Dr. Jia Ng: Academic Pressure Valve

Academia can be a pressure cooker.   Prioritizing sleep and choosing an identity/mindshift shift can be the release valve.

Dr. Jia Ng is a nephrologist and researcher at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/ Northwell who suffered from exhaustion and imposter syndrome during training, and is now the founder of PublishedMD, where she coaches docs on how to publish research and achieve academic goals without the overwhelm.   

https://www.publishedmd.com/

Please join the discussion at Mind Surfer MD on Facebook! 

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MSMD-Jia Ng Academic Pressure Valve - 3:23:22, 9.12 AM

Wed, 3/23 · 9:21 AM

26:10
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
publish writing doctor physician
identity shift
patients sleep roadmap academic joy blueprint paper mission stress imposter syndrome program director program find doctor

Welcome to mind surfer MD. I'm your host, Dr. Liz Treynor. And my mission is to normalize discussions about mental health and provide resources to those of us who are riding the waves. So let's dive in. I have a guest that I'm so excited to meet today, Dr. Jia Ng. She is an academic nephrologist who practices at Hofstra University, and I'm excited to introduce you because she is passionate about helping doc  publish academic papers without the overwhelm. Dr. Ng, thank you for being here this morning. How are you?
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Speaker 2
0:50
I'm good. Thank you so much, Dr. Liz, I'm very, very happy to be here chatting with you.
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Speaker 1
0:56
I would love to hear a little bit about your background. How did you come to this mission? And, you know, I'm always interested in the angle of wellness, right. And so the overwhelm, and the stress of being an academia is enormous, right? It's a lifestyle choice that I did not make, I chose not to have that overwhelming stress. And I'm very happy with that choice. But I also felt that is something that I could never do, and to have you as somebody that could perhaps guide us to achieve something that will be immortal. Right? Because if you when you publish your ideas out there, that's immortality, and I just, I just have so much respect, and I'm just so excited to talk to you about how we can help our listeners become immortal.
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Speaker 2
1:52
Thank you. Yes, you're absolutely right. It's the being immortal, the legacy, even self worth. These are important values that are very, very human that we all crave for. And, and so the trick is sometimes how do we apply that with our day to day work without feeling overwhelmed with stress? And so so kind of my background, is I, I went into research thinking, you know, I just want to get my ideas out, you know, research ideas, but then realize that there's a lot more to research than just the study design, you know, you need to navigate a publication process, but lifestyle skill, how do you how do you get all your things done? When you have competing responsibilities in patients, writing, recruiting patients, you know, all these come into the mix. And I was not ready for it. I probably had guidance, but I wasn't ready to take on, I wasn't navigating it myself. And so I came out of my master's program, I did training in clinical epidemiology, with zero publication, can you imagine that a research fellow with zero publication, so I thought my career is going to come, I had a second chance. Getting into an academic program, which is my current program, and they said, you know, we believe in you, we're going to invest in you. And we're going to let you write and publish papers in the next few years. And see, see what happens. Not too much pressure. And that, you know, just having that nurture, allowing me to, like breathe. Yeah, I was able to fly. Right, I was finally able to thrive. And not just by doing nothing, but having the stress and pressure taken off. Now, I feel like, you know, what, they they invested me in me, they believe in me, that means let me see what I can do to get to that point. And then like, the whole thing change, because the pressures of having nurture, and after going through, like, what? A master's program? Yeah, good. So three years, I took coaching, I took courses, I get people to teach me how to write. Now I've kind of crossed through that path. Like no, I can publish papers. I actually enjoy writing. I don't write during the weekends. I don't write after hours. This is what we have achieved. So healthy. Right, right. Exactly. So I feel the pain and my mission is to help clinicians, academic clinicians who want to get to that level without the stress and overwhelm so that's kind of why I went into the to this mission
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Speaker 1
4:44
Yeah, wonderful and and how fortunate to find a position where you were given that opportunity without the stress, like how God I feel like finding that unicorn for Vision is almost fundamental. And, and yet, it sounds like you've been able to figure out a roadmap that even most of the academic physicians who are not in that kind of uniform position
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Speaker 2
5:16
could use to be able to publish in
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Speaker 1
5:23
a way that allows them to do it with the freedom and the absence of that pressure, which can be so paralyzing. You know, for me, it was like, just, I don't even want to play that game. For me. I was just like I am. Out. But to have to have a roadmap to say, look, it's not that hard. It's like cooking, you do ABCD this is how you do it. Yeah. So anyway, I would love to talk more about how you're able to, to boil that down to help overwhelm and and I also wanted to hear a little bit before we even do that about your background. Because I know that
6:07
it, you know,
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Speaker 1
6:09
like you were saying, it hasn't always been easy, right, like, and so tell me a little bit more about about your background. So I,
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Speaker 2
6:18
