Heme Consults: For Women of Color in Hematology

If you are going to gather a group of people together to give you feedback on something important, get very specific with your request so that they know exactly what you need. Otherwise, they don't know how to help you and you don't get much from the experience. Mentoring committees can be successful; but only if you decide to get the most out of your experience.

A mentor can be both wonderful AND not the right mentor for you. Sometimes, this gap exists because they don't believe that a person like you can succeed in the way you want to succeed. And for this reason, they give you the only gift they can give you - the gift of their unbelief. Leave unbelieving mentors behind so that you can soar to become the amazing person only you can be.

When we accept the lie of scarcity, we can justify anything. We can justify abuse, hiding information, hoarding resources, stealing ideas, and treating people poorly. By accepting the lie of scarcity, we start to work to make scarcity our personal truth. Instead, we must believe the truth of abundance, which releases us to get creative about finding what we need. It helps us take actions that don’...

After a career-defining experience, you have the opportunity to stop and fight for the career you really want. The career you really believe in. No one can fight this battle for you. Only you understand the dream you are fighting for and the reason for which you came into hematology. Therefore, you stand and fight because your career vision is worth fighting for.

Sometimes betrayal and disappointment happen in a space in which you least expected it. This experience stings and can sometimes leave you broken. Take time to grieve your loss and walk through the pain until you come to your place of healing. Your healing will come and you will find yourself to be a better person because of the pain you have experienced.

To give life to the people around you, you need to have life in you. But if you are working on projects that drain life out of you, you will not have much to give. Let go of the things that drain you so that you have life to pour out into those around you.

There is so much more to us, beyond our medical careers, and we've got to start to apply our power in those areas of our lives so that those parts can get strong. It's time to use your power to begin to strengthen the other areas of your life that need strengthening. Look forward to the future and discover your legacy.

If you're gonna play, make up your own game. Make up your own rules and set the prize as you - a better version of the self you started with. Play a game where at the end you are a supercharged, super-accelerated version of the you.

When you are in competition with other people, you can never win. The only competition that doesn't hurt you is the competition you do against yourself. When you measure yourself against the person you want to be. It's the only competition that doesn't hurt you because it's sustainable

Choose who you become; because out of who you are flows what you do. Therefore, first choose who you become and then decide what actions make sense for the kind of person you have chosen to be. When you choose who you become, there are things you stop tolerating and voices you stop listening to. When you choose who you become, you get to make a contribution to this world that defines your greatnes...

The presence of blood is a sign that someone has experienced pain or has, at a minimum, been made uncomfortable. It is a sign of sacrifice. You are here in hematology because someone paid the price for you to be here. In turn, you pay the price so that someone else can benefit from your being here. And when you pay the price, make sure you pay it in a space where it counts.

You are not a woman of color until you leave your safe spaces enter into the spaces where people look at you funny. Until you occupy the spaces where people ask you if you are in the right place; where they double and triple check your credentials. You become a woman of color when you say, "challenge accepted" and use your color superpower for good.

You decide who you become. You may have people slap labels on you; but they don't have the final say. You do. You may not know who you are yet. And it's OK because you are in transition. Transition is a beautiful space where you emerge to uncover what will become your powerful contribution in hematology.

To create life, you need to come closer to discover the truth of a person’s inner potential. Discovering the truth takes time, effort, and sacrifice. But it also allows you to see this person as a unique individual. It will cause you to recognize the truth that there is not one box that fits this person. Give people space to become the truth of who they want to become. Create life by looking to th...

To recover your true narrative, take control of the sound in your environment. Silence every negative sound over your life. Amplify the sound of truth until it drowns out all other sound.

You are enough! You don't need to change to be accepted. Who you are, right now, in this moment, without change, is enough. Yes, you are still growing and transforming on the inside; but you don't need to be anything more than you are to be accepted. Anyone who requires that you change before they accept you is not worthy of you. Find those spaces in which people celebrate you because you are wort...

The responsibility for your career advancement lies with you. But you don't yet know what you don't know. So, how can your career advance like it should when you don't have all the information you need? My friend, it is time to look around your darkness, imagine the possibilities, and declare, "Let there be light!"

You have creative power to transform your career in hematology. Right now, your career in hematology may be full of things you hate. But in the middle of all the things you hate is something, no matter how small, that you love. What you love can be expanded through the use of your creative power. Yes, you have the creative power to take the seed of potential that exists in your career and turn it...

Dear woman of color in hematology, Heme Consults is your personal space to rest, recharge, and renew your spirit with a weekly infusion of inspiration from hematologist, Dr. Toyosi Onwuemene. Every Sunday, Dr. Onwuemene will remind you that you are a superstar and have everything you need to succeed in your incredible career as a hematologist. Welcome to the hematology sisterhood that will transfo...