Lessons from Linda Orkin Lewin, MD

Ulemu Luhanga: 00:03

Hello listeners, welcome to Educational Landscapes: Lessons From Leaders. On today's episode, we are going to learn from Linda Orkin Lewin. Welcome to the show, Linda.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 00:15

Thanks, Ulemu. So happy to be here.

Ulemu Luhanga: 00:18

All right. So to get us going, what is your education leadership title right now?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 00:26

Well, that's a little complicated. Somehow I have a few. I am, as you well know, the co-director of the Woodruff Health Educators Academy, being that you are my co-director. I am also the co-editor in chief of the soon-to-be launched education journal in the health sciences at Emory, which is called Intersections, which everybody will hopefully see in the next few months. And I also have a teaching role in the School of Medicine. I'm called an education consultant. And those are my titles at the moment.

Ulemu Luhanga: 01:02

Wonderful. I love the breadth of stuff that fall under your titles. So, can you tell us a bit more about what you do in these different roles?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 01:13

Well, I seem to be involved in education at pretty much every possible level. So at the highest level, again, as you are well aware, I've been involved in developing the academy, as well as the journal, and doing strategic planning around each of them. So, thinking about how to create sustainable organizations, what their mission should be, how they should be funded, and all of those very high level kinds of tasks. A little bit closer to the ground, I get to help plan what each of those organizations does. So, planning the fellowships in the academy, working with the other editorial staff on the journal to create the policies and procedures that are going to let that actually function. And then even closer to the ground, I actually get to teach from time to time, which is super fun. I teach a third year medical student every week about, well, childcare, which reminds me that I am a pediatrician by training, which is near and dear to me.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 02:28

And I teach in some of the education programs through the academy, as well as other faculty development offerings across the health sciences at Emory. So, I have my fingers in education pretty much at every level, and it keeps me very busy, but very interested.

Ulemu Luhanga: 02:47

I love that. I love that. So given the range of things that you do, as you said, different levels, different types of learners, what skills do you use in your roles?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 03:00

I was thinking about this earlier and I was trying to think of skills that I don't use in these roles. The thing that I don't do exactly is clinical reasoning anymore because sadly, I don't see patients right now, but I'm fairly certain that the clinical reasoning skill set is similar to problem solving that I do do quite frequently in my other roles. So, I need to use organizational skills and communication skills, written skills, as well as spoken communication skills, teaching skills, pretty much all of the skills you can think of. And I try to always deploy all of them well, but I do have to prot them all out quite frequently.

Ulemu Luhanga: 03:46

I love that. So, you've got a nice toolbox that you sample from as needed?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 03:51

As needed, exactly.

Ulemu Luhanga: 03:53

Wonderful. So, what was your journey that led to these current roles?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 03:59

Well, I'm sure that this podcast is not long enough for me to go all the way back to when this all first started, but suffice it to say that I was a general pediatrician who had no intention of being an educator, but found myself recruited by my chair in my first faculty role to work on an education program, a primary care track that was being developed for medical students. And I found in that program, mentorship, which was really, really important, as well as the ability to be really creative in a way that I just hadn't really imagined before. And so I really got the education bug. And I did a lot of work in that institution, and I did other kinds of education work in the next institution, and have basically wherever I've gone, and this is the third place now, Emory is my third institution, looked for education work that really is important to change something in the institution. So, not just continue to teach something that someone else did teach, but find a place where developing something new can really enhance the education programs.

Ulemu Luhanga: 05:17

That is amazing. What do you wish you knew before stepping into these roles?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 05:27

Well, stupid as it might sound, I wish I knew education was a thing. When one is a medical student and then a resident, teaching happens, and it seems to just happen by the people who are doing the work. And at least back in my day, nobody told anybody that education was actually a science and that there was something that you could learn that would help you do it better. And so I spent my first many years thinking of my education work as kind of tasks to be done. And it was creative and it was very fun, but I didn't understand that I could use what was already known in the field of education to help me go forward. And it took me a while, perhaps longer than it should have, but I eventually got there, it took me a little while to figure that out. In addition, that it took a while for me to understand the scholarship that could come from being an educator.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 06:29

And so I know at least at Emory, there's a resident education track. There are other education programs. I believe all residents now have to learn something about teaching. And I think that's really a good thing because people now have some idea that this is actually a field that they can focus on and not just sort of fall into like I did.