I would say it's a lot of changes happened during fellowship. I just had the view my second child, six months old, and then it was a long commute, your dresser
6:31
and itself right behind but
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Speaker 2
6:37
yeah, you know, you're trying to nurse, you're trying to be an efficient fellow, using a lot of patience. But what I was trying to do is when I was tired, I tried to work more thinking that if I'm inefficient, let me work longer hours so that I could catch up. And because of that cycle, round and round, I started to sleep less in my attendings were noticing that I was getting inefficient, like my my colleagues, my co fellows will always come in around 630, they are done, they leave by 430. But no, I'm always in by 530. Because I need to, I need to be preparing because I was inefficient. And then I'm not done with my notes until seven o'clock Yankel.
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Speaker 1
7:25
Our brains don't work, when we're tired. They don't work. They don't work. Sleep is so fundamental for our mental health. I mean, we cannot emphasize that enough that it's absolutely just critical. It's just critical. I remember when I was doing gross anatomy, our wonderful instructor at one point was coming around and he said something to the effect of, you know, you got to pause to take off the dull blade to put on the new one. Because you'll cut so much faster. So recognizing that and stopping and getting that sleep. And starting the next day when you're more efficient. I know it's not. It's hard to do that in the fellowship position. But anyway, tell me tell me more. So how
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Speaker 2
8:13
do you know that's absolutely correct, because I just as I said, the cycle just kept happening and an intervention happened because I was like dozing off in the middle of midsentence.
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Speaker 1
8:25
What's an intervention? Like what what does that mean? So my program director called me and said, You know,
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Speaker 2
8:32
I think you're not you're not doing well, but I think what you need to do is rest he just told me, I don't want you to come in for the next two weeks. It's your research your research, elective time. Don't come in except for maybe the core clinic. That's it. Don't Don't bother about lecture. Don't worry about any of that. Just rest so I, I felt very wrong. I felt like somebody punched me in my guts. And I like my imposter syndrome came out like people found out that I don't qualify was a really good program, University of Pennsylvania.
9:03
And I Oh, wow. Like, Oh, yeah.
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Speaker 2
9:06
But I have no choice. So I rested, I did laundry. I slept and slept and so when I came back, I'm like, wow, I was a
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Speaker 1
9:12
laundry can be therapeutic laundry and dishes can be reputed, believe it or not.
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Speaker 2
9:19
And because I slept just when I came back, I was able to write my goals faster. I was able to round faster. It was like that trumpet click. I just need to see you I can't push myself further in recognizing that it's so important.
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Speaker 1
9:39
What a gift to the program where they were able to recognize that and give you that time. Yeah, because that is not always the case. Right and and
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Speaker 2
9:49
that's time I felt the opposite needed time. I was really upset. But like a week later, I went to my program director's office and I just could not stop crying. See Thank you so much. Thank you so, so much for letting me even go through this in being candid and honest and letting us because I didn't recognize it be recognized.
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Speaker 1
10:10
Yeah, there's, there's, there's a quote, I just came across that that I that I love that is often the best bridge between despair and hope is a good night's sleep. And that's from the guy who wrote why we sleep. His name is Walker. But yeah, best. Often the best bridge is just as simple as a solid night's sleep. And again, for you to get that gift is just, I'm a fan of UPenn. Okay, and we just say, program rocks. Yeah, but wow. Yeah, sleep is so important. And, and then, and then again, the gift of allowing you in your, your later years to have the freedom to publish, because you have the mentors, you have the mentorship that supported you. Which I think is also also critical. And I guess, I that's something that I also recommend to my kids is to really find a mentor in college because that's I was at Stanford, and that I also kind of had this imposter syndrome, where I felt like, oh, my gosh, you know, everybody here is so much smarter than I am and never kind of had the courage to find that mentorship. And I think if, if, if I had, maybe, maybe I maybe I would have stayed in academia, and you know, I. But on the other hand, we're talking about sleep. And I love working three days a week, I highly recommend that if anybody's available to work three days a week, because I just really does a pathologist, I am able to get the shot, I bet my brain really, really needs. So right. Yes, and that. But I Yeah, but I want to hear more about how your program works. Because you offer like a coaching program, you offer a roadmap. Can you can you talk a little bit about about that?
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Speaker 2
12:11
