Lessons from Mark Mullins, MD, PhD
Mark Mullins, MD, PhD is Vice Chair for Education, Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Emory University. In this episode, Mark talks about how he developed a passion for education early in his undergraduate training and how having people skills is very, very useful for educational leaders. Mark's words of wisdom include "just put yourself in position to succeed and you got a better chance of succeeding.", "if you have substance and you don't market yourself, that's a lost opportunity", and "Everybody needs to support the education mission too. We need everybody, for sure. And those people who can at all become the champions for it, we need you. We need you. We need the next generation and the next generation."
Resources
- Teaching | Emory School of Medicine - See the section on "Learning to be Better Teachers"
- Association of University Radiologists
Transcript
Hello listeners, welcome to Educational Landscapes, Lessons from Leaders. On today's episode, we are going to learn from Mark Mullins. Welcome to the show, Mark.
Mark Mullins (:Thank you very much. I'm very happy to be here.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Wonderful. So to get us going, what is your educational leadership title or titles?
Mark Mullins (:I am Vice-Chair for Education in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences. I'm a former clerkship director and former program director. I'm also the person who oversees all of the radiology medical student education for our department, so those are some of the things I do.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Wonderful. I love that all your roles have had different levels of learners and all education related.
Mark Mullins (:Yep. UME, GME, and CME. Yeah, so full circle.
Ulemu Luhanga (:There we go. You truly covered across the continuum, check. So what do you do in your current role?
Mark Mullins (:Yeah, I am about 50% clinical, so I'm a practicing neuroradiologist. And when I'm doing my clinical work, most of the time I am in a teaching capacity. So I have residents and fellows and sometimes medical students, sometimes visiting residents and fellows and other learners. And then the other 50% of the time is a combination of administrative tasks, teaching, a little bit of research. I used to do a lot more research and that's gone a little to the back burner. And then scholarship and leadership and service, so service and leadership has become more of my life as time has gone on.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Okay, so what do you do in terms of leadership and service now?
Mark Mullins (:So locally, I'm on the executive committee for the department, and I run all of our education mission for the department. It's a pretty large enterprise. You can consider that position to be like a chair position for a small department. That's kind of like what it is. And so in some form I'm over all the aspects of what our department does in terms of education.
Mark Mullins (:We have, for example, four residencies, a lot of fellowships, we have a required and elective clerkship. We have a lot of other medical student interactions that would fall under this as well. And then we also have a very robust visiting professor in Grand Rounds program, and we have a few CME courses.
Mark Mullins (:And finally we have a nice library that it all falls under that. And I've got to say, when I was program director I did both the vice-chair role and the program director role at the same time. And then when I stepped down from being program director, I really got to appreciate and engage the vice-chair role in a different way. And that's been a big part of my life since then.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Great. And so as you got to focus in on as vice-chair and you've talked about all those different types of programs, what kind of skills do you use in order to navigate all of that?
Mark Mullins (:Sure, I will say that being very organized helps. I think having people skills is very, very useful. Ironically, I think when people ordinarily think of radiologists, they don't often think of us as having people skills. But we work with people all the time, all the time. And so most of the people I know, I like to think myself too, we have good people skills. In the last few years I've set up or we have set up a dyad. So I have a staff person that I work with, Amy Fiormonte holds that position, and we have a great dyad, that's something that I think works really, really well. So the ability to work in that system.
Mark Mullins (:My one superpower is I know I don't know everything. I'm not threatened at all by having people that are smarter than me around me or that know things I don't know. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, it's a different thing to me. So in fact, I want to surround myself with people better than me. Those are all skills that I think serve me well. And I believe in servant leadership. I'm not here for me, and I want all of these things to thrive when I'm gone. So the idea is that I want to set up robust systems, redundancy, and always getting better.
Mark Mullins (:It's exhausting to always feel like you're trying to get better. I feel that now that I'm a few years behind me, I feel it, but it's just hardwired into me. Don't rest on my laurels and move forward. I think that one of the things I'm trying to do now is enjoy the moments more and enjoy the wins more. Something that early on I just went from what's the next thing to do to what's the next thing to do. They say wisdom is experience with reflection, I'm trying to achieve wisdom and I'm working on it.
