Your Unapologetic Career® Podcast

Dr. Brewer is a preventive cardiologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and a health equity researcher focused on the development of community-based interventions to promote cardiovascular health, in underserved and minoritized racial and ethnic groups.  Her work incorporates community-based participatory research approaches and innovative digital health solutions. She is the first African...

Decisions, decisions, decisions. In decision-making, there are two common feelings that lead people to make choices for their careers that they later regret.  This matters because the series of decisions we make is *the* difference between enjoying or suffering through our career.  I want us all to be aware of these two feelings so that we can interrupt the pattern. This episode is short and sweet...

When we are struggling to find fulfillment in our work, there is often a disconnect between what we say we want and a scary truth - at the core, we believe what we want is impossible. At the end of the day, we have to make a way out of no way.  So how do you actually do this? Listen in as I offer you four steps to do so. Let's go!    Have a topic you want me to cover on the podcast? To submit...

You are a high-achieving, bad*ss woman. You work hard and you prove yourself, time and again. And then – first slowly, but then in major ways – you start to feel TRAPPED. How is this happening? Does success mean you have to suffer?  The Talent Trap is real and in many ways is the fossil fuel on which academic medicine runs. But just like fossil fuels, the resource is finite, inefficient, and bad f...

When unpleasant things happen, especially interpersonally, a part of us righteously stands up in defense of ourselves. We need to uphold our boundaries and yet the fog of anger can also lead to less than ideal decisions.  So if popping off is not the answer, how do you get out of a space of reacting and into responding?  In this episode, I'll walk you through three steps I take to be unapolog...

Conversations around “stealing ideas” are common in academic medicine, public health, and allied fields. An important question that's often left out of the conversations is why idea theft is even a thing in our field?  In this episode, I talk about a direct link between common advice that we tell our early-career faculty and how it contributes to this culture of "stealing ideas".  I...

 Our faculty titles mean so much, after working so hard to achieve them. Seeing that email signature with “....Professor” next to your name is such a celebration. It’s also *quite* vague. The same title encompasses many different day-to-day jobs. And therein lies the challenge and the vulnerability. You're really excited to have it, but you're not really doing the work or the research th...

I hope we have all had an experience that seemed downright MAGICAL. The ones where we have no idea how something happened, but it clearly did because the results are undeniable. It’s like magic! Well, this is often the feedback we get about our coaching program, Get That Grant. When coaching people in the GTG Coaching Program, they're experiencing the coaching but they don't see all that...

Dr. Melisa Wong is a thoracic medical oncologist and geriatric oncology clinician-investigator at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Melisa’s research aims to transform cancer care for older adults—to help patients clarify their goals and values in the face of uncertainty and support oncologists to keep these truths at the core of the care they provide.   Melisa directs the UCSF O...

I have been waiting to talk about this topic for a while and the time is now.  There is a lot of nonsense that gets said to early-career faculty, especially women of color, in academic medicine and public health in the guise of ‘advice’. Lots of it is harmless, but some things are not – they stick, they get under the skin, and it’s not okay.  If you’ve ever heard any of these, I hope this episode...

When the consistent experience of our work as high-achieving women of color faculty in academic medicine is one of challenge, compromise, and struggle, this leads to us having a distorted view of the actual work that we are doing. When we are in that distorted view and we start making decisions, we make terrible decisions.   Please, please, please, don't do this. There is a solution to the di...

Dr. Autumn Ivy is a physician-scientist and assistant professor on the tenure track at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. She is clinically trained as a child neurologist and also has a PhD in neurobiology. Her work examines epigenetic mechanisms of early-life exercise, and how that can influence brain development and function with a focus on those mechanisms in disorders of...

Who has ever bitten off WAY more than they can chew?! “I said yes to WHAT?!” #Relatable.  When this happens our first instinct is often to put our heads down, focus, and Get It Done By any means. But maybe, you may have started to realize that grinding it out is really not the best tactic.   Here’s what I offer instead. Take a listen and let’s go!   To submit your Listener Letter, send an email to...