Yes. So I'm on a mission to change the mindset, I think the first thing is always the mindset. And you don't want to do it through this, the culture of academia where you have to do over work. And so the first thing I always preach is, we have to identify ourselves as a professional writer. Number one, why is the identity so important is because when you identify as a writer, you do the right you do, what writers do, they work they write during work hours, not after hours, that's number one. And number two, how you identify yourself is how you show up for your writing time, your writing schedule, you don't do it, treat it like a hobby, you know, not during weekends, not between clinic patients, you do it properly, you treat a writing session as as important as how you show up for your patient. This is how you shop for your science. So that's like the first thing, knowing this identity is very important. Then the second thing is also realize that the number of hours you work does not equate to the productivity. That because writing is a very carthon the boy right? Is so cognitively demanding that a four hour session, your brain is like gone done. You can't do anymore. Okay, so So you can't like keep it to the end. And instead what you should be doing is only right, doing that very important our way your brain is the most clear. And the rest of the time if you're done. Don't get triggered a few emails, call patients back, you know, because you're using a different part of your brain. And that will energize thinking. So that's my two main things about the writing mindset. And I think once you shift that things fall in place, much much easier.
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Speaker 1
14:15
Yeah, yeah. No, I love this. I love this. And Dr. Jia, the identity shift. I am a professional writer, and to carve out that time and use that time only when you're able to do that deep work. There's a book that I recently read called Deep Work that that I highly recommend all sorts of wonderful book to come out which book Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So and he talks about that and he's also very good about shutdown complete, you know, at the end of end of your day, your shutdown is complete, turn off your computer, and you could be with your family and be in the deep love phase of your day. But, but yeah, I the identity shift. The mindset shift, I think is is profound. And will it you know, and that's it's it's the same with everything, right? It's like, even for exercise, it's like, Okay, I am an athlete. It's like my identity. I work out every single day, because that's critical for my sanity. But as I feel better, and food tastes better, but having that identity shift about whatever it is that we're trying to incorporate into our lives. I think it's very powerful.
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Speaker 2
15:27
Yeah. Yeah, completely agree. Yes. Yeah. As you say, even as an athlete, I also identify as somebody who exercises regularly. So I do it everyday. Because it's, I don't know, when people say woo or anything, but just because I do it every day. I feel like, I'm powerful. I'm that type of person who gets strong. I'm strong back. Like,
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Speaker 1
15:51
I feel this is like me, every time we do it, this is like me, this is this is what I do. owning that. Incorporating that the identity shift is so motivating. Right? Yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 2
16:04
And stuff. After you have the identity shift, then what what I, what I tell my students are now you just need a roadmap. You know, you just need a roadmap. Academic Writing is a skill that you can learn. Like, if you went through medical school and can learn crap cycle, you can look back.
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Speaker 1
16:25
You know, like podcasting is a skill people like, I believe me. It's taken me a year to get out here. But yes, yes. But yeah, but having having that roadmap, and your program provides that. And I would love for our listeners to be able to reach you. Do you offer a masterclass where they can kind of get a taste of what you offer? And yeah, so how do we find you?
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Speaker 2
16:54
So I am having a master class on March 29? At 530 Eastern time. Oh, my gosh, this
17:01
is so great. All right. 529 to 8:30pm
17:07
Yes,
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Speaker 1
17:08
you some time. Okay. So 530 For those of us in California, like me. Great, great. Again, march 27.
17:18
Tuesday is a Tuesday. Okay.
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Speaker 1
17:20
Okay, one of my off days, I could do it. Oh, yes.
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Speaker 2
17:24
And it's on how to publish your paper without filling out with less time and we don't feel anymore. Oh, I love it.
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Speaker 1
17:32
I love it. I love it. And then is there a website where people can sign up for that? Or how,
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Speaker 2
17:39
um, I have a registration link would I know it's is a zoom link. So I can't remember. But I
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Speaker 1
17:46
Okay. Show them. Yeah. Okay. Let's definitely do that.
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Speaker 2
17:50
Right. And if if you know, a webinars aren't your thing. You may just want to download a blueprint. I created an idea to paper blueprint for for your audience. And you can download it at blueprint dog. Publish md.com. Elevate sorry. I think it's blueprint at publish MD.
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Speaker 1
18:14
Yeah. Okay, so blueprint at publish md.com? Calm? Yeah, yeah, I'm writing it down. Because I want to get one to. Like, I've thought, you know, doing a research paper would kind of be, I always just felt like it was so much work. But I felt like I could do a case report. As a pathologist. I see amazing cases. And I like to present them at my pathology society. But I've often thought, you know, it's something I could do. I could handle that. And is that something that your blueprint might help with? Do you think so? Would that be applicable?
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Speaker 2
18:53
Yes, the blueprint actually has a lot more because it's more like idea generation, how you come up with these such questions, like kind of the steps. And then then there's also the writing part and also, like, what documents you need to publish, to submit a paper because when you stop putting your stuff in, and you're like, oh, I need a conflict of interest paper already a cover letter. Oh, I need it. Like all the random things you never thought you need to submit a paper. So it's more of that. But definitely, I have a part on more writing the original, the framework on how to rate the different sections, what you need to include in the introduction, what you need to include in the discussion section things.