Ulemu Luhanga (:I love that, especially that realization about in these types of roles, it's so easy to go, what's the next thing, what's the next thing, what's the next thing? And being able to pause and go, huh, we did that.
Mark Mullins (:Yeah, enjoy the moment.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Indeed. So I know you've given us little snippets talking about being program director, now vice-chair, but I'd love to hear more about what was your journey that led to this current role?
Mark Mullins (:When I was growing up, I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains, and at that point, if you showed academic promise they gave you two choices, doctor or lawyer, choose one. And so I chose doctor. Then I went to college. And a couple of life events occurred and I had the opportunity to add science to what I was doing. And so as an undergraduate, science became a big part of my life. And at that point, innate in doing it was teaching. And then I started teaching as just because it's what everybody did, and I loved it. I enjoyed it. I think I had a knack for it.
Mark Mullins (:I think that it gave me things that I didn't get otherwise in terms of professional satisfaction. And also there's nowhere to hide when you're a teacher. You get exposed. And I never want to make a mistake, so it forced me to work at a higher level. And I like that, I like that. I always want to be better. And so that's how I got started. And then when I went to graduate school, I knew I wanted to go to medical school. I wasn't sure how much of a PhD I wanted to do, but then I did a year after undergrad and I knew I wanted to do a PhD. So I did MD PhD. And of course, again, innate in that is a lot of teaching opportunities. And I started to find great mentors and great role models in some people who suggested that maybe I could make a career out of education. It wasn't very popular as a concept in those days, but I saw some inklings around that, which I thought was very cool. And then eventually went to residency.
Mark Mullins (:When I got into residency, started to have more opportunities to try a lot of different things. And I found that I really enjoyed it. And opportunities started to avail themselves, and I knew I wanted to be an academic person after I finished. And so I looked for positions that would give me opportunities, and opportunities came my way. And I've always tried to exceed expectations and that gave me more opportunities. When I was at my former institution, I was at Mass General, I was an attending. And I'd finished training there, and the opportunity came to come to Emory. I had known about Emory for a long time, and they were recruiting me to come be the clerkship director. They wanted somebody to come in and make a lot of changes and really make it wonderful. And I was like, well, I think I can do that, because I had been the protege for our Robert Novelline, who was an amazing teacher there at Mass General. But I was settled in. I was like, "Well, I think I can do this, but I'm not so interested in moving just for that, just being honest about it."
Mark Mullins (:And they said, "Well, in a few years we think we'll need a program director. And right now that position is attached to a vice-chair role, would you be interested in that?" And I had been to junior faculty development courses where they said, successful people are receptive to non-linear career progression. And I had never thought about being a program director to that point. And then I pulled it apart in my mind, and I thought about what you do and what the skill sets would be and those kind of things. And I thought I could do a good job. So I moved to the new world and came to Emory, and that was 17 years ago.
Mark Mullins (:So I've been here a minute, as they say, and really enjoyed the clerkship director part, the program director part. Huge challenge, but I think it went well. And then the vice-chair role I'm still doing now. So that's how it evolved. And as my career went along, I started to get more opportunities locally and nationally, which is nice too. It's nice. And that brings me to today.
Ulemu Luhanga (:I love that journey, and the fact that, as you said, it was non-linear though there was a thread. And I realized this is the first time that I found out you have an MD PhD. I always thought it was just the MD. So what did you specialize in for the PhD portion?
Mark Mullins (:Chemistry, I did chemistry. And it was physical chemistry, which it was very challenging, but somehow I liked it and it made sense to me. I don't know why. It's just one of those things. It was great. My choices, if you went through and looked at the things I've done over my career, I think there are some threads, but perhaps sometimes it's hard to see the threads until later. And I've just tried to do things that I thought that it would be good for me to do, and that I was passionate about and I really wanted to do it. And once I set sail for the new world, I'm 100%. I'm all in.
Mark Mullins (:And a lot of things have interested me over time. In some way, luck plays an enormous role too. I feel like I'm the Forrest Gump of what I do, just right place at the right time for a lot of things. And that's okay, that's okay. There's that old expression, just put yourself in position to succeed and you got a better chance of succeeding. So we'll see. I've failed at a lot of things, but I'd like to think I've learned from them and moved on. I always put myself out there. I teach my trainees all the time. Was it the Wayne Gretzky quote, you miss all the shots you don't take? Is that one, I don't know. I think that's one of the ones.
