Thank you, everyone, for joining us here in person and virtually to discuss this session on culturally aware mentoring and a practical way to implement this in radiology. I'm Efrem Flores, I'm a radiologist and also co-chair of the Health Equity Committee for RSNA. And I'm joined here by Dr. Ashley Prosser, who is incoming chair for the Health Equity Committee starting during this meeting. And I really wanna say thank you for joining us and to all the speaker who will be joining us here today with this amazing presentation. If we think about mentoring as a lifelong journey and during the Fast Five presentation talked about very inspirational, one of the talks about sponsorship mentorship and the key in that place in everyone's lives, not only professionally, but also like your everyday life. So today we're gonna be joined by Dr. Martyn, Daniela Martyn first, who will be our first speaker in this session and then followed by Dr. Ana Narayan and Dr. Priyanka Reddy, Dr. Martyn. Thank you so much, Efrem. And good morning, thanks for being here so early. We're gonna start a session then like Efrem said talking about the principles of culturally aware mentorship. I want to thank and acknowledge the BEAM program, which is the program where I learned most of what I'm going to share with you today. The BEAM program is a mentoring program for students that come from underrepresented backgrounds out of university and they're paired with mentors and the mentors undergo a training, an evidence-based training program aimed at increasing their mentoring skills because like everything, mentoring is also something that we learn when we see, but there's evidence and science behind it and this includes culturally aware mentorship. So I hope you find it helpful. So I was asked to briefly mention a little bit about the diversity in radiology. I think if you're here, you probably are familiar with this, but I want to acknowledge most of what is, diversity is something very big. Most of what is published is related to sex or ethnicity and that's what I'm going to show. We know that about a third of the U.S. population comes from smaller groups. The two largest are black and Hispanics and the representation of those groups as we enter academia and as we enter medical school drops and that proportion drops. It's not the numbers, it's just the proportions. In radiology, we're about here and that continues to decrease all the way to chairs of departments and deans of medical schools. In fact, black and Hispanic faculty are known to be less represented now than they were 30 years ago because our population is growing much more diverse by the minute, but in academia, we're not keeping up with that. And in some countries, women are not underrepresented in radiology, but in the United States, they are. About half of the medical students, the U.S. population are women, but in radiology, this is from five years ago, it was about one out of four radiologists are women. And this is last year's match data. You can see the percentage of active residents. This is ordered and we're not doing that well. We are in the lowest quartile at almost 29%, so the change since 35 years ago was very small, just 4%. So we're one of the specialties that is lagging behind. Many other specialties have increased. And we know about this, we've published about this plenty. So the purpose of talking today about culturally, our mentorship is not to solve the problem, it's just one way that we can do better. And I'm speaking about this because I believe we have a pipeline problem. And the solution is not just to bring more people that come from different backgrounds, right? It's just to bring them, but help them thrive and stay there and teach us how to take better care of the populations that we're serving. So when I talk about culturally aware mentorship, what I mean is it's a set of skills that you learn and they allow you to be a better mentor to people that are different from you, different background. And it comes to under the principle that the social identity of a person, in this case your mentee, is gonna matter in their career development. I think a lot of people think that personal life is personal life and then work life is different, but you don't put it outside the door when you go to work. It matters, it's part of their identity. And every person's identity is different and I'm pretty sure if I ask you to tell me about what makes you happy, what's your passion, you're probably gonna talk about some of those things there. And those circles are gonna be bigger for some people. For me, where I come from, where I was born, my family are very important, but for some of you will be religion or your kids or your age, whatever it is. And this is who a person is, how they see the world, how the world interacts with them. And you cannot really take them away from work. It's part of their life. The decisions that they make on everything is related to their identity. And embracing that helps you understand and support people better. And this doesn't only apply to mentees. I think it applies to everything in life. So a lot of the culturally or mentorship data comes from research in students from underrepresented backgrounds, from STEM, so all of the sciences that include medicine. And there is data that shows that when you're an effective mentor to these students, you enhance the recruitment and retention, which is what we want. We don't want to drop out because they don't feel comfortable, because they don't feel like they belong, because they're