It's been ~1 year since I started as an assistant professor. Over the summer, I've spoken with a number of other first-year APs in #nursing/#medicine/#publichealth, & it's made me reflect on the good & bad of year 1. 🧵below...

#AcademicTwitter #MedTwitter #NursingTwitter
1/ The job we signed up for is HARD in the best of times—& it turns out we signed ourselves up in the worst of times 🤦‍♀️
2/ 1) I spent *at least* the first 6 months feeling like I was spinning my wheels but getting nothing meaningful done. The sheer number of meetings, trainings, orientations, committees, conferences, seminars, lectures, events, etc. etc. etc. overran my calendar.
3/ In a rich academic environment where there will always be too many opportunities, my NO:YES ratio probably needs to get much higher.
4/ The pandemic took a toll on us all—and that includes mentors. The kind of mentoring I thought I would receive from senior folks & mentoring structures I thought would be in place just weren't there when we needed them most (albeit because of the pandemic, not ill intention!).
5/ Related to #2 - fortunately, mentoring gaps were filled by peers. The MOST IMPORTANT mentoring I received in year 1 was from fellow junior faculty and post-docs/PhD student friends, not senior mentors.
6/ We helped each other out and pushed each other forward in the absence of anyone else to fill that role. My academic friends have become my most valued resource and my go-to place for advice.
7/ Academia implicitly and explicitly discourages & de-values activism, advocacy, community engagement, & partnership building.  There's a strong push to hide, under-emphasize, or disengage from this work in the name of self-preservation—and that culture is to our detriment.
8/ The most common piece of advice I got from senior colleagues was to "Be selfish"—meaning (I think?) to protect your time and make sure you have what you need to advance your scholarship. I kind of get that this is well-intentioned... but also I kind of think it's terrible.
9/ Related to #3 - supporting others and being supported in return has been life-giving and necessary for me. We all need community—and community is, by nature, bi-directional. Please reframe this advice and think about the potentially harmful message it communicates.
10/ I *loved* teaching & interacting with students this year! I genuinely don't understand why it is talked about so negatively in academic medicine/nursing to people who have never even had a chance to try it. It was a pleasant surprise to discover how much I liked teaching.
11/ Practicing clinically as a nurse is the most valuable thing I do as a nursing academic (again despite discouragement!). It gives me critical perspective on my scholarship. I wish academic & health structures encouraged more nursing faculty to have a clinical practice.
12/ I am disturbed by how much energy we (1st year professors) spend on self-doubt, imposter syndrome, & pressure. I am SO proud of everything my colleagues & friends have accomplished this year IN A PANDEMIC and wish that was reflected in our perceptions of ourselves.
13/ Related to #12 - A few years ago, I was sitting at a conference table with Terri Richmond of @PennNursing nursing & a lot of other young, scared nursing PhD students. I asked her what she thought we, as a group, could be doing differently or better to be successful...
14/ I expected her to say "Write more."

Or "Do more research."

But she said, "Be more self-confident. I think you're all amazing and I wish you saw yourselves that way, too."

At the time, I didn't get it at all 😆 Now I do.
15/ Walking around with self-doubt & imposter syndrome gets of desperately needed change in healthcare. Not that this is easy... but I hope future waves of nurses resist entrenched toxic cultures in healthcare & academia & have confidence to (hopefully) change the world!
Many people I thought of when writing this aren't on twitter, but tagging just a few people who came to mind (would love to hear what you all learned in year 1, too!): @mgreene1228 @AltafSaadiMD @DrKiaSkrine @MarissaSeamans
*gets in the way of

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More from @kristenrchoi

Apr 10, 2021
I'm often asked “Why are so many nurses declining the COVID vaccine?"— & I'm usually unsure how to respond. I’m torn between being embarrassed/upset by low vaccine uptake among nurses or sympathetic to the reasons why nurses don't automatically trust hospitals & biomedicine. 🧵⬇️
I’m involved in a study of COVID-19 vaccine decision-making & perceptions among healthcare workers and have gotten to talk to nurses first-hand who both accepted and declined the vaccine. Some things I've learned:
- Most declinations by nurses are not a hard 'no.' They are more in the camp of 'not yet' and some 'I don't know.'  
- Nurses are not declining because they don't understand research; they're often  declining because they DO understand research.
Read 11 tweets
Jan 31, 2019
This week’s @NPRCodeSwitch episode 'Pretty Hurts' (bit.ly/2Sn3tfv) on beauty & race was one of the BEST episodes you've ever done, @RadioMirage & @GeeDee215.

Main topic: How can we decolonize beauty and de-center whiteness, given the racist origins of beauty standards?
There were 3 segments:

1. Geopolitics of beauty & Korean double eyelid surgery
2. Culture, trauma, & eating disorders in the Latinx community
3. Decolonizing beauty & de-centering whiteness

Segment 1 was especially interesting to me as a mixed Korean person. Some highlights:
Our perceptions of beauty are not just individual preferences, but are also shaped by national projects & geopolitics. Race is a huge factor in how we create beauty norms.

(from podcast guest Dr. S. Heijin Lee of @nyuniversity and her book 'The Geopolitics of Beauty')
Read 8 tweets

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