Ulemu Luhanga: 06:55

That's wonderful. And I think that's really important as you're highlighting because you did specialize in pediatrics, and then teaching became a really large part of the work that you do. So in thinking about that, what continuing professional development have you done or do you currently do to help keep you up to date with the things that you got to do in your role?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 07:24

Well, I was very lucky early on that my mentor in my first job suggested that I attend the Harvard Macy Institute for a course that at the time was called the physician educator Course, which is now, I believe, the health professions education course, because it's expanded greatly since then. But this was many years ago, I dare say decades ago. And that was where I really began to learn that there was some science behind education, and that there were other people who were actually thinking about the same things that I was, which was fabulous. So, that was my first introduction to career development or education around educating. And since then, I also have attended another Harvard Macy course, as well as workshops and seminars and things like that at national meetings that I attend. Currently, I go to the Association of American Medical Colleges meetings almost every year where I get to see people who are doing all kinds of education work, as well as other academic medicine work, which is really great.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 08:39

And I attend the most amazing thing. We call it summer camp, and this is a symposium. It's the Health Profession's Educators Summer Symposium, which is an interprofessional meeting for educators across health professions who want to think more deeply about what education is and can be for our future professions. In the past, I've also gone to meetings more specifically for pediatric clerkship directors because I was one of those for a decade or so, meetings for pediatric program directors because I was involved in residency training and other meetings like that. So, a whole variety of settings where educators gather and talk about their work.

Ulemu Luhanga: 09:30

That's wonderful. So, one of the things that you mentioned was your co-editor of the new journal at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center level. You've also mentioned that scholarship is a really important piece that you've also learned about. Did you find that you were able to learn, in those same spaces, about educational scholarship, or did you have to find that learning elsewhere?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 09:57

Well, learning about educational scholarship frankly happened on the job, because as many educators do, early on, I would help develop something and we would present it to our learners. And they would love it, and they would do well on whatever assessment we did. And then we would think, oh, that was great. We should publish it. And found quickly that we maybe didn't think in advance about exactly what data we wanted about the learners or about their outcomes, or whatever. And I had a lot of rejections, a lot more rejections in those days, not that I don't get my fair share now. But it took getting reviews about those things and being asked to be a reviewer for some journals to really start thinking, wait a second, if I'm going to create something that I might want to study, what do I really need to know? And how can I set it up in advance? So, it was very much learning on the job.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 11:00

And it makes me feel a little guilty because I teach this now to people, and I feel like a little bit of a fraud, as sometimes people do, because I didn't have a lot of training in this myself. I kind of learned it as I went. And as you know when I get to the statistics, I always need help.

Ulemu Luhanga: 11:25

I think experiential learning is just as important as didactic or theoretical learning. So, I think it comes together pretty well.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 11:34

Yeah.

Ulemu Luhanga: 11:35

All right. So, then thinking about, as you said, the journey that you've had and the different things that you're currently doing, how do you view succession planning as it relates to education and education leadership?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 11:52

I think succession planning has become more important to me, clearly as I've moved on in my career, but especially because I've had two jobs before my current job where I had to leave and leave the work to somebody else. And came to find out that if I hadn't thought in advance about who could do that job, that I would feel like I was leaving things sort of up in the air and was unsure that they would even continue. And so I think that that's something that's been important to me here at Emory, also because I'm at the ladder end of my career, and so it's more predictable that eventually I might retire and need somebody or a group of people to be coming up behind me and us.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 12:45

So, I think it's really important to include younger educators in the work that we all do so that they start to learn the lessons that I all just mentioned and can get their toes wet and can see how other people do the job so that they can develop their own skills and their own styles and so forth and are ready to move forward and take over or expand what we're already doing and enhance the education program that's going on. And having been in three different institutions, I've seen three different times in three different ways how people who are education leaders can sometimes be so ensconced in their work and so devoted to it that they don't always think who's going to do this after me? And it's really, I think, important to do that.

Ulemu Luhanga: 13:46

Absolutely. Absolutely. So as you reflect on your career to date, what do you feel contributed to your biggest successes?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 14:02

There's an excellent question. I think I've been the most successful when I've had a picture of something in my head that I wanted to happen or to exist, and I just looked for ways to get there. And they didn't always turn out to be what I thought they were going to be, but I think for me, the most exciting thing is the creativity part about it. And so thinking of what I want to create with partners, of course, like you and I thinking about the academy, and then thinking, okay, that's a beautiful vision. How on earth are we going to do that? And then figuring it out. And I think that kind of... I'm not sure what the right word is, but it's that that is really... When I've been successful, it's been because I've found ways to make the thing I wanted to happen happen with lots of help from lots of other people.