constantly struggling. Research of underrepresented students shows that they have a harder time finding a mentor and they tend to be redirected to other career pathways often. I mean, this can happen to everybody. It just happens to them more often. And I may have shared this with some of you, a personal story. I'm an international graduate. I went to medical school in Venezuela. And when I moved to the U.S., I took my USMLEs, I went to Houston, and that's where I was living. And I reached out to some doctors to, you know, they were Hispanic because I thought they're probably gonna understand my journey better. And I found fantastic mentors, but I also found people that would give me advice that was against my principles. One person in particular, I spent the whole day with them. They were a radiologist and they were teaching and it was an amazing day seeing them teach medical students. And at the end of the day, when I asked, what do you think I can do to improve my application? He told me that it was better if I applied to family medicine because I had a better chance to match. And I was shocked and, you know, I just spent the whole day telling you I wanna be a radiologist and, you know, I don't think he meant wrong or anything ill-intended. I probably had a better chance to match in family medicine, just more spots. But the point is, you're gonna hear a lot of advice and I was lucky that I had a really strong support system from my family, from friends. I didn't listen to that, but you don't know what your students will face or how often they hear that. And they might not be lucky enough to have multiple mentors. It's hard to find mentors. I had a hard time finding mentors because I didn't know anyone in this country. So understanding this will help you support them better. They feel like they don't belong more often than not. They feel that they have to work harder. They're afraid to ask questions if they feel different from their background. So these are realities that everybody may face, but they face it more often. And unfortunately, sometimes mentors think, you know, I wanna treat everybody equally, which is a great principle if the world was fair, but that's not the case, right? The world's not fair. Not everybody has the same opportunity. So holding this, I'll treat everybody the same, it just doesn't make the realities that they face go away. They're still there. They're probably just not gonna share them with you and they're gonna struggle on their own. So being a culturally aware mentor just is basically understanding what they're going through and acknowledging it and knowing that it makes a difference and you can learn the skills. And it's like everything, you need to study, you need to learn, you need to practice. If there's one thing that you can take from this session today is this book, you can download it online. It is free. In this chapter, the third chapter talks about students underrepresented in medicine or in the STEM fields. So I'll leave it a few more seconds for you to take a book, a picture, and it's backed up by data and by science. If I could summarize this in a minute, what are the principles of being culturally responsive? First is just to make sure when you meet a new mentee and you set up expectations, like what projects are we gonna do? How are we gonna communicate? What are the, who is gonna reach out to who first? You can also tell them, feel free, just feel safe with me. Everything that we discuss will stay with each other. You're just setting the foundation of trust and it makes a difference. Validate them, and what does that mean? Just ask them, what are your passions? Who are you? What makes you happy outside of medicine? You'll be surprised what you hear and what you learn from them. Understanding that the world's not perfect and there are oppressions, there are power dynamics that exist. You just don't, if you ignore them, they're not gonna go away. They're just not gonna talk about them. And help them navigate invalidating experiences, meaning if someone comes up to you, a lot of times I do this myself, I get into protective mode or trying to rationalize something. Like, you know, people didn't mean bad or you're just very young, you're just so friendly. Things like you're too colorful, your hair's funny or you're too loud, whatever it is. Just validate them, meaning just listen. And you don't need to know everything. You don't need to be an expert. They don't expect you to solve all their problems. Sometimes they just wanna vent freely and that's it. And you're there to be their mentor, to help them reach their potential, to encourage them and to be a sounding board. And you can be honest about that. You're not there to solve their lives. So a lot of people also ask me, sometimes I feel like if I'm not from the same background or if I'm not from a person, can I really support them? Because I don't know how their life is. And I'll tell them that some of my biggest mentors and sponsors are very different from me. They don't look like me, they don't sound like me. And I just connect with them in a deeper level, those deeper level connections. My love for thoracic radiology, my love for education or mentoring, for teaching. And those deep level connections, you're only going to learn if you talk to them about life outside of work. And those deep level connections predict career support and better outcomes for you and students. That's what the data shows. So I'll leave you finally with some other resources. This is the same website where you can download that