The NIH Advisory Committee to the Director Working Group on Diversity: Iezzoni, Swenor and Izzoni are both visually impaired

The United States has the largest group of minorities with disabilities, says Iezzoni. Again, we’re not at the table, and it’s time to bring us in so that NIH can do the best science that is applicable to the most people.”

People with disabilities include people with a mental illness, people with learning disabilities, and people who experience impaired vision, mobility or hearing. Disabled people represent more than 27% of the US adult population — making them the single largest minority group in the country. Fewer than 2% of researchers who are funded by the National Institute of Health have a disability.

The NIH Advisory Committee to the Director Working Group on Diversity, set up 10 years ago in response to an NIH report about diversity in the biomedical-research workforce, endorsed the subgroup’s recommendations after the publication of the 66-page report last month. Suggestions include an alternative mission statement: “To seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behaviour of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life and reduce illness.”

The subgroup’s three co-chairs include Lisa Iezzoni, a health-services researcher at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and Bonnielin Swenor, director of the Johns Hopkins University Disability Health Research Center in Baltimore, Maryland.

The mission of the NIH is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems, and the application of that knowledge to enhance health and extend life. Iezzoni says that its reference to reducing disability “means eliminating people like Bonnielin and me”. Swenor and Iezzoni are both visually impaired.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00260-5

The first day of research assistant tenure: How doctors feel about their colleagues and colleagues in the workplace – a case study for Sagar Parikh

Swenor wants the data and public sharing of it so that the community can get a sense of what has happened and if it’s working.

Even if tenure and job security is provided, there is no assurance of a smooth ride. Decades into a faculty position, determining what success looks like becomes more nebulous, and researchers can feel irrelevant when their field’s inclination is to embrace what is ‘new’, says Sagar Parikh, a psychiatrist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who studies workplace depression. Senior researchers might lack advancement opportunities, which could lead to despair and an exaggerated sense of loss. To keep things fresh, Parikh moved to Michigan’s medical school after working for two decades at the University of Toronto in Canada, to give himself “a new challenge and new sense of meaning”. Universities can do more to address their staffs health and well-being across all stages of their career. For example, departments might create positions or challenges for late-career investigators that leverage their experience or provide them with ongoing professional development.

For newly hired faculty members, their first day marks the culmination of years of hard work — an exit from the volatile postdoctoral job pool and a sense of having made it as a career scientist. They can feel alien compared with what they experienced as a PhD student or postdoc.

It was difficult for Le to transition from a job as a research assistant to a faculty member. Something that had made previous low points easier to take is that she no longer had a group of peers who were also navigating a similar career stage. The community is somewhat lost the moment you step into this role. Your colleagues might not be able to understand what you are going through because they are not all at the same stage of their careers.

Returning from maternity leave in 2018, she felt isolated and was reluctant to reach out to colleagues for support with her feelings of inadequacy. “I didn’t want to have those coffee-room conversations; I didn’t want to speak about anything, because I was so scared that somebody was going to ‘find me out’.”

It took a senior colleague pulling her aside and expressing concern over some of the things she had said, including how low she was feeling, for her to realize how low she was. The colleague shared some of her own experiences, and the exchange prompted Paxton to pursue postnatal therapy. “It really helped [to have] some open and honest conversations with people who were slightly further through their careers and could say ‘This is normal, and actually you are doing a good job’.”

As institutions begin to address systemic mental-health challenges, researchers can take action now to protect their well-being and that of colleagues.

Basic training can be sought. If your university doesn’t offer an employee-assistance programme or faculty training in mental-health strategies, look for other opportunities. Hilal Lashuel, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, took a mental-health first-aid course and recently co-created a webinar series on mental health in academia.

• Make connections in moderation. Although excessive use of social media can lead to poor mental health, it is possible to cultivate a supportive digital community. Try searching for the hashtag #NewPI, joining a channel on the messaging app Slack for new hires, or reading about other academics’ mental-health journeys.

It is really important for people facing these challenges to talk about it in an open way. It’s rare for someone to react poorly to his disclosure, he says. “But just having those conversations helps people discover things for themselves.”

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00419-0

Mental-health and well-being courses for students and staff of the University of Michigan, a community-wide mental-health initiative modeled after a suicide survivor

In October last year, Santa Ono, a survivor of suicide who speaks openly about his struggles with bipolar disorder, joined the University of Michigan as its president. A university spokesperson says that since Ono’s appointment, the university has launched a well-being collective that includes an advisory council to track emerging research and a steering committee to hold the university accountable.

Parikh and his colleagues piloted two courses on how to recognize and respond to someone in distress, and hope to make them mandatory. Parikh says the content was developed with staff and students in mind to address the unique needs of their campus. A course might include words for how to approach someone who is drunk. He says that they see distress in colleagues all the time. “Many of us have first-aid training — so if somebody’s bleeding, we know to put pressure on the wound — Have faculty learned the basics of mental health?

