“There is such an energy and a creativity that I get from working with early-career investigators. They have fresh perspectives, and oftentimes they’re questioning the status quo, which I think is such a benefit. I once heard someone say that good mentorships are like a multiplier; if you dedicate time to this, there are dividends for your own work. — Emily O’Brien, PhD, MSPH, FAHA, associate professor in population health sciences, associate professor in neurology, and a member of Duke Clinical Research Institute
O’Brien, an epidemiologist, started mentoring medical specialists who were clinical fellows in the Duke Clinical Research Institute Fellowship Program more than a decade ago, and more recently she began working with master’s students and PhD students in the in the Department of Population Health Sciences. She also has served as a mentor for the BRIDGE program, aimed at graduate students and trainees interested in increasing health equity and reducing health disparities through advanced training or a career in population health sciences.
“I mentor people across so many different disciplines with so many different backgrounds. I try to meet people where they are,” she said. “I find that some people come to the discipline with a different lexicon than maybe what we use day to day. So, part of the process is helping them see that they likely already know a lot more than they realize about what we're talking about. It just might be from a different perspective and based on different experiences. My most rewarding mentorship experiences are when I see my trainees start to challenge something about the discipline that maybe I wouldn't have thought about.”
O’Brien said she has been “incredibly lucky” to find supportive mentors herself, including Lesley Curtis, PhD, Chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences. She recalled Curtis encouraging her to spread her wings and learn while they served as co-principal investigators on a new National Institutes of Health-funded project.
“I was responsible for running the first working group call, and I was intimidated,” O’Brien said. “But I bumbled through it, and she allowed me to work through it without jumping in to rescue me. She was happy for me to use it as a growth experience. I think sometimes being a good mentor is being there for people but also not taking too much control when they’re working it out and developing that experience on their own.”