Seeking Advice from Colleagues

This is Lab Medicine Rounds, a curated podcast for physicians, laboratory professionals and students. I'm your host, Justin Kreuter, the bow tie bandit of blood, a transfusion medicine pathologist at Mayo Clinic. Today we're rounding with Dr. Nour Al-Mozain, a hematopathologist and transfusion medicine consultant at King Faisal's Specialist Hospital in Riyad Saudi Arabia to talk and help us talk about how do we reach out to colleagues for help. Thanks for joining us today, Dr. Al-Mozain.

Thank you, Dr. Kreuter, for inviting me. It really feels special to be a guest at my favorite podcast. . We're glad to have you. Grateful to have you. I mean, I think this topic of how do we reach out to colleagues is one of themaybe as we're in training as part of the hidden curriculum that isn't exactly explicitly talked about. And I've seen different approaches people have taken and I've always admired your approach.

Maybe you can get us started with what are a few of the reasons why you have reached out to colleagues for advice? Oh, thank you. You like my way in approaching the advice? Actually, there're not a few, there're a bunch of reasons why I do seek advice. I deeply inside myself, I strongly believe that the world is more complex than I can see by my own eyes. I always have this strong desire to see things from multiple different angles. I always want to know what other things about things.

And I have multi-perspective approach to things. And in generalit is embedded in my mindset to. I strongly believe in a proverb, Arabic proverb, I'll say that translationin Englishif you're only guided by your books, you'll be more wrong than right and on multiple levelsaccording to what type of guidance you're receiving, you'll develop professionally, personally, spiritually. Wow. So I, I really, you know,

for our target audience for this podcast, right? I mean, this really, I thinkresonates for physicians and practicereaching out to, to colleagues, those of usin the laboratory as professionals.

We always have to understand what is the clinical significance of what we're dealing with. And then for students too being able to see this in our colleagues, and I think that's what this podcast is calling a little attention to for the learners that listen to pay particular attention when colleagues ask each other for advice. So what are a few of the challenges that you've had to navigate while, while reaching out to try to find this different perspective?

I imaginea couple of challenges can come up from time to time. Yes, of course. Dr. Justin actuallythank you for identifying this as a challenging process because many people assume that this is a passiveprocess, but not, in reality, it's not.

I'll say thatthe first challenge is you need to deeply understand yourself what you want to get from this advice and what you need to precisely identify the problem, recognize it, be aware of your blind spots and knowledge gap, acknowledge your limitation and solving certain problems. And on the other side, you need to be psychologically and emotionally prepared to be open to receiving the advice. Andthat's a bit tricky because we are humans.

We feel strong about our opinions and how we feel and we need to be open to accept the advice in times when it contradicts what we see or our views or our desires. The second challenge would be, in my view, is identifying the right person or the people around you who can

guide you through certain problem. And because it's a challenging it is a very sophisticated process in which you need to build and sustain relationship and trust with them. Wow. I hear you. So when you dive into the problem, and you mentioned the idea, this concept of being aware of our blind spot that's really a big challenge probably for a lot of us. I know, especially myself for the first several years in practice, I was just constantly building on my strengths and my interests and then one

day I kind of woke up and realized that I was, I was missing a whole aspect that I really needed to focus on. How do you work on maintaining awareness of where your blind spots are? So this is not an easy process. It comes with practice. And the more you grow, the more you realize that world is not black and white, and there are much more to it. I wouldn't say 50 shades of gray,

I would say five hundreds. And it is you would identify them by knowing your limitation and actually defining your knowledge, the gaps, and your knowledge and experience. I see. So that's something that kind of comes with the practice that you're Yeah. You're developing. It's a self skill. Yeah. Is there something kind of in your training or a point that you can kind of really put your finger on to say, you know, this really kind of set me on the right course to always be mindful of

my blind spots? Well, I don't think there is something in a training course or a guidance that will tell you that, look, this is how you identify your blind spots, but it really comes with practice and it comes of you becomingmore understanding of yourself. Mm-hmm. and more aware of your, I mean, what you know and what you don't know. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And one of the things you, another thing you brought up was, you know, finding the right people to mm-hmm. to reach out to.