Lashuel is also working with his university to improve mental-health resources on campus, and says that it has been extremely supportive of him speaking out. The university is a community that is very interdependent. If one part of the community isn’t doing well, it’s going to affect the whole community. It’s important to focus on improving the well-being of everyone in the community. A mental-health and well-being survey was part of acampus-wide mental-health week last November. The results of the survey will help inform a mental-health strategy for both students and staff. “Once you have the numbers, nobody can turn their face away from the magnitude of the problem,” Lashuel says.

When thinking about disabled scientists, physical circumstances tend to jump to mind — someone who uses a wheelchair, wears a prosthesis or is blind. Keisha Hardeman, a researcher at the UT’s Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, talks about her hidden disabilities, depression and anxiety. She shares how these mental-health challenges have shaped her journey as a scientist, as well as the importance of seeking counselling and how she has learnt to manage.

I noticed some changes in high school. I was the valedictorian (top graduate of my class) but stopped doing academic decathlon (a high-school competition held annually in the United States) and dropped out of other stuff. When I went to Texas A&M University in College Station, it got worse and worse. Eventually, in 2005, I walked into a campus counselling centre for the first time. I needed to talk to someone.

I was not able to function by the time I went for help. I would clean out my mail and pay bills, but it wouldn’t be the most important thing that I would do. I went from a top student on a full scholarship to barely passing my classes.

I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was 21 or 22. For nearly 18 years I have seen multiple psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists. I’ve done individual and group counselling. I have been on medication for a while. This is a form of invisible disability.

At first, not at all. One friend responded, “But what can you be depressed about?” They didn’t understand where I was coming from or how I felt. Many professors don’t take time to get to know a student or postdoc on a personal level, particularly when it is a younger researcher of a different racial or cultural background. They do not care enough.

JUST AS A BLACK COLOUR BEHAVIOR AND THEIR CHOOSOSPITAL PUZZLE AT UNTREATED UNIVERSE

At Texas A&M I would be in a class with 200 other students. Two of us were black. We’d sit next to each other. In my circles at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where I did my PhD, I saw more Black and brown people. There would still be obstacles.

During my first year at Vanderbilt, my father died after having heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I tried my best to juggle as a person of colour from a low income background who is part of a first generation in my family to go to university, but sometimes felt that I was ostracized for it.

For example, I was in a study group with three other students, and we were working together on a written project. I wanted to change it before we submitted it. I sent them my edits, but one student fought me over each. When the student heard that he didn’t have a death in his family, he asked if they should just sit this one out. I was shut out of the project. I felt unsupported in my grief and completely disrespected.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00593-1

How Do You Get Help? An Empirical Example from a Counseling Relationship: The Lean In Group at UT Southwestern

I’ve seen both therapists and psychiatrists, and have attended group sessions with some graduate students. I joined the Lean In group because it has a chapter at UT Southwestern. I really enjoy it. When you meet other women and start to hear their stories, you realize you are not alone.

At first, especially as a Black person, you can feel embarrassed about getting help, thinking, “because I’m doing this, something’s wrong with me”. But that’s not true. A doctor stated that going to counseling is much like taking daily pills for high blood pressure. You’re taking care of yourself.

They can take breaks to listen to music or read. I like to walk in the afternoon to buy some tea. I read articles that do not focus on scientific topics I am not working on. I take each week as it comes. I take days off to rest and see my doctor.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00593-1

The Stanley Brown Safety Plan – a Support Group for Black Postdoctoral Scholars in the SACNAS and oSTEM Networks

I tell people to try therapy if they want to talk to someone. They could talk with a dean of diversity or a dean of graduate studies. If their struggles are related to a marginalized identity, they could find a support group — for example, a local chapter of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) or of oSTEM, an association for LGBTQ+ people in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) community. You will be meeting people who can give you advice. It is the worst thing to be closed off and not talk to anyone.

In the past, I have thought of suicide and taken myself to a counselling centre. I am okay with going to those places, even with going to emergency hospital care. The Stanley Brown Safety Plan is for people who have contemplated suicide. You can find it at suicidesafetyplan.com/forms.

The group started after the death in 2020 of George Floyd, the Black man who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It has nearly 500 members. I am a member of the board. We’re very community-centric. We highlight our accomplishments on social media, as well as our publications.

We also do outreach. As chair of the member- relations committee, I was able to ask our members questions like what kind of group they want to be in, what grants they have, and what support they need. About 16% of respondents, like me, reported that they are disabled or have a significant burden that affects their work, including depression and anxiety.

We launched a monthly research and social seminar in September with two hour Zoom sessions followed by one hour of research talks. And we aim to launch more initiatives to support Black postdoctoral scholars, which will include addressing challenges that impact mental health.