book. If you're into podcasts, it has other books, it has other links to resources. This is the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. And it has a lot of information about mentoring, not just culturally or mentorship, but how to be a good mentor in science, in research. It has, if you're a leader, it has toolkits of how to bring mentoring into the operations of your department. How to, you know, for example, in a very nice change in the University of Wisconsin in the last few years, mentoring became part of our promotion criteria, they count that. So you need to find ways how to measure this and how to encourage it from your faculty, how to recognize faculty that do it and the impact that that brings in the future. This is another website that has some videos and online resources and similar. And I leave you finally with the National Research Mentoring Network website, which is a very rich website, has a lot of resources too. You can actually become a mentor there. You can log in and become a mentor and get paired with people across the country, but you can navigate it too. I was there a few days ago and I actually noticed that there was a conference happening next year that is culturally responsive mentorship. I've never been, so I can't speak about it, but it's just like anything. If you wanna get better, you need to invest in it, in your professional development, in your future, the future of your mentees and the future of radiology. So these are my references. Thank you. Okay, thank you so much for having me, Dr. Flores and Dr. Prosper for this session. And thanks Dr. Martin for kicking things off with a really wonderful session, talking about some of the cultural mentorship resources that we can really use to support our students. So I'm here to talk to you about asset-based approaches in radiology education. And so this is just gonna be a brief little touch upon some of the key principles for this. Concurrently, we also have an educational exhibit as well too, that dives deeper into these two principles as well too. So Natasha McFarlane, who's an intern at the Gunderson Hospital in La Crosse has done a really terrific job putting this together. So take a look at this if you want a little bit further of a deep dive. So we've talked, Dr. Martin talked about the statistics about underrepresented groups in medicine as well too. And I think one thing to emphasize about this principle here is that ultimately here, our ability to recruit a more diverse workforce is connected to our ability to care for more increasingly diverse patient populations as well too. And I think one thing for us in radiology to think about when we think about workforce recruitment is that we obviously think a lot about faculty and trainees and the students that we bring into our reading rooms and other places and our educational institutions. But for us also, we also have to think about our technologists and sonographers as well too. Because in many cases, some of the people who are most forward facing in terms of interactions with our patients are our technologists and sonographers who really provide that service for our patients as well. So what that means is that when we think about workforce recruitment for radiology, we're not just thinking about talking to medical schools about recruiting radiology residents. We're not just talking about radiology residencies to fellows, to faculty and that pathway there, but we're also talking about reaching out to high schools and to colleges and to places where we can train future sonographers and technologists as well too to be part of this radiology workforce. So when we think about recruiting this workforce, not just to support education, but also community outreach here, wanted to use some examples of this right here. So here's one that I found from social media. Okay, here's one here. This is from Barbie Savior. So give me your tired and portal huddled masses breathing to urine free, lift them into my face and usher them home into my arms. So this person is indigent and hugs for humanity and she can hug many and she potentially wants to get a statue made of herself. So perhaps when we talk about labels and different things, some of you are cringing at these types of social media posts and this is obviously a caricature of these things. But when you see the different labels that are applied to individuals, I think it really, you know, for me, of course this is a very cringeworthy example of this right here, but I think for me, what it really brings home is the idea that essentially labels matter. And the language that we use matters as well too. So there's any take home in this, it's that language matters and labels matter here. And so for example, do we have any people who speak Russian in the audience? Okay, nobody. So I'm gonna try to pronounce some Russian words here and I don't speak, I'm not a native Russian speaker, I haven't learned very much, but I've got a couple words here that might potentially demonstrate some of the things. So on your left here, you have in, you know, U.S. education systems here, the primary color system that you learn, your crayons right here and we've got a word for red and yellow and blue and these colors. But on the right is the Russian color system here that they teach to young children here. And so one thing that's interesting here is if you notice in some of the different color schemes right here, they actually have two different words for blue actually. So a lighter blue, goluboy, and a darker blue, sinye, which actually