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Speaker 1
19:37
Great, great. This is good stuff. And again, the idea of doing a research project has always been overwhelming to me, but just yesterday, an interview I did with a friend. Her son is doing a master's of public health and is interested in doing work on the Physician burnout and depression and working with maybe patients from the VA hospitals. But anyway, it just sort of triggered something in my brain. I'm like, Oh, well, I'm interviewing an academic tomorrow who talks about how to get papers published, because he also hasn't published a paper. Yes. It is masters. So and and I just had this moment where it's like, well, maybe I could collaborate with him, you know, maybe that's something, you know, because that's something I'm really passionate about is exploring that collaboration. Collaboration is
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Speaker 2
20:35
the best way to do for getting papers out. Because, as you know, it's overwhelming. There's so many parts. So research paper, right? So you can have a few people, one person writing one person does even like even a Writing Room, like one person do an introduction, another person do, like having that
20:54
group group at that team effort.
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Speaker 2
20:57
Yeah, yes. And then it's not just the parts, and sometimes you have different personalities, the starter, the one who likes starting. Right, and then you have another one who's to finish it. When are we going to get the thing is somebody that? I'll be ready? I'll be ready. Really? Well, you know, in my team, I have a few people like that finisher and keep you on it. Yes. Yes, yes.
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Speaker 1
21:19
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So this is just really wonderful. Dr. Jia, thank you so much for joining us today, I I'm really excited for our listeners to be able to take advantage of what you offer. Because, you know, not only is it growth, and giving back is so fundamental to our, our joy, right? And it's life is not about happiness, it's about joy, it's about finding meaning. And I think being able to, to contribute to the world, in this way, gives anyone who's working on this a deep sense of meaning and joy. And that, that is what that is my mission, you know, to help to help our listeners find to rediscover joy, really. And so thank you for providing at this, this tool, that that can really be helpful for people. So I'll include links in the show notes, and is there anything else you want to add any other
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Speaker 2
22:29
I would say you know, just adding to the part of the joy. I love what you said about this, because writing can be joyful, you know a lot of people that when they talk to them like Oh, I love the project, but the writing like sexy Joy, I used to fear I way that way. But once you once you notable, once things like I get it, this is how you do it, then you and then you can practice, then you can see the progress. That is when you see joy, that's when you future because you you actually can feel like I put in something and I see some see an outcome. see progress. That is when people get meaning and joy at the same time. Yes, yes.
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Speaker 1
23:15
Yeah. That growth, like giving back. So, so rich. Thank you, thank you so much for being here today. It's been so much fun. I am looking forward to connecting with you further. I'm definitely gonna sign up for your blueprint. I like I said, this is kind of been a bucket list item that I never really thought I could do. But like maybe, maybe I could. Even me hope having hope is another
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Speaker 2
23:43
critical fact. Right? It's never, never too late. Never too late. Yes, yes. Yeah. And also, I think, if you want like tips, I also have a YouTube channel that talks about, yes. Here Here is like small bite size. Usually the videos are five minutes, because you know, Academic Writing is a heavy topic. Anything to five minutes too much. So
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Speaker 1
24:08
yeah, like the deep work, you know, just just give yourself a little bit of time. Right to learn one thing and yeah,
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Speaker 2
24:15
right, right, then you can like apply. So my channel is also published and be published and be you can Google it. And I will talk about like some mindset sure how to overcome writer's block how to, you know, some of the academic tips where you can apply, like, once you learn it, you can apply immediately. And when you do it, like suddenly your people become so much better. And so,
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Speaker 1
24:39
yeah, okay, so publish MD. So published md.com. Yeah, it's awesome. It's a great place to find you. And I'm consuming publish md.com. We'll also have some links to your YouTube YouTube channels. Right. So and that's also probably a place where people can sign up for the blueprint, right? That's correct. Fantastic. antastic Oh, this is such wonderful. I'm so happy to meet you. This has been so much fun. It's so much fun
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Speaker 2
25:09
talking. Yeah. Mine and joy and time and sleep. Things I love.
1
Speaker 1
25:16
I need to fundamentals. Right. No, gotta get them. Got to get them. Yes. So anyway, well have a fabulous day everybody. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening. And I am excited. I think I think there's there's something that that I can that I can use to enrich my life with what you're offering. So thank you for the for what you do.
25:38
Thank you. Thank you Dr. Lewis.
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Speaker 1
25:42
If you found value in today's episode, please subscribe, share with a friend and provide your five star feedback so we can reach more listeners. I would also love to see you in the Facebook community. Mind surfer MD where you can sign up for it buddy. Catch you later.
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