Ulemu Luhanga (:It sounds like him.
Mark Mullins (:Yeah, and there's that part of it. I already know I don't know everything. I already know I'm not the best at everything. I already know that. So that's a powerful thing. Still painful to fail, but I learn from those things and hopefully get better.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Indeed, indeed. I love that. And it makes me think too about what you talked about the importance of mentoring and mentors. And that's something that I hear people talk about, oh, it's so important to find mentors, to have mentors. How did you go about doing that? Was it just you reaching out to people or people already in your sphere?
Mark Mullins (:The assigned mentors and mentees rarely work out, I think. And we do it and I continue to do it, and I participate in it. And every now and then it's useful. But even being thoughtful about the links, for example, with our department, when we do it we try to pick people that you wouldn't ordinarily meet, but that might be able to help. There's that part. So I believe in mosaic mentorship, I believe that different people bring different things to that relationship. I didn't come up with these things, these are things that I like. I like the Mosaic mentorship model. I like the idea that being a mentee and a mentor makes you better at both. I like the idea that it's not about age. I like the idea that there can be peer mentoring.
Mark Mullins (:I really like the modern idea of sponsors and advisors being different from mentors. The part about coaching, I'm a former athlete, so coaches to me are people that I had a different relationship with. And the mentors, there's that. So I found people for unofficial mentorship over time, and then sometimes I would ask them actually to be a mentor. And then sometimes it was just that I would ask them advice. And a lot of the people that I interface with, they expect it. There are things that are expected in what we do. For example, being in academia, people expect you to want to get promoted. So when you say, "Hey, I want to get promoted and can you help sponsor me on something." People understand that. And so it's the same thing with the mentorship part. I don't know anyone who's been a successful person without mentors. I don't know anybody like that. And I think that people achieve success faster and at a higher level when they do avail themselves of mentorship. But I learned a long time ago, you can't really construct it, it's got to be organic. You can't really construct it in a way as such that it's going... You can't force it, there's that part.
Mark Mullins (:How did I meet people? I heard some people were good at this, that, or the other thing. My eyes were open, my ears were open when I was on clinical services, doing projects, teaching, that kind of thing. And for example, I would see people teach, and I might see some way that they do things that I really like and I might talk to them about that. Or I might hear somebody's doing a research project and talk to them about it. And then I'm like, I bet this would be a good person to work with. And there's that part too. So sadly, I think that in the modern world, since we're so spread out, that there's not as much role modeling as there used to be. There used to be multiple people in a room, and just organically you would see how everybody does what they do. And that's unfortunately not there as much anymore. It has to be constructed, not insurmountable, just more of a challenge. That's all.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Indeed, indeed. As we deal with the hybrid, the virtual spaces and all of that. Yeah, thank you. Very insightful. I love the nuances in your description of mentoring over time.
Mark Mullins (:You'll be hard-pressed to find someone that has thought more about what they do and how they do it. It's exhausting, but that's who I am. I have a reason, even in my clinical life, I have a reason for doing what I do. And that doesn't mean I'm dogmatic, quite the opposite in fact. I'm always tweaking things based on new information or feedback, but I have philosophies around all sorts of things like that. And honestly, I feel like what's really important there is self-awareness. I value self-awareness very highly, and I'm a practical and pragmatic person as well.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Important combo, that self-awareness and practical.
Mark Mullins (:I try, I try.
Ulemu Luhanga (:So when you think about, as you said, it's been a number of years here at Emory as vice-chair. As you reflect back, since we are now wiser, what do you wish you knew before stepping into this combined role that eventually became your dedicated thing?
Mark Mullins (:I think that there's a couple of things that when you're young, you don't quite understand. So there's the technical aspect of how things work, how does the world work and each of the worlds that you're in. And of course, things are going to change over time, but there're going to be some big sweeping concepts. Like for example, to get promoted, people at other places are going to need to tell your place that you're worth promoting. And they need to get to know you one way or another. So reputation, maybe you publish a lot or maybe you present at meetings or what have you. But I think when I first started, I'm a very friendly person, but networking didn't seem maybe as important as it does now. So I think that it may have a negative connotation to some people, but I think like everything else in life, there's a lot of how you do it in addition to what you're doing.