Ulemu Luhanga: 15:13

Absolutely. I love, as you're describing, it's that idea of the vision. And not just leaving it at the vision, but really from that vision, really thinking through a plan for implementation and then seeing it through. Love that.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 15:29

It's great. It's great when it works out.

Ulemu Luhanga: 15:31

Indeed, indeed. And as they say, sometimes even when a fail happens, it's a learning experience.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 15:38

That is definitely true.

Ulemu Luhanga: 15:40

Yep. Yep, yep. So, what then, as you also reflect on your career and work to date, are or were your biggest growth opportunities?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 15:55

I have to say none of them were exactly my choice, but my biggest growth opportunities were the times that I changed institutions and went someplace new, because in a new setting, one has the opportunity to sort of break out of the view of the world that one had before and really just look at everything anew, and a whole new set of people, a whole new set of circumstances and opportunities. And so my biggest growth has happened when I left my first institution for the second and the second for Emory. And although I might not have chosen those changes, I certainly would never regret them. Each one has led me to do things that have been fabulous and that I wouldn't have ever dreamed of.

Ulemu Luhanga: 16:46

That's wonderful. You've moved forward with... I think a lot of us have a fear of the unknown, and you embraced that.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 16:55

I didn't have a choice.

Ulemu Luhanga: 16:57

Yes. Yes. Yes. So, as you think about those experiences and what you're doing now, what do you love most about your work and what you do?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 17:17

I love the people I work with, all of them. That would include you, of course, at the top of the list. I love feeling like the work I'm doing is moving something forward in the institution that will last. So, creating an academy, creating a journal, these are things that I hope and I've tried to work towards making them things that will remain after I'm retired, when I'm home playing with my grandchildren all day. And that really is important to me. That's really, really important.

Ulemu Luhanga: 17:58

That's wonderful. Wonderful. So, we're coming to the last set of questions here. And so now thinking overall and reflecting on your experiences to date, what are your passions around education? How would you describe them?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 18:17

I think the point of education, and it's been said by many people more eloquently than me, but isn't so much to teach people as to help them learn or support them in their learning. And over the years I've been very interested, as you know, in professional identity formation and identity formation in general. And I think what we do, aside from provide a lot of facts and figures and so forth that our learners have to embrace, but we want to do it in a way that allows them to become the physician or nurse or health professional, whichever one it is, that they are meant to be. So, I think over time, I've come to see that the content of what we teach is really important, but the process is, I think, more important, to give people the opportunity to learn who they are and to become who they are or they are meant to be.

Ulemu Luhanga: 19:27

Wonderful. Thank you for sharing. And so my last kind of core question, recognizing that you are more than what you are at work as you are a whole holistic person, what is one thing you do outside of work to help maintain joy in life and practice?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 19:51

One thing? Well, almost all the things are family related. I'm waiting for my first grandchild, which is why I mentioned grandchildren before, and I'm very excited about that. I guess the things I do for me, I do a little yoga, I knit. I've been on a socks kind of journey recently, and that's been fun. And I like to spend time with my friends, often outside walking or exercising in some way. And I think those are the things outside of family that really keep me grounded. But my two children and my son-in-law, and my husband and my very obnoxious but adorable dog are probably the most important things to me, and keep me very busy somehow, even though many of them don't live with me anymore.

Ulemu Luhanga: 20:46

I love that. So, those were my core questions. Any last lessons from leaders you want to share with the audience?

Linda Orkin Lewin: 20:59

I don't think so. I appreciate your asking me to be interviewed. And I think for any educator listening to this, if you've made it all the way to the end, congratulations, and never underestimate what you can do. I think sometimes educators feel very underappreciated, which is sometimes true, and under-resourced, which is often true. But there's a lot that we can do as educators within even the confines in which we find ourselves. And so try to find colleagues who you can work with, who you love, and important topics that you want to teach about that are passions of yours. And just stick with it because there's nothing better.

Ulemu Luhanga: 21:50

Thank you. Those was a wonderful wise words to close out the session. Thank you again.

Linda Orkin Lewin: 21:56

My pleasure. Thank you.