represent the same thing of blue essentially, but they're darker and lighter shades right here. So it's kind of interesting. So like when people grow up with these two different labels here for what, you know, for us is the same color blue here, you know, what does that mean in terms of people's perception and ability to be accurate or not? So interestingly enough, they did an experiment to see like if this kind of, you know, this the labeling of these different colors of blue and a child growing up with that could actually influence people's accuracy in terms of perception. So they did this experiment here. They had two blue squares and they said, you know, can you pick out which one is a correct color? And it turns out actually that the native Russian speakers who learned these different color shades growing up actually were faster at picking out the different shades of blue. And I'm oversimplifying this experiment somewhat, but I think, you know, in this experiment here, this is in the protocols of Natural Academy of Sciences, but it's interesting. So essentially that people growing up with certain labels here can actually influence our ability to accurately perceive these things down the road. So the bottom line here is essentially that labels can really affect how we see the world. And so for us, you know, we're, you know, training radiologists over here as well. And so maybe perhaps, you know, those of us, you know, with kids or, you know, people in educational institutions, maybe if you can teach the young kids different words of gray, maybe that'll help us pick out, you know, some micro calcifications or a focal asymmetry in a mammogram or something a little better. So teach your kids a slate gray, porpoise gray, cadet gray, and maybe that'll be better off for a future radiology. So obviously this talk here and this whole session here, one of the big things is thinking about the diversity of our workforce right here. And in many cases, this, we use different labels to talk about different groups and different terms here. So these are terms here from the NIH here, underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, individuals with disabilities, disadvantaged backgrounds. And ultimately the goal of these things is to improve the health of the populations that experience disparities and improve health outcomes. But one thing that's a potential danger in using some of these labels for different groups is that some of these terms can also have some potential negative associations with them. And you can see these things coming into some of these discussions right here. For example, you talk about at risk students, you talk about disadvantaged, low income, so low socioeconomic status. And there's a risk in using some of these terms, if not used in the proper context, that these things could potentially have negative associations. And the biggest concern, and this is sort of the opposite of what we're talking about ultimately, which is asset-based thinking, is deficit thinking. And I think in thinking about these terms and thinking about that caricature social media post right here, that sometimes when you use terms like this and have these types of labels for people, you could potentially talk about and emphasize perceived weaknesses of students and take control away from students in terms of their ability to shape their own futures. And then also to shift blame away from school systems as well too, who also, school systems and larger educational systems as well too, that bear significant burden in terms of this inequalities here. So I'm gonna use a few examples of here where some of these label things can play out in terms of education. So one of these is right here, and this is a very famous experiment. Many of you have seen the Professor Claude Steele's experiment talking about stereotype threat. And essentially what it did was, and many of you have heard of this example before, but essentially it had undergrads at Stanford, black and white students, they all were matched on SAT score. So they all came in with the same theoretical standardized test, similar abilities for that. And he gave them a verbal part of a GRE test. And, but the thing is when he gave them that verbal section of the GRE test, he labeled the test in two different ways. The first way that he labeled this was, this is a quote unquote, diagnostic test of intellectual ability. The second way he said, this is just a problem solving task. So see if you can complete the problem solving test. And so interestingly enough, in these two different test scenarios here, you saw actually very different results here. You saw basically no disparities or gaps or actually black students performing better in the quote unquote problem solving task. But then when he started talking about intellectual ability and stuff like that too, that you saw significant disparities that are similar to some of the other disparities that we see in some of our standardized testing environments here. And so the bottom line here from that experiment is that worrying about these negative biases can actually harm the performance of our trainees. And interestingly enough, this phenomenon of stereotype threat has been replicated in many settings and for different groups as well. Like things like math tests, golf putting has been tested for stereotype threat, driving tests, athletic skills, and in child care too. And so the bottom line for these stereotype things is that they actually can impact people in two ways. One is they affect those who are