Mark Mullins (:And so I feel like if you have substance and you don't market yourself, that's a lost opportunity. I also feel like if you don't have substance and you market yourself, that's tantamount to evil. So I don't like that at all. But if you have substance, like you're good at what you do and you work hard. And nowadays, you get the sponsors to help you too to get you more opportunities and put yourself out there. I think that's part of it when I first started. Also what I looked at as worthwhile to spend my time on, scholarship, those kind of things. When I first started, it was very scientific, it was very basic science, it was very bench work, it was very these kind of things. And now I have a very, very, very broad sense of what's worthwhile. If I feel like I can benefit from it, if I feel like somebody else can benefit from it, I think it's worth working on. And worth writing up and worth giving a lecture about. Those are some things that I think the young me needed to transition to be a little more worldly.
Mark Mullins (:And I think a lot of life we try to deal with what's right in front of us. And so maybe that was experience, maybe it was time, I don't know, but it opened up my shutters to be able to see more than what was right in front of me. I think that that's good too. And reading books and getting advice from mentors and what have you. And now that I'm a lot more senior, one of the things that comes up is you eventually have to learn to say no. When you're early on in your career, you generally say yes to a lot of opportunities and then things get a little out of hand quickly. And you need to learn to say no. And there's that part. And then the next part is not everything can get your full attention or get 100% of what you do. I think when you first start out, you're like, everything I do, I do 100%. And you probably do that, and then you can't sustain that. So for example, email management, when I hear people talk about managing their emails, the really, really successful people, I hear them oftentimes say they do email once a day. And then they have a whole way of dealing with it that they only try to deal with the important stuff and all of that, different solutions.
Mark Mullins (:So I think the young me, I would tell that at some point it's going to transition. And you need to be ready for that moment. And the same thing is at some point you're going to have to say no and just be ready for that moment. But then I think also I made some good choices too. So for example, doing things that I cared about, it worked out, I'm very happy with my career and I wasn't sure it would work out. So for example, people would ask me to do things that no one else wanted to do, and I just thought it was cool. So I did it, and I want to be helpful. I really want to be helpful. I want people to think, oh, that was really helpful. That's what I want people to think, that I did a good job of it and that I'm helpful.
Mark Mullins (:And ultimately, for example, my list of lectures that I've done of topics, when people ask me to do a talk and I'll give them a list of lectures I've already given. It's two pages long, and in the old days, they would tell you to find an niche and fill it or create an niche and fill it, and be the person that they think of for X, whatever X is. And I just tried to be the best at what I was given the opportunities to do, and there's where hopefully the threads came together. And it worked out. So I think that's another thing I tell myself is doing a great job of what you do and picking passion projects, and being passionate about a lot of things, that can work out too. It doesn't have to be all on one topic. And I made a career as an educator, which back in the day I wasn't sure I would be able to do that. That's been cool too. I would tell myself, it's okay, those two things are okay, you're going to be okay.
Ulemu Luhanga (:I love that. Especially because you're right, when I think back to the career of a scientist, no one said, oh yeah, you can totally do that, but be an educator. And so I think that's really important. And the passion and the range of passions that you have. Which comes to my next question then, given your broad range of passions, what continuing professional development do you do to keep up with the needs of your role?
Mark Mullins (:Every year I go to our national education focused meeting, which is AUR, so every year. And I volunteer and I'm actively involved, and I try to go every year. So I learn things, it gets my batteries recharged, gets my creative side going. I get to see other people who are my people. You go there and you're part of a community where people are into what you're into, and they love doing what you do and they're passionate about the same things and that kind of stuff.
Mark Mullins (:Every few years here I go to the Learning to be Better Teachers Workshop. I went this year, and some of my colleagues, I made them nervous because I was there. And I was like, I need this just like everybody else needs this. This is good. I want to do that. I try to be actively involved in peer learning and try to get feedback from everywhere. And I try to work on my craft, my trade craft, and then also get feedback from peers and stuff like that about these things as well.
