Today, we speak with Dr. Lexie\nMannix, Assistant Residency Director at University of Florida, who talks\nabout how the empowerment and negotiation skills she acquired through\nAWAEM helped her in her faculty job search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tell me a little bit about where you are in your career\nright now, and how it was you came to be there?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Absolutely. I am approximately a year\nand a half out of residency. I am currently the assistant residency director\nand assistant clerkship director at the University of Florida College of\nMedicine in Jacksonville in the Department of Emergency Medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: I recently completed a simulation\nfellowship in Chicago at Cook County and Rush University. Now I’m back in\nFlorida, which is where I did my residency. I’ve had so many amazing mentors in\nso many areas of my life that have really helped shape my career and my career\ntrajectory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: That’s from an education standpoint,\nobviously from a clinical standpoint, from a women-in-medicine standpoint, from\na simulation standpoint. I’ve seen the impact that mentors and sponsors really\ncan have on you, and that’s a really big reason why I’m where I am today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: Tell\nme a little bit more about those mentors and sponsors. Did any of them arrive\nfrom your involvement in AWAEM?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Yeah. They have, actually. I started\ngoing and being involved in AWAEM my last year of residency, and was able to go\nto the pre-conference that year, and then this past year. During those meetings\nI’ve met these amazing, fantastic, accomplished, brilliant women who are at\nhigher levels in their career than I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Through those interactions I’ve been\ngiven a lot of opportunities that have helped advance me both personally and\nprofessionally. For example, I am now one of the committee chairs through\nAWAEM, and I was given that opportunity because of my involvement and because\nof the people that I know through AWAEM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: That’s\ngreat. It sounds like some leadership opportunities that have arisen as a\nresult of that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Absolutely. I have been granted so\nmany leadership opportunities because of my involvement with AWAEM, and also\nwith other organizations within SAEM. I’m also involved in the SIM Academy, and\nhave been granted leadership opportunities through that, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: Can\nyou describe a little bit more about how these leadership experiences have been\nbeneficial to you?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Sure. The leadership experiences that\nI’ve had have not only helped me grow professionally, in terms of developing my\nleadership skills, learning to … Well, let’s say, improving my ability to\nspeak in public, but I think the most important thing really has been the\nconnections that I’ve made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: As someone that’s pretty junior in\ntheir career, and even when I was just looking for jobs about a year ago, the\nconnections that I’ve made through academic societies, specifically AWAEM,\nreally helped me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: The networking and the women through\nAWAEM that I knew who were at different institutions really impacted my career\ntrajectory, <\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: Can\nyou describe maybe perhaps specific AWAEM initiatives that were helpful in your\njob search?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Some specific AWAEM initiatives and\/or\nif you want to say lectures or conference events that really helped me was\ndiscussing negotiations. As a very junior faculty member, when I received job\noffers approximately a year ago when I was looking for faculty positions, I\nreally reflected back on some negotiation workshops that I had been to, to\nreally help me negotiate for the best career jobs for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: That’s not just from a pay standpoint,\nbut also from a protected time standpoint, and it really helped me evaluate the\nthings that I value in my job, and in my work life, and ask for those things,\nand ask for those things from my future employers. That workshop specifically\nreally empowered me in that moment, where I don’t feel like I would have felt\nas empowered to ask those questions and ask for those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: Tell\nme how you anticipate the professional needs of women in academic emergency\nmedicine will evolve in the next 10 years?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: For me a lot of my work is with\nundergraduate medical education, so specifically through … with medical\nstudents both through my job and through a side hustle that I have. I do a lot\nof medical student mentoring, and I think that female faculty members are going\nto continue to grow in their mentorship of medical students and residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: That’s an area for me that I’d like to\nfocus on. Partially because we’re still at about 30% of our applicants are\nwomen, and I’m hoping that in the next 10 years our number of female residents\nand medical students that are interested in emergency medicine increases. I\nthink that the faculty members are going to have more opportunities to mentor\nyoung women in emergency medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: That’s\ngreat. How do you think that AWAEM is going to continue to help meet those\nneeds?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: My hope would be that AWAEM helps\nfaculty members through workshops, or through presentations to kind of help\nfaculty members navigate the world of mentoring millennials who are also women.\nBecause I think that there are differences in our younger women that are coming\nup in medicine, and I think that specific mentoring workshops will be really\nbeneficial. I’m saying this as a millennial, just to be clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: Tell\nme a little bit more about your motivation for joining a committee.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Sure. Part of the reason I joined an\nAWAEM committee is because I really believe in the mission of AWAEM, and I\nwanted to find a way to help advance that mission. The committee that I’m on is\nthe regional meeting committee. What we do is we help regional meeting chairs\nconnect with AWAEM member to have them speak at the regional meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Sometimes that is an AWAEM-oriented\ntalk, and other times it\u2019s just increasing the number of female physicians\nspeaking at conferences. I really, one, love the … love what that committee\nis trying to do, so I’m really happy to be involved there. But, also, the way\nthat that kind of fills into the whole AWAEM idea of promotion of women in\nacademic medicine. That’s what really encouraged me to join a committee and\nbecome more involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: Tell\nme about how gender has affected your career development?