMC was a sponsored fellowship and that was actually my first time getting involved at SCCM. And then again, I met so many more mentors to help me out through all my training and then the society and the opportunity in the ICCP program to help make who I am today.

Dr. Lin: That's quite a journey. I want to delve into that part just a little bit more. Did you always know that you wanted to get into neurology?

Did you always know that you're going to be part of the critical care world? How did that part come about? And how did your various mentors change your path?

Dr. Wang: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is sort of a cliche story, but I would say I have always known that I want to be something or do something close related to the brain. When I was a medical student, so neurology was a natural choice for me.

Then no, I actually wasn't thinking about critical care at all. When I first started residency, I was very interested in movement disorder and neuro-autology because it was just so cool. And it's a very niche area that not many people understand.

So it made me feel very special when I spend a lot of time in it and feel, oh, I actually know more than other people.

Dr. Lin: Well, so how have things gone? How many years are you now into your faculty career? And do you have a vision of how you want to combine your clinical work with your academic work?

Dr. Wang: So I have been in the current faculty position since 2022. So I actually just completed my three-year this past June 30th. And again, that I think when I graduated from fellowship, it was immediate past COVID.

There were a lot of challenges. I'm looking for a job or the right job that fits for my career ambition. And thanks to all the mentors in the field and in SCCM that I was able to find a job here.

And also thanks to my boss at SLU that supports me because I have always wanted a career in leadership and trying to build a unit and where I actually have a platform here to start the neuro-critical care service line. And the ICCP program last year, when I was able to participate, one of the biggest ask was someone with experience in building service line, leading a service line to shed light on how to do things like that. And Dr. Jafar has offered many, many valuable advice to help me build a service line. I'm currently the medical director for the neuro-critical care unit at SLU. So it has been challenging, but very, very fulfilling. Wow.

Dr. Lin: Sounds like that's a lot to get into so early in your career. And it sounds like the mentoring that you've had really helped get you there. Let's talk a little bit more about the ICCP.

So the program within the SCCM was developed from a proposal by Dr. Jose Diaz Gomez. And the ICCP program was developed to be an innovative leadership building initiative to pair members with ICCPs practicing in the United States. The program sought to enhance the inclusion, training, and recruitment of this historically underrepresented target population.

And they wanted to make sure that there were five key domains of mentorship. Those are psychological and emotional support, self-efficacy, career development, scholarly support, and role modeling. The first pilot was a six-month program that started in January of 2024.

And that's the one that Dr. Wong did. It started with over 90 applicants, became 18 pairs of mentee mentors, and the pairs were required to meet once a month. Over the six months, various check-in surveys were conducted throughout the timeframe.

And there was a dedicated program manager to triage any issues as they came up. And there is now currently a second part of the pilot program where six participants are continuing. And this pilot is running for a full year, starting in February of 2025 and will last through March of 2026.

So coming back to you, Dr. Wong, and speaking about this ICCP program, you were one of the 18 pilot pairs. And can you elaborate on your experiences within it and how the experience corroborated with your expectations or how they diverged and how you feel like it's impacted the way you've launched your career?

Dr. Wang: I'll be more than happy to share my experience. As an initial batch in the ICCP program, I was very fortunate to be selected and I was matched with Dr. Jaffer from Detroit Medical Center. He has been very helpful throughout the process because when we first matched as mentee and mentor, it was the time when I was appointed as the medical director with the goal to build the care unit at San Luis University.

He had shared his experience of establishing a new service line, how to standardize things. And along with my other mentors in my department, institution, and hospital, I was able to tackle a lot of difficult problems. And he always was very responsive and offer support and comfort when I was in doubt and offer solutions when I have questions or difficulties.

It was a very helpful experience and we are actually still in touch, even though the program has already ended and he keeps checking on me, making sure I'm doing good.

Dr. Lin: Oh, that's perfect. That's so good. Specifically, what were the elements that were valuable ads for you as you were trying to start your program, build it up?

In which ways do you feel like this mentoring program brought value to you?

Dr. Wang: So I think the most important thing was the experience from someone who shares the similar background, you know, because I think as immigrants, especially first generation immigrants, we all face similar challenges, even though we may be from different countries in origin, coming to a new healthcare system, coming to a new country with a different culture that will always make things much harder. And especially for someone like me who just graduated from fellowship and haven't had too much real experience as attending yet trying to go into a leadership role, it's just sort of amplifying the challenges and things. So having someone who share the same background and experience and tell you that what you have seen are exactly the same things they have been through and offer you a solution and help when you're in trouble or when you're having difficulties, I think that's what the true value of this program.

Dr. Lin: I feel like academic medicine is really difficult to navigate, especially when you're trying to start something and you're doing a lot of collaborations across departments, and there are so many false starts and dead ends and not being part of the system could be a serious disadvantage. So having somebody to share their paths with you probably saved you a lot of headaches. What do you think about that?