Mark Mullins (:And being involved locally and nationally in leadership positions and service helps as well because you stay with it. And then finally, like I said, I put myself out there all the time. So every single scan I look at with a trainee, I try to put myself out there every time and I try to teach in every instance. And each one of those eventually helps you stay up and continue to work on it. Those are things I do.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Great. And I know, built into that as we've been talking, you had, as you reflected, some advice for past you. What additional advice would you give someone interested in doing the same type of roles that you've had?
Mark Mullins (:I think that first and foremost, if you're a physician, you've got to be great clinically. If you're not, it undermines everything else. So you've got to make sure if you're a clinician, you've got to do that part. Then you pivot and you say, okay, I'm going to make my education side, my teaching side, to be as good as it can be. I think, again, know yourself, and then invite feedback all the time. I have modified so many things about how I do what I do based on feedback. Painful. Painful, but useful, and ultimately makes you better. And I always want to be better, so there's that part of it. And the thing that differentiates, I'm doing resident recruitment, and they say what differentiates really successful residents? I would say the top of the list is that they take advantage of opportunities. Either they see an opportunity that other people have seen that they didn't do, or there's an opportunity that nobody else saw that they take advantage of. That differentiates people.
Mark Mullins (:And I like to think early on I did a lot of that. Now I do it, but just not as often I would say as I used to. But when you're getting into it, I think that's good. And then volunteer. If you want to be a speaker at a particular conference, find out who's in charge of picking the speakers and reach out to them. The vast majority of the people that I deal with love volunteers. The reason that they may be a little reticent to have someone cold-call them is that they may not know that you're trustworthy, you're going to do a good job, you're going to show up, all of those things. That's where your sponsors are helpful, having references and people who can say that.
Mark Mullins (:And in the modern world, a lot of people have their work on the internet, a lot of stuff has been taped or there's stuff being published or what have you. Or maybe a little interview to go through it. But volunteering opens a lot of doors, and at the least of it it's a numbers game. At the least you need to put yourself out there 10 times, and maybe it works once or twice. That's great. You don't need a lot of things to work, you just need a few things to work well. When you're first starting, you just need a few things. So you got that part. And so then eventually, I think you get more opportunities when you do that. And one thing that changed for me was I thought I was going to move up some ladders that I just didn't. And then some other ladders appeared that I didn't know were even there. And then I moved up those ladders, which just by starting doing things and putting myself out there, if you want to say it's like a video game or something, it's kind of like that. It's just what it feels like in retrospect, but just put yourself out there and do those things.
Mark Mullins (:Figuring out what to take advantage of is one of the things to talk to a mentor about. They may have ideas and they may help you think about the perspective. For example, if you turn down an opportunity, will it ever come back with this person or this particular society? And then the other part is some of those things may evolve into sponsorship where they put you up for things, which is helpful I think too.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Thank you. And building off of this idea of mentors and sponsors, and how important that is, how do you view succession planning?
Mark Mullins (:I believe that, and again, I'll just pull on the thread I started earlier, I want things to thrive when I'm gone. So part of it is putting in great standard operating procedures, redundancy, getting systems to really work for you. But I realize everything needs a champion. Ultimately, someone has to be the champion for everything we do. So we have to understand what that is. I also believe that we should have a vice champion or a co-champion for a lot of reasons. One of them is people need to learn the ropes. Even if they don't ever take that position, it's building bench strength, it's giving people recognition for what they're doing, and it gives them opportunity. So two touchpoints for me in life are fairness and opportunity. Those are really big for me.
Mark Mullins (:And so creating vice-chair positions, creating those number two positions is just the right thing to do. And I have lobbied, not only do we do that in our department, I'm really big on that, but I've lobbied several of our national groups to do it, and they have done it as well. So I'm very proud about that. And in a moment, doing what I do, I realize the fragility of health, and someone may need to step in. I also realize that some things can wait a day or a week and some things can't. So again, having someone around is really helpful.
