How one physician made the switch from clinician to researcher

Setting out to become a researcher while mid-career as a clinical physician was a challenging prospect, but Colleen M. Fitzgerald, MD, MS, associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Loyola University Chicago Medical Center, told HemOnc Today that anyone can do it if they set their mind to it.

Fitzgerald found herself in a clinical career in nonsurgical pain management that she enjoyed, but a dearth of research in her area of interest prompted her to consider becoming a researcher herself.

When she began looking into making the transition, not everyone was encouraging.

“We go through such rigorous training that we have the ability [to become researchers] but don’t necessarily have that basic training. You have to seek out mentors who are highly regarded as researchers, and to believe it’s something you can do,” Fitzgerald said. “You can make a change in your career, so don’t let anyone tell you that you’re too old or too busy, or that it’s going to hurt clinical practice.”

Managing the transition

Despite initial misgivings, Fitzgerald returned to college to pursue a master’s degree in clinical investigation and learn the principles of research. It took 3 years to complete the program while continuing to work in clinical practice.

“It’s hard to find a balance and make the transition because there is no time in the day. What research requires is time, and protected time from clinical practice,” she said in an interview.

Being a student again felt very different from her experience in medical school. As an older student with a busy work and home life, she was not always able to attend study groups or participate in other learning activities outside of class. She also had to learn to use new tools as well, unlike her experience in medical school when “everything was hand-written,” she said.

“The way I had been a student before was different. [When I went back], everyone had laptops and there I was, writing notes in my paper binder. I had to figure out how to be a student in a very new way,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much like a student I would feel again.”

Change with the times

Anyone considering making the transition should embrace the new tools, according to Fitzgerald.

“At first I wanted to be true to the old way, but there are so many advantages to the ways the new generation was learning and studying. You have to realize that you’re smart, you’ve gotten to this point, and now you need to try to adopt the tools available.”

She was also a different kind of student in other ways the second time around due to time constraints.

“As a younger student, when I didn’t have children and I wasn’t working, perfection was what I was aiming for,” Fitzgerald said. “You don’t have to hold yourself to something unachievable. Sometimes ‘done’ is better than perfect.”

The process of attending college while also working is a similar experience to training for board recertification exams, in that ideally, a lot of concentrated, continuous time should be spent studying, but in reality, she had to fit study time in between other duties at home and at work.

New territory

Fitzgerald’s entrance into conducting her own research began with applying for a grant, but she had no prior experience with grant writing.

“The grant is such a foreign thing. As physicians, we can write about a case, but grant writing is all about having your aims and hypotheses spelled out, and you have to justify why you want to answer these questions and what tools you are going to use. It’s a much different way of thinking.”

Fitzgerald sought out mentors who had experience in successfully writing grant applications.

“Find a mentor — someone who has done it. Someone, whether they are an MD, MS or PhD, who can show you the way. Believe you have the capability.”

Research is rewarding, she said.

Focus on the future

“I feel like I’ll make my mark and leave a little bit of a legacy, not just that I took care of patients, but that I left something behind when I’m gone,” she said. “I will have made a difference if I push the field forward, or if I develop a new technique or way of examining a patient, or if something I discover ultimately changes how a patient is treated.”

Anyone considering the transition from clinical physician to medical researcher, can do it, even late in their career, according to Fitzgerald.

“My physician colleagues are smart people. There is almost nothing that a physician who has been through this kind of rigor couldn’t do. It’s just a matter of wanting to do it and believing that it matters,” she said. “The sky is the limit.”