And what I also heard in your answer there was this concept of networking and you're probably doing that I imagine with conferences and the like, and are there how are you building this kind of network of colleagues that you can reach out to? Probably the first thing is not to be shy or not to be afraid to be stigmatized of being less knowledgeable.

You have to accept the idea that you are less knowledgeable than others andnot necessarily your inferior to others, but because you are aware that there are certain peoples that they have, there are certain people with certain expertise and you need to connect with them to gain some experience. Yeah. You know, there's this concept now of brave learning environments and yeah I hear a lot of bravery in your answer to go into something.

And I mean, that's really, when we're looking for advice for something, we're looking for advice from somebody who's more knowledgeablehat really is important for us to, to be brave in those situations. For sure. Yes. Turning back to the advice you get, I imagine sometimes when you go for advice, and I imagine over time you've gotten better because you've been more targeted in with your practice, but I imagine sometimes the advice could be helpful and sometimes it maybe is

not as as helpful. And I'm kind of curious, how do you set yourself up for success in getting a helpful answer? The first thing is, do you need to identify the challenges? You need to as I mentioned earlier, just to identify what are your blind spots and to deal with that and navigate through that finding the right person is also the next thing on how to get the right advice.

And sometimes you're in a situation, you're reaching to a person who you used to get an advice, but the topic you're reaching out for is a conflict of interest for them. So, it it is your role here to identify that and probably not to seek that advice from that certain person because of this certain conflict of interest just in just to maintain this relationship. The other thing is not to seek an advice for self-validation or for opinion validation.

Because I do think this has happened repeatedly in a row with the same person. And the other person or the, the person who's giving an advice repeatedly felt that he's not heard or he's not listened to, that would create trust issues. And that will, in the long run, damage the relationship between both of you. I knew you were the right person to ask for on this topic. Thank you. Because this concept of, I thinkyou know, that's another interesting thing, this idea of conflicts of interest.

A lot of the time I see the, in many cases, the experts in a field, right? Especially in, when you get into subspecialty work, the the experts in the field will often be, you know, involved inresearch work with various pharmaceutical companies and, and they might have that conflict of interest. So you've just added another layer of sophistication, thoughtfulness, you know, intentionas well.

And I like your idea about not seeking out advice for opinion validation that seems morelike you knowit's using the network with you know, it's, it's not really necessary to, to use it. So I really appreciate that. Now, you know, we have a mixed audience listening to us, and I'm kind of curious you know, what advice do you have for early career healthcare professionals about

asking for advice? We've heard a little bit about your process, we've heard a little bit about pitfalls, and then gratefully to hear about kind of the next levelthoughts that you have going into this. What sort of advice do you have for people that are just getting started? My advice is if you don't have a mentor or a person in your life was giving you an adviceit's time to find one. Definitely seek advice can be a tremendously helpful resource.

You're never too late or too old to ask for advice. Whatever you reach on your professional or social life, it'll definitely help on your professional and social bredth and developing your leadership skills. So I mean, having an advice would, would let you overcome a lot of pitfalls and spend, I mean, to save more of, more energy and time and probably focus on how to leave an impact on things that you are doing. It's brilliant.

I really appreciate how you connected this concept of how we seek advice to things that a lot of us as young professionals in the field are interested in, such as developing ourselves as leadersmovingand making progress in our local environments. And I think this is advice that probably all three of our listeners can reallycan really think about and take to heart whether we are clinicians in practice, laboratory professionals, or students. Sure, sure.

No one succeeds alone with success by the people around us who help us in achieving our goals. We've been rounding with Dr. Al Mozain. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk about how do we seek advice with intentionality. How do we move beyond, as your proverb said, move beyond just that book learning to appreciate the different perspectives. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here with you today. And thank you to our listeners. Thank you for joining us today.

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