Mark Mullins (:When I first came here, one of the first things I did was I worked on creating coverage for myself for my non-clinical roles. And people were shocked. They were like, nobody's ever done this before. They were like, wow, we know exactly who to go to. And I was like, it just seemed like the right thing to do to me. And so having a vice-chair or someone who's defacto the number two for a clerkship director or whatever, is organically, there's that built in. So there's that part as well.
Ulemu Luhanga (:I love that. I think as you said, especially as we get older, we recognize that we're not here forever as well. So I love that you early on built that in. So it's like throughout your career, succession planning has just been a core of what you do.
Mark Mullins (:I just thought it's the right thing to do, and it's turned out that that's been useful. So that's good too. And I believe in developing people, and so it just organically fits in. And I also believe in giving people credit for what they're doing. So there may be people who are helping out, Hey, let's make them the vice-chair or whatever. How do we do that?
Ulemu Luhanga (:I love that. The recognition for all the different people that are working. So thinking about you and potential recognition for the things that you've done, what has contributed to your biggest successes thus far?
Mark Mullins (:I am very proud of what we have done in terms of building the education mission in our department while still maintaining our sense of self. I didn't want us to become number one on some list and lose who we were, because the culture that we have is next level special. Collegial, collaborative, friendly, helpful in the context of excellence. And I thought, that's so special, I don't want to lose that. And so building the education mission, diversifying our portfolio, so to speak, of what we do, and giving a lot of people opportunities to do good and do well. I'm very, very happy about that. And all of the successes that people have had individually and as groups, I think that's wonderful.
Mark Mullins (:Education to me, it's like the pebble in the pond and the ripple effect, and it's an investment. So I'm very happy about that. When I used to do in-person interviews for leadership positions, I have a big poster of the education mission, of an org chart, and I tell people, "This doesn't just happen. You have to make this happen." And as the person who flies the education flag, I'm still trying to make it happen. I think as a teacher, we're constantly interviewing for our own jobs. And radiology, where's radiology on the curriculum? And just like as radiologists, we're always interviewing for our own jobs. And that keeps us sharp, keeps me sharp. So I'm proud that we've been able to achieve this excellence, still maintain our wonderful culture, and move up in the world without losing ourselves.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Wonderful, wonderful indeed. And I recognize through this conversation, we've talked a lot about different growth opportunities. And so as you reflect and where you're at now, what would you say are your biggest growth opportunities still?
Mark Mullins (:I would say that me personally, I'm at a point where I'm trying to figure out what comes next. I think that when you become senior, it's hard. Because it's made a lot more sense up until the time you become professor and things like that. And then after that, then what do you do?
Mark Mullins (:And if I was mentoring myself, I know what I would say about all of these things, but it's hard when it's you. It's hard for me to hear those things. For example, people would ask me, well, what do you like to do? What do you like about what you currently do? What do you want to do more of? And then what are the opportunities you're looking at and thinking about? And those things don't align. And I'm like, you're exactly right. Because again, I think a lot of things are very linear. So for example, when you're a medical student, you think about being a resident. When you're a resident, you think about being a fellow. And you're a fellow, you think about being an attending, and so on and so on. So very linearly, it would be chair or assistant or associate dean or something like that. And I think I could do a really good job of those jobs, but is that what's next? Or if I don't do those things, then is that okay? Because I've always pushed, so pushed myself, is that okay?
Mark Mullins (:It's hard, it's deceptively hard. And seemingly I think people don't focus on this locally, regionally, and nationally per se, which makes perfect sense. You want to focus on the future and the next generation. I totally agree. But then it's interesting for someone in a senior position to figure it out. Now, another thing people will say, well, why don't you do this or Why don't you do that? And you put yourself out there, and the opportunities as you move up the pyramid are fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer. So statistically it's harder. And so you may be interested in doing it, but it's not going to happen. And I certainly know that there is no such thing as deserve or earn or fairness or whatever. It's just the way it is. All right. So that's where I am currently, and I'm still trying to figure it out. When I stepped down from being program director, I threw myself into the vice-chair role, which is great and I love it. But it's probably now where I'm trying to figure out what's next. I think I maybe have one or two more chapters before I retire. I think I have more to give, but we'll see. Each stage, each epic in my career, and I assume everybody else's career, it's so hard to understand it in the moment. And then later on it makes a lot more sense, but in the moment it's very hard to understand it as to how things work and what the next step is and stuff like that. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I don't know what's going to be next. I don't know, we'll see. We'll see.
