The Medicine Mentors Podcast

Drawing a Mentorship Map with Dr. Timothy Gilligan

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Description

Timothy Gilligan, MD, is the Vice-Chair for Education and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute. He also serves as the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer for Graduate Medical Education at Cleveland Clinic. He is a nationally recognized expert in Genitourinary Cancers and a thought leader in healthcare communication. He is President of the Academy of Communication in Healthcare and is the co-editor of the book Communication the Cleveland Clinic Way.

"Find people who have a track record of mentorship. There are plenty of smart people who are very successful but aren't great mentors." According to Dr. Timothy Gilligan, being drawn to accolade holders is not the answer to our mentorship troubles. When he was still a young trainee, he recounts how his mentors sometimes enlightened him with direct answers and other times set him on the course to find them on his own, drawing a map and only acting as guides in his journey. In this episode of The Medicine Mentors, Dr. Timothy Gilligan teaches us to identify the significant predictors of mentors who will help us navigate medicine's pathways. Tune in for more.

Pearls of Wisdom:
 
1. Humanizing medicine should be our priority, and we can do that by approaching medicine with humility, and by having a mindset of showing up and being present with the patient.
2. As mentees, we should focus on people with a proven track record of mentorship, someone who will draw a map for you and let you navigate the landscape of medicine. Once we find those people, all that remains is to reach out to them. 
3. If we're not actively participating in the solution, then we are part of the problem, and the first step to finding that solution is to acknowledge the problem's existence. 
4. The essence of the art of communication is talking less and listening more, and the three questions that will help us achieve that are, "What does the patient need to know?", "What does the patient already know?", and, "What does the patient want to know?"