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Here’s my tips for freshly minted cardiology attendings. Fair warning, I’ve only got six years on you. Buyer beware. https://twitter.com/lowieva/status/1274507528609632257
1. Don’t immediately get into big debt. Don’t lease or buy a new car. Don’t buy a house on 100% financing. Don’t pay the minimum on credit cards. It’s foolish, and ultimately cliche. And unbecoming. And did I say foolish?
2. Find your why. Google the @simonsinek @TEDTalks. People don’t care about what you do or how you do it. Neither are inspiring. What is inspiring? Why you do it. That’s what people get excited about.
3. Define the mission. Your mission. Using your why. Blog about it. Put it in your handle. Get a white board and put it in your office and write it in big letters ar the top. Everything begins and ends with your personal mission statement.
4. Map out a plan. And a timeline. How? Do a SWOT analysis of yourself. Strengths. Weaknesses. Opportunities. Threats. Like them up next to your why and your mission then define your most urgent action items. Make “first things first” and get to work.
5. Build a team. Build alliances. Build bridges. Get some wins. These lead to momentum. Read the book below on how this works.
6. Measure everything. As Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured gets managed.” Create your own dashboard. Clinical metrics and targets. Projects at various stages. Manuscripts. Proposals. Metrics. Put them on your whiteboard. Under your mission. In plain view.
7. Ask for advice. Constantly. Ask multiple advisors. Take pieces from each advisor. Seek out relationships with those we call mentors. Actually listen to them. Actually follow sound advice. Take care to consider their motives a little, but avoid cynicism and paranoia.
8. Teach. Mentor. Serve. If you only follow your own agenda and don’t leave room for serving the needs of others you will burn out and become toxic. To truly understand is to teach. To truly conquer the mountain is to mentor. To serve is to have truly lived a purposeful life.
9. Read the checklist manifesto by @Atul_Gawande and run your day, whatever it is, by the laws of the checklist. How you attend on rounds. How you see patients in clinic. How you address emails. How you run meetings. Checklists.
10. As Tim McGraw says. Stay humble and kind. Caring for patients. Teaching others. Writing papers. Reviewing peers. Dealing with interpersonal conflict. Building teams. This has been the hardest for me to learn, but most important.