Ulemu Luhanga (:The journey continues.
Mark Mullins (:The journey continues, yeah.
Ulemu Luhanga (:So when you think about all of the amazing things that you've done, what would you say you love most about your work and what you do?
Mark Mullins (:I love to work at the 30,000 foot view level, and I love to get my hands dirty. So I love to think really big and I love to do things. So for example, being part of groups that are trying to figure out the big questions is exciting to me. And then teaching at the workstation and writing a new lecture and teaching in the classroom, love that. Absolutely love that. So I think that a lot of life nowadays is spent in the middle, pushing paper and dealing with this, that, and the other thing. And so that part is a challenge, but it's not new, and I've been working with it for years and it's not unique to me. So stuff like that.
Ulemu Luhanga (:I love that. I love to tell people I like to zoom in and zoom out.
Mark Mullins (:That's it, that's it, that's it. Yeah, that's totally me too. Yeah, absolutely. Again, knowing yourself is very helpful, very, very helpful. Not easy to do, but very helpful.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Indeed, indeed. So overall, reflecting on your experiences to date, how would you describe what your passions are around education?
Mark Mullins (:I think that I like the idea of doing good and doing well, and being in academic medicine gives me a chance to do both seemingly simultaneously. So what we do is I think it's important. I'm a human being. I utilize healthcare. I understand innately why that it's important doing what we do. But aside from all of that, I always remember that the people we're taking care of are human beings, and I always try to bring my very best to every circumstance. That's what I'm trying to do in the teaching scenario at the same time. Again, exhausting. So every single scan that I look at, I'm a radiologist, so every single scan I look at with a trainee, with a resident or a fellow, I'm trying to give that patient my very best and I'm trying to give that trainee my very best. Those are things that I don't skimp on.
Mark Mullins (:There are plenty of other things I'm ignoring in those moments, like email and whatever. There's a million other things, but I'm trying to bring my A game to both of those. And that is a form of passion. And I know people feel it, like when they spend time with me on a rotation, they can feel the excitement about, okay, this is important work. We're doing a great job, let's continue to do a great job. And this is fascinating stuff. Maybe a scan will be normal and we'll go through some anatomy, and it's just fascinating everything you can see. So that fascination part of it too. To me, the four pillars of radiology are anatomy, pathology, physiology, and technology. And so I'm passionate about all four of them. And I think radiology is basically an amalgam of all of those and gives you a way to express yourself through professional work.
Mark Mullins (:And the education piece organically fits in with me as you go through it. I also think that, again, everything needs champions. And the teaching mission, the education mission needs champions, and I'm not the leader. If they wanted me to be the leader, I'd be the leader, that's fine. But I'm more than happy to follow. When Dr. Melzer was here as our dean, and she was a great influence on me and I learned so many things from her. I was very lucky she was here. So I will say that at one point she told me that it was surprising to her that I was okay being a follower in a particular capacity. And I told her, "I'm glad to lead. I'm glad to follow, just whatever's needed. I'm glad to do both." And I would like to think I've done a good job at both. So I don't have a preset feeling of like, oh, I have to be this or I have to be that per se. So I think that that opens up these kind of opportunities as you go through it.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Indeed. I love that idea of being a champion, whether you're the leader or the follower.
Mark Mullins (:If you want to talk about the pyramid and inverted pyramid and those kind of things where people have put it into a construct, but you just said the essence of it, which is basically that's how I look at it too.
Ulemu Luhanga (:So I recognize you are more than your career. So what are some things you do outside of work to help maintain your joy in life and practice?
Mark Mullins (:I appreciate the question for sure. Not only because of the era we live in right now. I will say that the way I think about it is it's a marathon, not a sprint. I know that more now than ever. And I work really hard on trying to get better at what you just asked. I don't have it figured out, but I do have some things that work for me. So for example, there's a trail that I go on and it is elevated, and most of it is covered by canopy. And the outdoor time, the alone time, being in nature, exercise, fresh air, all of those things have been transformative for me personally.
