Networking, values key drivers in building vitality early in medical careers

Key takeaways:

• Vitality impacts a person’s willingness to engage and contribute to their organization’s success.
• Recognizing personal values and finding mentors and sponsors are ways to establish strong vitality.

Identifying your personal and organizational values and building a community are all strategies to develop vitality in careers in medicine, according to a speaker at the Women in Medicine Summit.

H. Barrett Fromme, MD, MHPE, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, explained that vitality is a combination of high energy, creativity and engagement, with the latter being “the willingness to contribute to organizational success.”

“When you’re most engaged, you feel like you want to help [the organization] to be better,” Fromme said. “We want to be in a situation in our career where, satisfied or not, it’s driving us toward engagement and toward vitality.”

She discussed several drivers that could help health care workers, particularly those early in their careers, to achieve a state of strong vitality while better understanding their own role and values.

Identify your values

Fromme explained that although people are often drawn into the medical field because of the impact they can have on others’ lives, many do not take enough time to reflect on their own personal values in work and what they bring to their roles.

“When we start out early in our career, we have to define those values for ourselves,” she said. “We have to think about what we value, and where is my meaning.”

To define a value, a person should determine:

• what drives their actions;
• who has qualities that align with theirs, and what those qualities are;
• what makes them feel like performing their best; and
• how they want to live their life.

Frome additionally highlighted the importance of “saying yes” and being open to different possibilities and opportunities.

“If you don’t know what your boundaries are, what your values are, you’ve got to put your toes in the water,” she said. “I’ve found I’m doing things right now in my career that I never would have told you I love then.”

Understand your organization

Whether your organization is an academic institution, an area of medicine or a national organization, its relationship is symbiotic with employees, according to Fromme.

Because of this, it is critical to understand your organization’s own values and to ask questions about whether you and your skills fit in.

“If the answers are, ‘I don’t think I do,’ then you either have to think about changing organizations or having frank conversations about it and say, ‘Let me tell you what I need to be engaged,’” Fromme said.

She also encouraged people to continue doing hard work “so the organization can see even more of those talents that you have.”

“No job is minor,” she said.

Build your community

As with most careers, connecting with like-minded colleagues and other figures in your field can help to create new opportunities, build your experience and increase your engagement.

For example, if you are interested in fellowships, “find another fellowship director to work with,” she said. “Do not just look for them in your neighborhood. Go to national meetings.”

In addition to collaborators, she also highlighted networking and finding peer mentors and sponsors.

She ultimately noted that career success is defined by the individual, and that people should always think of how they “can continue to grow.”