labeled. So this activation of the stereotype can decrease people's self-esteem and create emotions of shame and guilt and create this self-fulfilling prophecy in which people perform more poorly. And then it also affects the labelers as well too. And so oftentimes just by putting people in these categories and things, we create these oversimplifications of people's identities. And we create these stereotypes here that oftentimes neglect to really appreciate the differences that are there among us, all of us and amongst individuals as well too. So going through a few more experiments like this and some examples of this and how this sort of plays out and how this might affect student perceptions right here. This was a randomized troll trial that came out of University of Minnesota. And what they did was to see how these kinds of different labels and perceptions could actually impact how people perceive their students. And so what they did was they showed people two different videos. And one of the videos was called a quote unquote achievement gap video. And the other video was a counter-stereotypical video here to have a different sort of narrative here. And so in the achievement gap video, what it showed is a newscast clip that talked about the performance of the wide achievement gap between black and white students. And it had narratives that talked about reduced proficiency on standardized tests of the black students versus the white students right here. So that was the achievement gap video. The other video was a video showing students that promise Harlem children's zone. And so we had black students wearing school uniforms. They were ambitious. They were engaged in sort of a vibrant sort of school environment right here. And so when people are shown these videos right here, the ones who saw this deficit or achievement gap video were less likely to predict that their students would graduate. And then also they actually scored higher on that implicit association test as well too, which is, you know, has its own problems or issues or things. But I think it is, it does suggest some sort of signal with it. And so this is, so there's some very nice like TED talks and resources right here. So this was a nice TED talk here that talks about the concept of labels are for food and not for people here. So if you have about, you know, 12 to 14 minutes or so, it shows some of the potential harmful effects that can come as a result of labeling people and some of the implications in terms of educational context and others as well too. So that's, that's talking about perceptions of students right here, but does this actually impact people's long-term outcomes here? And, and in looking at some of the data from educational institutions, there was one study coming from the National Center for Education Statistics right here that came out of the think tank, the Center for American Progress right here. And what it did is it looked at 10th graders and it looked at the teacher's expectations. So the teacher's expectations were at baseline lower for students from different minority groups and also disadvantaged backgrounds. But, but then the teachers actually who had higher expectations of their students at baseline, actually the students actually were much more likely to graduate from college when they, when they had teachers in 10th grade who had higher expectations of them. So the bottom line is, is one higher expectations can support student success, but the flip side of it is some of these lower expectations and these sort of negative labelings could limit the goals and sort of aspirations of our students, particularly the different groups that are underrepresented in, in our health care workforce. So I'm going to close by talking a little about what asset-based approaches look like and provide some resources for people. But an asset-based approach like the deficit or sort of approach, we all have the same goal of producing people who, who have mastery of learning here, but the asset-based approach really focuses on the strengths of our students right here. And to characterize the differences right here and the asset-based approach, what it's really trying to do is emphasize the, the, the strengths and talents of students. And in comparison with the deficit approaches is really more focused on the different shortcomings of students and things. And, and so in general, in the asset-based approach, it's really focusing on the developing and supporting the internal strengths and experiences of students and the talents that they bring to the table. So it's a much more internally driven process to support the internal strengths and skills of each student versus the deficit base, which is more external and talking about other forces that impact the students. And, and the real idea is to develop those internal assets for students and the experiences and knowledge they bring to the table here. And the goal is of course, to take those strengths and leverage them to unlock the potential of our students and really make sure that we value what our, what our trainees bring. Now, interesting enough, and I'll close here talking a little bit about this approach here. So this, this I focused most on education and the sessions mostly focus on education, but this also plays out in terms of our community outreach approaches as well too. And we saw the fast five session talking about community as participatory research approaches as well. But some of these approaches here can also play out in terms of community outreach. And the idea