In-person conferences are back and while some of us love them, they can be a dreaded event for others.     If you are in the latter camp or would just like some new strategies to help you prepare for conferences, enjoy yourself while there and return home refreshed, then this episode is for you.  To submit your Listener Letter, send an email to podcast@kdollcoach.com with your question, and let’s...

I've been doing this podcast for a YEAR. Wow. Reflection is a powerful tool for personal growth. It helps you to not only download your thoughts to clarify what you're actually thinking but it also allows you to see, honor, and celebrate your growth - and hone in on opportunities to improve. Are you new to reflection or looking for new ways of reflecting? In this episode, I am doing a re...

Dr. Jin Kim-Mozeleski is an Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University in the School of Medicine in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences. Her work examines social determinants of health behaviors and health behavior change and she applies that to the study of tobacco use and tobacco-related health disparity.  She is also an alumnae of our Get That Grant coachin...

The real question is does academic medicine deserve Black women? (Answer – no). However, let’s talk about it.  To submit your Listener Letter, send an email to podcast@kdollcoach.com with your question, and let’s go! 🎧 🎙53 Is Academic medicine worth it for Black women? (Listener Letter #4) Check out this week’s episode of Your Unapologetic Career today! Text Dr. Kemi directly.

Questioning your identity within your academic career is not uncommon. In many ways, the training we endure to get to a faculty position strips us of our internal definition of identity, offering an institution-based definition in its place. Without the awareness that this question might be lurking, we can set ourselves up for unhelpful behavior and thought patterns that persist for years. Listen...

As high-achieving women of color in academic medicine, public health, or allied fields we all have a vision for our life. In fact, we have a big audacious vision. This vision we have for our careers is what got us to where we are, yet we tend to minimize that vision for several reasons.  In this episode, I want to focus on three reasons why we minimize our vision and what we can do to move past it...

Is your goal to own, protect, and execute on your value? Do you want to build a career based on the perspective that you bring and the impact that you know your work can have on the world?  Is your goal to build a career that renews and excites you? Then there are three non-negotiable skills that you need to master. Without these skills, your career becomes one of frustration, resentment, restrict...

Dr. Eugenia C. South is an Assistant Professor at Penn Medicine, Faculty Director of the Urban Health Lab, and Vice Chair for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in the Department of Emergency Medicine. Her work focuses on dismantling structural racism through research and action. She is also an alumnae of our (one-time only!) Reclaim Retreat and the Get That Grant coaching program.  Take a listen to...

When you've experienced negative consequences as a BIPOC woman trying to use your agency, you may feel like you only have two choices. You can stay and settle for a substandard career or you can quit. I want to invite you to consider other options and move beyond an institutional mindset. It is possible to be proactive and intentional about your next career steps.   Listen in as I demonstrate...

Today let's talk about some Taboo Topics! Mentors and Money. Power dynamics are real in academic medicine and often the most important conversations get shut down because we don’t know how to have them and frankly, we don’t know what we don’t know.   This week, we’re talking about what it means to optimize your relationships with mentors and leaders beyond the superficial. For money, we'...

Do you ever feel like you have to re-learn things to REALLY get it?  This is definitely the norm for me. Recently three unrelated situations came up and I gleaned some valuable reminders that I want to emphasize for myself and for you, my Pod Peeps so that we keep them top of mind.  Ready to find out what they are? Let's go.      Do you have a question or topic ideas for the podcast? To submi...

Dr. Bertha Hidalgo is an Associate Professor with Tenure, genetic epidemiologist, and science communicator at the University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Public Health. Her work focuses on genomic risk assessment of cardiometabolic diseases and public health messaging in the COVID19 pandemic. She is also an alumnae of the Get That Grant coaching program and an ongoing amazing coaching client. ...