Thread by @mentorshipzim

In 2011 I was offered a job at UZ Medical school as a lecturer in Radiology. At the time, my young sister was the Chairperson of the Sociology dept(she is now the Vice Chancellor of Women's University in Africa). Before I started work at UZ, I visited her&gleaned from her info

about working at the UZ. After that, I also visited professor Nziramasanga who was heading the Teaching and Learning Centre. I asked him. a simple question-what should I do to succeed as a lecturer&become a professor in the fastest possible time. So before I even started work

I had promotion in the cross hairs. One thing that I learnt about career development is that if you serious about climbing the ladder from the first day you must have a plan&you must prepare yourself to acquire the skills needed to succeed in your boss's job. Before I had my 1st

lecture at UZ, I had a written down plan about my how I intended to get tenured, how I was going to get myself noticed, university service&publications. During my first month, I did a thorough situational analysis of the Medical School and identified opportunities that I could

My analysis yielded 4 strategic thrusts.
1-Medical Education-most professors&lecturers have never been trained to teach hence the quality of the teaching is poor although they are very knowledgeable.
2-Biostastics-Most professors&MMed students have never had a Stats class.

People struggle with data analytics.
3-Bioethics-there is no formalized education in Bioethics. Most students get a few tips on ethics as part of their research projects&nothing more. Most importantly there is no one in Radiology&Radiography who has qualifications in Bioethics

4-Grant Writing-The UZ medical school has many outstanding academics but few have significant grants. This is particularly true about Radiography.
So I went about the process of identifying&exploiting opportunities in these areas. I was intentional about it.

In my first year as a lecturer I was awarded the prize for being best lecturer in utilizing IT technologies by the UZ Library. A small bash was hosted for me by the Vice Chancellor&the Library Staff. I was already getting noticed. In two years I received 3 small research grants

and a Travel Fellowship. I travelled to Bonn, Germany and spent a month at the International Atomic Energy Agency offices studying radiation protection. I noticed that not much happens between the time students write exams and the new academic year. To make the best of this time

I started applying for summer fellowships abroad. The 1st Summer I was at the University of Dundee studying Global Health and Epidemiology. The second summer, I was at the university of Brussels, Belgium, studying radiation protection of patients. The 3rd summer was split between

International Agency for Cancer Research in Lyon, France and the National Cancer Institute at The NIH in Bethesda, Maryland- USA where I studied cancer epidemiology and cancer prevention. I mention this because all these are areas that a radiographer can specialize in.

Radiotherapy is the treatment of diseases, mainly cancer, using radiation. Hence there is no reason why radiographers can't pursue careers in cancer epidemiology. Similarly, there is no reason why radiographers can't pursue careers in Radiation Protection.

Most importantly, for me the motivation was to develop a broad set of skills that would allow me to pursue research grants in different aspects of radiography.

In 2014 I was awarded a Fogarty Fellowship to study Bioethics at Stellenbosch University in SA. It pays to have a plan. Having a plan is like making a decision to buy a red car. The moment you make the decision you begin to see the red cars that you never used to see. It's called

perceptual selectivity. In 2014 I was also awarded the Fulbright Science&Technology Fellowship to study for a PhD in the USA. My proposal was deliberately broad-to study molecular imaging and therapeutics with an emphasis on radiation. Developments in precision medicine&

personalized medicine point to a future in which diseases will be diagnosed at a single cell level. So professionally, it was a logical career progression. Most of 2014 I was traveling between the USA&Cape Town because I was studying with two universities and my fellowships were

generous to pay for the expenses.
My plan was to do my PhD course work as fast as possible and then exploit other opportunities offered by the Fulbright Fellowship. I registered for the maximum permissible hours every semester including the summer. I accomplished my goal with 12

months. So why did I choose the University of Missouri? It is the university with the biggest nuclear research reactor in the world. I was determined to exploit that. Although my research project was focused more on radio-pharmacy(i.e. developing radioactive drugs), I diligently

learnt everything I could learnt about nuclear reactors-from design, to engineering, operations&management. Russia has been aggressively pushing African countries to build nuclear reactors. Some SADC countries have already started building reactors but the expertise is not there.

My skills in nuclear engineering are relevant for Africa's future. In 2015 the IIE that manages the Fulbright Fellowships announced that there were excess funds in the Africa budget and called for applications for funding from fellows. While most fellows were applying for small

grants to conferences& for things such as publications, I made a bold decision to apply for a 6 figure research grant. My application was successful. So over and above the Fulbright Fellowship and extra funds to pursue my other interests at the margins of my PhD. So what did I do

Using skills acquired from the MBA, I took a sample of 60 adverts from industry and universities&crunched the numbers. That research revealed to me that The EU is pouring billions of dollars into the Human Brain Project and the USA is also pouring billions into what it calls the

Brain initiative. There are many years of studying the human brain. Radiography, especially CT scans and MRI Scans come in handy. Based on this information, I convinced my doctoral committee to tweak my study program a little. The end result is that I added applied statistics to

my PhD on top of studying for a masters in neuroscience(with one eye on the brain project&the brain initiative). I also studied for a post graduate diploma in Science&Technology for Nuclear and Biological Terrorism&Counter Terrorism. Put differently, I can be very useful if a

rogue person or state deploys a biological or nuclear weapon. The beauty of all this is that all these skills are closely related to radiography. So what does the future hold for me? I have job offers from 2 of very top universities in the USA&another from a top institute which