here is that we want to move away from deficit approaches saying that what's wrong with the community, what are the things, what are the problems going on, and then talk about actually what's right with the community, what are people doing well, what are the strengths we can sort of build upon. And it doesn't say essentially, you know, you're going to stick your head in the sand and pretend like nothing is wrong, but what you're saying is that as we counter some of these barriers and obstacles right here, you really are focusing on taking the strengths that are there within communities and building upon them to support improved health outcomes and general outcomes as well. So this is another really great resource here from the University of Memphis here, which has a real focus on asset based community education and then community outreach as well too. So it has a series of online modules that are helpful for this. So summing things up, inclusive environments is helpful to recruit a diverse and radiology workforce and things like deficit approaches can really perpetuate stereotypes. So these asset based approaches to medical education can really help to support the strengths of our students as individuals and really appreciate what they bring to the table in our healthcare environment. So thank you so much for your attention. I appreciate the opportunity. Good morning, everyone. All right. I hope everybody got some coffee because I'm hoping to bring a little energy to this room. My name is Priyanka Reddy. I am a former family physician and current public health practitioner in Chicago. I work on behalf of the Southwest Organizing Project. We're a small nonprofit, but mighty in Southwest Chicago, and we mainly try to bring underserved communities resources, especially black and brown communities. So I'll talk a little bit about my organization because I think it provides a little bit of context about how we break through with vulnerability in our communities. And SWAP actually formed in 1996 to combat structural racism that we saw in the Southwest side. This started with a lot of white communities moving out to the suburbs and black and brown communities moving into cities, immigrants. So we do this through a community organizing strategy. And I've only been doing this for about three years now when I shifted into public health and someone gave me this job and told a doctor to start community organizing. So I'm going to talk to you a little bit about relational vulnerability today and how to move that in your own cities, in your own practices, and in your work in radiology. So a little bit about the project that we're working on in Chicago is called the Healthy Chicago Equity Zones. It came out of vaccine equity work and now spans six regions in Chicago. You can see it on the map. We're Southwest and we regionally lead the work to organize in Southwest Chicago. This is over 40 organizations that come together. So on a day to day, I meet with priests, school principals, the mayor, and anyone else that you can think of to bring and to connect institutions to pay attention to the people that are not getting the resources that they need. So in terms of relational vulnerability in radiology, we're going to just start talking about how we perceive ourselves in this room. So I just want to show of hands to see how many people feel comfortable being vulnerable with other colleagues or in the workplace. Okay, so it looks like less than half. And I kind of pinpointed that a lot of people that raised their hands, excuse my bias, but looked like they were maybe in training or a little bit on the younger side. And a big part of this work, okay, maybe there was one or two that were older. I'm not biased. But this really shows the generational difference of how we perceive medicine and how we perceive physicians. I think of it as the glass box effect, right? We are taught from a very young age that if we want to go into medicine, that we have to be perfect from the outside. The challenges needs to be just challenging enough, or the hurdles that you've had in your career can't be too outward. Mental health, forget it. Can't even talk about it. So a lot of these struggles are changing. And I've seen this through a lot of colleagues that are in medicine right now, but I think we still have a long way to go. The glass box effect gives you this idea that when people are looking in, everything is perfect. But often on the inside, we're facing challenges every day, whether it's with a patient or a mentor or the director of your program. A lot of people faced challenges even coming into medicine. So why is it important in radiology? This culture of openness can normalize this pathway, this journey. Some of what Dr. Martin talked about of being really aware and being allies to those who can be supported. And the impact that we hope to have on mentorship by being vulnerable is to build that trust and authenticity. It encourages learning from mistakes so these cycles are not repeated. Instead of reprimanding people for their mistakes, learning from them so we can all do better as a collective whole is the goal that we want to push towards when we're talking about emotional resilience. So I know some of you may know about this if you've ever been in a community setting, but we use relational meetings as the primary tool to achieve this goal. Relational meetings are usually one-to-one meetings. They can take place usually 30 minutes to an hour. We prefer to do them in person because we believe that sitting face-to-face