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: I love this question because I think\nthat we’re really having this conversation, which is how your gender and how\ngender inequities have affected career growth and professional growth for\nwomen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Not to bring up one of my side\nhustles, but I’m gonna do it anyway. Myself and Dr. Melissa Parsons recently\nstarted a website that’s really just a virtual community of practice for women\nin medical training, having the discussion about gender inequities earlier in\nyour medical career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: It’s aimed at pre-medical students,\nmed students, and residencies, and kind of how to navigate this world. The\nconversation that’s happening there, and the conversation that’s happening just\non the internet in general, and affix at the feminine conference, I mean, has been\nreally impactful, hope for a lot of other women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: But for me specifically, I relatively\nrecently wrote a blog post, and this is just kind of a small example of an\nemail I received to myself and my two males co-chiefs. The email was started,\nand it was addressed to Dr. Barr, Dr. Javed, and Lexie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: This person was asking us to do\nsomething as the emergency medicine chief. I think that several things like\nthat really can affect the way that women interact with their surroundings and\nin medicine. That made it seemed like I was devalued to the person that was\nsending this email. They were not asking me as a physician, based on the title\nthat they used. Which is a really small example, but, I mean, we see it every\nday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: I work in a residency program where\n75% of my residents are male, and very often my patients don’t believe that I’m\nthe attending physician. You know, obviously, the resident or the male, whoever\nthey are, that’s standing next to me, whether they be a nurse, or a researcher,\nor a tech, like, they’re obviously the physician.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: That kind of reminds me of one of the\ntalks at FIX where a physician who had transitioned from female to male\ndiscussed how practicing medicine as a female was like playing a video game on\nexpert. Then after his transition practicing as a male was like playing the\nvideo game on easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: I think there are a lot of subtle\nthings that happen on a daily basis, but those subtle things can really build\nup and affect you personally and professionally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: How\ndo you think that AWAEM has translated into greater gender equity in your own\nwork environment?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: I think that for me, personally, like,\nI kind of mentioned, being a part of AWAEM and interacting with the other members\nin AWAEM has just been really empowering for me. I’m not sure if it has changed\nanything at the culture which I work, because I personally feel like the\nculture is very women-friendly, women-promoting where I work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: I think we’ve got most of our administration\npositions, not most, but a reasonable number, probably half are women. I think\nfor me, personally, it’s just really the empowerment and knowing that I have\nother women and all across the country who really have my back when it comes to\nmy career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: One of the things that I really love\nthat AWAEM’s doing that I haven’t even come close to meeting yet is the letter\nwriters, and I’m not exactly what they’re calling it, but the letter-writing\ncommittees, which is basically to help women who are going up for associate or\nfull professor, connect with other AWAEM members who will be willing to help\nwrite a letter for their tenure and promotion, which is huge of someone who is\nalready working towards that even four months into my new academic job. That’s\nsomething that I’m really excited to not only utilize in the future, but then\nbe a part of after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: What\ncareer accomplishment would you say that you’re most proud of?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: The career, I’m gonna say award, that\nI’m most proud of was during my chief year, I was inducted into the Chapman\nChapter of the Gold Humanism Society, but I was the only resident chosen out of\nalmost 400 by the medical students to be selected for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: For me, having people that work under\nme, because our med students at that point were working under me as a resident,\nlook up to me as not only a good clinician and a good educator, but as a person\nthat provides humanistic patient-centered care. It was really thee most\nmeaningful award that I’ve received in my medical career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: That\nis definitely something to be proud of. Congrats.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Thanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: What\nadvice would you give a younger version of yourself, or an AWAEM member at an\nearlier stage of her career?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: If I could look back at myself and\ngive myself or another junior, more junior member to myself, any advice, it\nwould be to become involved in and attend conferences and start networking\nearlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: I started doing those things come my third\nyear of residency, but I feel like I could have gotten so much more out of the\nyears preceding that. But I would also say become involved in things you’re\nreally passionate about, and that you really care about, because if you’re not\nwholeheartedly invested in things you’re not going to do the absolutely best\nwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: To rewind and kind of summarize, it\nwould be to become involved, to attend conferences, to network, and to find\nthings that you’re really passionate about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MLin: Perfect.\nNow I’m gonna ask you to name three other AWAEM members we should interview. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: I’d like to start with Dr. Sara Hock,\nwho is an assistant professor, and the emergency medicine simulation director\nat Rush University in Chicago. She was my assistant fellowship director during\nmy fellowship, obviously. But not only did she help me grow professionally in\nthat time, but she really helped me grow personally, as well. And frequently\nreminded me how to focus on my career trajectory, but also my wellness. She’s\njust an amazing, brilliant human who manages being a mom of two, and a core\nfaculty member, and everything. She’s just … she’s Wonder Woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: The next person I would recommend is\nDr. Melissa Parsons who is basically my partner in crime in all areas of my\nlife. She is also an assistant residency director here at the University of\nFlorida College of Medicine here in Jacksonville. She is my co-founder of\nsheMD, which is our virtual community of practice around gender and medical\neducation, and she’s my best friend. She’s the person that I turn to, whether\nI’m having an issue personally or professionally. She is my human, and I think\nthat things that she’s doing and will be doing over the future of her career\nwill really help impact the future of women in medicine, and emergency medicine\nspecifically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LMannix: Then the last person I’d like to bring\nup is Dr. Liz DeVos, who is an associate professor here at UF College of\nMedicine in Jacksonville. She does a ton of global health work, and is involved\nglobally, obviously. But she’s really been a mentor for me during my junior\ncareer, my residency, and has really helped empower me, and connect me, and\nbring me into conversations that I may not otherwise been brought into.\nHonestly, she’s done the same for Dr. Parsons. She’s really a sponsor of women\nin medicine, and we’re so lucky to have her at our institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n