Dr. Wang: Yes, absolutely. And I think that one of the most important things to learn from the past experience, and it doesn't have to be you all, it can be someone else. And the beauty of this program is the mentors are so dedicated and they're willing to share their the mistakes they have made, the success they had, and there is no hidden information or anything that everybody is so open and so willing to help.

And I think that's what's, you know, amazing about this program.

Dr. Lin: Yeah, I completely see that. And I think this is so wonderful. Are all the mentors in the ICC program first generation?

Dr. Wang: I think that's the purpose of this program is most of the mentors and the mentees are first generation immigrants, so that they can share their experience with the newly graduated attendings or trainees to help them navigate through their career and essentially trying to give them a boost in the first phase of their career.

Dr. Lin: Got it. I like that a lot. Are there things that you would add to the program if, for example, you were running it or, you know, one of these days when you yourself become a mentor?

Dr. Wang: Well, I think that would be one of my goals in the future that once I have a couple more years under my belt, I'll be more than happy to give back because I'm always a believer of pass along the torch sort of thing. Yes, that we can just, you know, keep everything to ourselves, right? We have to share those secrets and share the knowledge and to spare the loves.

So I think this program is amazing that I really hope that in the future I will have an opportunity to be part of it.

Dr. Lin: We've talked about the elements that you thought were really successful. And I loved hearing that. Let's talk about what you feel mentorship means.

There's so many different words, right? Like people talk about mentorship, people talk about allyship, sponsorship. Do you have any thoughts about this or like a philosophy?

What matters and does that change over time?

Dr. Wang: I think in my mind, I have an analogy to what mentorship means to me. Imagine you're sailing the ocean and this is 2000 years ago. You didn't even have a compass.

Our smart ancestors were able to locate a star and trying to find the directions and know where to go. And I think that's what mentors are. Mentors are those stars in the sky that, you know, they're always there, but you have to seek out to them and you have to follow their instructions and try and make your own effort because it's going to be a mutual process, right?

Like, you know, mentors are not someone who, they're not your parents. They can keep pushing you or something, but they're able to guide you. It's also, we have to put in the effort so that we can continue to grow.

Dr. Lin: I love it. It's so inspirational. The other thing that I guess I'm thinking about as we're talking about all of this is this is such a powerful way to add to our talent pool because we need physicians overall and we need talented and clinically strong and obviously academically gifted critical care physicians.

And if there are people out there who are not from traditional routes who are capable of that, right? The first gen people or the URM people, let's try to level up and help them get to a place where their talent gets to shine. This is something that could only add to the strength of our profession.

Dr. Wang: Right. I completely agree. And as one of someone who has benefited from the program, I completely agree with that.

Dr. Lin: And I think it's something that, like you said, all of us can aspire to one of these days. Probably none of us ever feel like we are ready to be a mentor, but you are going to be a mentor right now to a lot of people more junior to you. And mentorship is a game changer for everybody.

But in this instance, we're talking about first generation healthcare professionals and mentorship is about building relationships, learning how to build those relationships and using that to get some confidence. Like you said, you're starting a brand new program, get some guidance and to feel like you're not alone. And you've already said that during this conversation.

So it definitely sounds like it's achieved that for you already. And yes, one of these days, you and all of the rest of us can reach out to somebody more junior and to be their mentors. So let me ask you this.

Is there anything that I haven't asked you that we haven't discussed that you really want to make sure that the audience gets from our conversation today?

Dr. Wang: Well, if I may, I feel that I'll be happy to share some advices to the audience who may be in the beginning of their career or during their training or trying to go into the field of critical care, our amazing field. I would say that you're definitely not alone and there are many, many people out there. They're willing to help as long as you're willing to ask the difficulties that you're in that are definitely not unique to you.

And we all have been through different kinds of the challenges and we're all here to help.

Dr. Lin: That's beautiful. Thank you so much for reminding everybody of that. And in a way it is a two way street.

People have to be willing to ask and people have to be willing to share. I think we spent so much time trying to look impervious and flawless, but why? I think that's your message and I really like that.

And I am so proud of being part of SCCM and so proud that this organization is being proactive and taking a leadership role in establishing mentorship programs like this. It's very much needed. This concludes another episode of the Society of Critical Care Medicine podcast.

I would like to thank Dr. Fajun Wang. If you're listening on your favorite podcast app and you like what you heard, consider rating and leaving a review for us. For the Society of Critical Care Medicine podcast, I'm Dr. Ludwig Lin and thank you for listening.

Announcer: Ludwig H. Lin, MD, is an intensivist and anesthesiologist at Sutter Hospitals in the Bay Area of Northern California and is a consulting professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he teaches a seminar on the psychosocial and economic ramifications of critical illness. Join or renew your membership with SCCM, the only multiprofessional society dedicated exclusively to the advancement of critical care.

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