brings down some walls just in itself. Sitting behind a computer screen doesn't often offer that. So this one-to-one can be seen when you're sitting across from someone on a one-to-one, you start with your journey, right? What brought you to this moment? What are you passionate about? And most importantly, we try to figure out self-interest. And it's important to talk to yourselves. What is your self-interest in being in radiology, maybe living in the city or the country that you're living in? So once you understand your own self-interest when you're having these one-to-ones, you can really kind of gauge that in the other person as well. So in these one-to-ones, someone else's self-interest may be, I want to go into radiology because of the money. I want to go into it to make sure that we have underrepresented populations at the table. I want to make sure that the people who don't have access to radiological imaging can have it now. So these are all self-interests, but we have self-interest in every part of our lives. And I think uncovering that is really the key to understanding the person sitting across from you. So when you're building these relationships and mentorship, both the mentor, the mentee, or peer mentorships often are not based in understanding someone else's self-interest and what drives them. And the second that you do, you're able to really uncover what means most to that person and what gets them to move, what gets them to drive, what gets them to be passionate about the work that they're doing. So, um, and this is a part of storytelling, like learn your story, tell your story and don't be soft about it. So what are some of the common barriers to vulnerability? Um, power dynamics. Of course, mentors have a level of power. So, um, if you were at my talk last year, I'm sure a couple of you were, but, um, if you were, we talked a little bit about power over versus power with. And power over is the, is the relationship that mentors typically have. But when you think about power, think about how you can build power with someone, right? And this is the main key to it, because if your mentee feels like you're lording power over them, they're less likely to be vulnerable and open up. And that goes both ways. So if it's in a peer mentorship, lower those walls down. Um, think about, you know, how you're being perceived. Um, are you sitting at your director's desk and there's a table between you and the person? Move over to the other side, both sit in patient seats, have that conversation, go out to a cup of coffee. You know, there's so many even body languages and the way that we move that send hundreds of signals. So really be aware of how, how you are moving within the space and how you're interacting with others. Um, in medicine, vulnerability is perceived as weakness. Um, I know when I went through, you know, college, medical school and residency, like all these things really, you have to perceive to be perfect. Um, you know, a personal statement that has just the ounce of like, you know, a challenge, but not too much, right? We don't want to talk about a mental breakdown at all. Um, so, you know, understanding these generational differences, but also opening the door to a good knowledge that all of us in this room are going through, but none of us are willing to talk about it. So that's what I want you to take away today to think about if you open that door, what would you really lose, but gaining the confidence and trust of someone else. So what are some strategies to navigating vulnerability? So start with intentional, active listening. Encourage open questions and validate the mentee's experiences without immediate judgment. Think about we as physicians or mentors think about always jumping into giving advice, right? Maybe take a step back, listen, and ask if the mentee even wants that problem solved. Maybe they just want someone to listen. Maybe they just want, um, you know, a place to go if they don't have anyone else. So, um, model vulnerability. Um, the biggest thing and surprising thing is mentors often expect mentees or peer mentors to just open that the person's just going to open up. If you're able to model your own journey, your own vulnerability, that the real challenges that you have been through versus your personal statement challenges, I think that opens the door for everyone else, whether it's a peer mentor or mentee to get comfortable. Um, create a safe space. Um, I know Dr. Martin talked about this, but emphasize confidentiality and make sure that, um, it's a non-hierarchical collaborative tone when you are talking about this. Um, when you're meeting with mentees, uh, you know, let them drive the conversation and what they want. Um, because I think often we have our own agendas, uh, when we go into these meetings or these mentorships. So think about what is their self-interest in this work. Um, foster regular check-ins. So not just about their journey in radiology, but, you know, are they okay? Are, are they struggling because they're far away from home, um, because they're an international medical graduate? You know, are they, um, struggling with mental health because they just took step one and they never feel like they're going to get to the end of their journey, right? Like these are all relatable things that everyone's gone through, but we don't talk about them enough in a vulnerable way. So what is considered a successful one-to-one meeting? Um, everyone who leaves a one-to-one meeting, you should have a good understanding of what motivates them. What is their