Mark Mullins (:Many years ago, I quit caffeine, tea, and synthetic sugars in a health kick, and I miss coffee every single day of my life since then. As I sit here and talk about, it in my head it reminds me of the hold it had on me. There are a few things like that, but I don't just eat healthy food. So one of the things I do for my approach to food is I think about everything that I'm eating. I try not to distract myself. I try not to eat while I'm watching television or something. Or I see so many people looking at their phones while they're eating, and I try not to do any of that. I try to just concentrate and just be in the moment. And I don't eat things I don't like, those things have worked really well for me. I meditate every day. That's been good. I've liked that. I tried yoga, it did not work for me. It didn't work out. That's okay. Not everything works.
Mark Mullins (:I'm at an age too where life events, they're piling up. And everything I go through is kind of the first time I've ever gone through it, and it's so odd. It's such an odd sensation each time, even though technically I know part of it's my training, but you might read about it, you might talk to people, but it's still an odd sensation every time. And they start to add up. And I'm doing my best not to overthink it, which is very hard. If you've been paying attention to me, it's very hard for me to get out of my head. That's why on my walks I usually walk for an hour, and it takes me a good half an hour to get out of my head. And then it's really good. In the past, I used to have professional meetings in some place I'd have to drive, and it would take about five, six hours to drive there. And after about an hour of driving, I'd get out of my head. And that was good. It was good.
Mark Mullins (:There are things I can do, like exercise or whatever to get out of my head. And then finally, I do love pop culture stuff. Anything that is as far from reality as possible, people flying through the air, spaceships, anything like that. Because my life is reality. I want to escape a little bit. So I like anything like that. It's kind of fun. And through all of those things, I've been able to find a way to spend time with my family and friends. I'm married to another physician. I think that's helped a lot, especially because we started our journey pre duty hours. But we understand each other in that way, which is good. And it's been good.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Good. Those were my questions for today's session. And before I release you so that you can get out of your head, any last words of wisdom for aspiring educators or educational leaders?
Mark Mullins (:I think that it's super important for anyone who has the inkling to make education a priority to do that. It takes a village, as they say, we need people who do every aspect of interface, the 360 degree in every direction interface with a university, academic medicine to be involved. Some of those people will become teachers, some of them will become educators. Some of them will become leaders, and some won't. Some will be researchers, some will be administrators, some will be chairs, and some will be deans. We need everybody.
Mark Mullins (:So when I'm talking to aspiring faculty members, again, going back to before, I say you got to be great clinically. And then pick one of the other areas to be great in, whether it's education or research or leadership and service. And then don't be bad at the others. Support the other missions. And for the people who are like us who are going to say, education's going to be my life. Great, that's awesome. That's going to be, I'm like, clinical practice, education, great. But we need everybody, so we need everybody on the team. Just like I try to support the research mission, I try to support the leadership, I try to support the service missions.
Mark Mullins (:Everybody needs to support the education mission too. We need everybody, for sure. And those people who can at all become the champions for it, we need you. We need you. We need the next generation and the next generation. Everybody just needs to realize you have it inside you. We can work on the rest. When I talk to my mentees, I say, "There's two things that will take you a long, long way in life, and you have to have the spark. I can fan the flames, but you have to have the spark." One is being self-, wanting to do things. It's a form of ambition, but wanting to get involved, wanting to volunteer, that part of it. Motivation, if you will. You have to be self-motivated. Again, I can get somebody fired up in my office, and be like, by the time they reach the end of the hall, it's worn off. They need to have that part of it. The other part is a joy of learning or a love of learning. Just intellectually thinking to yourself, I want to learn more about that. Those two things will take you so far, and people have to have it. If they have those two things, I can work with the rest of it. I can teach somebody how to put together a lecture and how to give it, and how to teach at the workstation and how to write a paper. And I'm glad to teach people all those things. It's just like if you have the spark and you're like, I think I can become one of those champions, then do it. And I can assure you, if I can do it, anybody can do it. So I'll leave it there.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Thank you so much, Mark, for sharing your spark with us today.
Mark Mullins (:You're welcome. Thanks for the opportunity. It's a really cool series. I was listening to some of the other podcasts, and I'm very honored to be here. Thanks a lot.
Ulemu Luhanga (:Most welcome.
