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We’re honored to have Janet Bickel, MA, join the Faculty Factory Podcast for the third time in our show’s history this week. We’re discussing the art of adaptability and how to hone it as a skill set to build a successful career in academic medicine.
Janet is an acclaimed leadership and career development coach with more than five decades of experience in academic medicine and science. She started her academic career with Brown University’s Medical School (now called The Warren Alpert Medical School) in 1972.
Although much of today’s discussion covers that stage of a career when you may be considering a transition into something less demanding than full-time employment, these principles can be applied to any stage of an academic medicine career.
“I don’t necessarily think that it is important to be able to think ahead because none of us can predict the future. What’s important is to stay in touch with your immediate realities and ask yourself, “Is this working?’” Janet encouraged us to ask ourselves.
As we learn in today’s episode through Janet’s timeless wisdom, if faculty have not done so already, it may be time for you to deliberately and actively start taking responsibility for your own career development. Her insights today provide guidance for getting started.
It’s all about finding comfort in the discomfort because, as Janet points out in the closing moments of this discussion, “We’re never going to be comfortable with uncertainty and ambivalence” and these feelings will always accompany a fulfilling career in this demanding field.
Resources to Explore
- Academic Medicine Letter to the Editor: “Helping Medical Education Faculty Navigate a Post-Academic Landing Pad”
- Janet Bickel’s Official Website
- Equip Your Inner Coach: Personal, Career and Leadership Development in an Uncertain Age.
- We’re Put Here to Love: A Memoir with Poems.
- Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good).
More Janet Bickel Interviews
As mentioned above, this is Janet’s third appearance on our podcast. You can revisit her first time joining us back in June 2019, when she shared with us 7 Crucial Books and Resources for Faculty Affairs Professionals. In March 2022, she joined us once again for a reunion episode, where we caught up with her to discuss what’s new in her world of leadership and career development coaching since we last spoke.