self-interest? Make connections to resources who can amplify the work on their journey. Um, Dr. Narayan talked about asset-based approaches and I think that that connects really well in this moment of thinking about, you know, what are the assets of this mentor or mentee and how can we amplify that? You know, not everyone has a perfect resume, right? But how do we amplify the parts of this individual that really shine? For someone, it may be community work. For someone else, it could be research, right? Um, and if there's a demonstrated interest to learn more, you know, do a follow-up one-to-one. I think the greatest signal of a great relational meeting is that someone's like walks away energized, excited, and you know, you hear from them pretty shortly after to be like, let's go get coffee again. Like that was the best conversation I had all week. So some takeaways are start with small acts of openness, be present in the moment, normalize vulnerability, and celebrate those, those shared wins, you know, whether it's for the mentee or the mentor. Long-term benefits. Um, I don't need to tell you guys this. I'm sure everyone's been a mentor in this room, but you're fostering a growth mindset. You're improving your relational leadership skills. Um, and I often think mentors don't get enough out of this, but think about your own insight into yourself, into your own journey, how far you've come. You know, if you were sitting on a bench with your 16 year old self, what would you say to them? You know, the impact of how far you've come in the last 10 years, in the last 20 years. So a lot of this is thinking and reflecting on your own journey. Um, for mentees, you know, you're building confidence. You have clarity on your pathway and a stronger professional, but also personal identity. Sometimes professional identity oversees everything. We forget that we have a personal identity to start with. So how do we get back to that? How are we not enveloped by our careers? Um, and for teams, we can also use relational meetings in a team setting. So in your workplace, you know, how do we have greater cohesion across teams? Have you had a relational one-to-one with your sonographer, with the person that you work every day? Like, do you know their journey, their story? Um, you know, this is not just in mentoring, but I think it can be used in every relationship in your lives. So, um, one of my favorite speakers on vulnerability is Dr. Brene Brown. Um, she's a PhD that does an evidence-based approach to a lot of social concepts. Um, Daring Greatly is one of her books on how to be, uh, how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Um, she also has a TED Talk that you can find for free online. Um, and this is one of the best books I've read in the last 10 years. So if you can pick it up, it's under $10, but totally worth the read. So, um, now I'm going to get you guys a little bit more uncomfortable, and we are going to do an exercise. So I just want everyone to get up out of their seats. And we're going to practice relational vulnerability. So, um, we're going to do a pair share. I would like, um, if mentors, uh, sorry, mentees in the room can raise their hand. Okay. Um, mentors, try to match yourself up with someone who is a mentee. Let's start there. You may have to move for this. Okay. So for those people who do not have a mentor-mentee pairing, I want you to move across the room, pick someone you do not know, and, um, you can have a mentor-mentor, uh, mentor-peer pair share. So let's move across the room, and, um, we're going to have a mentor-peer pair share. So let's move across the room. I don't want to see people being comfortable. I know you know the people sitting next to you. And for the people who are virtual, I don't know if we have anyone virtual, but this time will be spent on reflection questions that will be on the next slide. All right. So a little bit of quiet for just a second. So I give you a little bit of a task. We're going to start with name, pronouns, your current role, why you attended this session, and the mentor's prompt is share a professional challenge you faced early in your career, include emotions you felt and how you overcame it, and keep the tone supportive and empathetic. Um, and this is not your personal statement. It's a real challenge that you've been through recently. Mentee's prompt is reflect on the mentor story, but also share a current challenge you're facing in your professional or personal life. Focus on honesty and openness. All right. Thank you. I hope each one of you took a little bit away, um, of something that you learned or that you can use in your daily life. Um, a big part of one-to-ones in the work is self-reflection. Um, we work so hard as physicians that we're constantly looking forward, and it's important to really take a step back and look back, look in the present, and understand, you know, all the, all the pieces of your journey that contribute to the person that you are. So these are some takeaway self-reflection questions. We don't have time for them now, but I hope that you can take them home and think on them a little. So thank you so much for having me. I'm going to pass it back to Dr. Flores. I just want to say thank you so much, uh, to Dr. Flores for inviting me, um, and also the RSNA Health Equity Committee for being a partner in the community work that we do. Thank you.

culturally aware mentoring

radiology

diversity

asset-based approaches

mentoring relationships

inclusive environments

relational vulnerability

professional growth