In late 2023, Meredith Young, PhD, Associate Director (Research) at the Institute of Health Sciences Education (IHSE) noticed a problem. She had just returned from a conference, where learners had eagerly sought her advice on building their careers in research.
âA few questions kept repeating: âCan I submit things to the same conference?â, âI have a great idea â where do I start?â,â Prof. Young recalls, adding that it became clear that the learners had few opportunities to seek mentorship elsewhere.
Brainstorming ways to address this, Prof. Young walked to the office of Monica Molinaro, PhD, an Assistant Professor at the IHSE with experience in podcasting. They both agreed that, in the face of a mentorship scarcity for new researchers, a podcast could help.
That conversation led them to Tamara Carver, PhD, Associate Professor at the IHSE and Director of the Office of Education Technology and E-learning Collaboration for Health (Ed-TECH). The idea resonated with Prof. Carver, who recalled similar obstacles during her early days in research.
âImagine having a resource like this that gave those answers back then,â she says.
The three developed a proposal for an innovative podcast series, which was supported by the IHSE.
Director of the IHSE, Elizabeth Anne Kinsella, PhD, stated that she was âthrilled with the innovative nature of this educational proposal and could immediately see the tangible benefits for graduate and postgraduate education of the futureâ.
With this backing, the group began producing video podcast episodes at the Office of Ed-TECHâs state-of-the-art recording studio with their professional multimedia content creators â Dylan Masters Sheper and Daniel Petersen Escobedo. This Office â which also counts instructional designers among its team â was set up in 2020 to support the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in developing impactful and engaging educational experiences using innovative educational technology such as e-learning and virtual reality.
The result is Ask 5, a five-episode series that invites renowned health sciences researchers to share their insights, wisdom and hard-earned knowledge on building successful careers in academia and scholarship.
Guidance and mentorship made more accessible
Each episode asks five guests to respond to one question, crowd-sourced from graduate students and their supervisors. As host, Prof. Molinaro also brings her perspective as a junior faculty member whose memories of breaking into research are still fresh.
âWhen you enter the research world, you donât necessarily know what youâre going to get and who you will develop relationships with,â she says. âA lot of it is stumbling your way through, moving forward and hoping that things go well.â
Ask 5 aims to change that by making its guestsâ insider tips more accessible for graduate students, clinicians or anyone eager to dive into the world of research. Through chats over coffee, Prof. Molinaro and interviewees explore topics like starting out in research, finding a good supervisor, and the essential skills needed to be a great scholar.
This knowledge is important for all new researchers, but particularly those in health sciences education research, explains Prof. Young.
âHealth sciences education is still a really young field, which means the more senior part of our field is very small,â she explains. âIf youâve only got a few people at the top, itâs harder to access mentorship.â
Every episode is also co-hosted by a Ă汱ǿŒé graduate student or postdoctoral fellow, who gives their thoughts on the intervieweesâ responses.
The intervieweesâ wide range of backgrounds means no answer to a question is the same, Prof. Young adds. Some interviewees are clinician-scientists, while others were trained in the basic sciences, or other disciplines, giving viewers a chance to see similarities between the responses and their own research journeys.
Equally important are the intervieweesâ personal stories â not only their tales of success, but also past missteps and lessons learned.
âThese conversations had a lot of fun and laughter, but they also had a lot of honesty and vulnerability,â says Prof. Molinaro. âWe all had some stumbling blocks at some point or another, and weâre all okay with sharing them and understanding that this ultimately led you to what you wanted to do.â
Says Prof. Young: âThere are moments in our careers when we are complicated, flawed human beings who also happen to be scholars. Thatâs what the conversations are about: welcoming people as humans and allowing them to talk as themselves.â
First of many future collaborations
Ask 5âs first episode debuted in September 2024, and features interviews with Prof. Young, alongside:
- Lesley Fellows, MDCM, DPhil, Vice-President (Health Affairs) and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences
- Elizabeth Anne Kinsella, PhD, Professor and Director of Ă汱ǿŒéâs IHSE
- Martin Pusic, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School
- Stuart Lubarsky, MD, MHPE, Associate Professor of Neurology and Health Sciences Education
Anita Marie Slominska, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the IHSE, serves as co-host for the episode.
Future episodes will be released monthly, with a second season already in production.
As the first collaboration between the IHSE and the Office of Ed-TECH, the podcast also reflects shared aspects of their missions: to build capacity among budding health sciences education researchers and to create communities of practice in innovative and engaging ways.
Prof. Kinsella remarks: âItâs exciting to support the launch of video podcasts as a cutting-edge approach to graduate and postgraduate education, capacity building and knowledge translation. The talent, creativity and teamwork of those involved in this project, including faculty members, students, podcast guests, instructional designers, videographers and staff, is a true source of inspiration.â
Says Prof. Carver: âAsk 5 fills me with so much pride. Working with the Office of Ed-TECH team, Prof. Young and Prof. Molinaro to create such an engaging, high-quality podcast has been one of the most rewarding moments of my time at Ă汱ǿŒé. And, as an Associate Professor at the IHSE and Director of the Office of Ed-TECH, joining these two units on a project like this is pure joy.â
Watch the first episode of Ask 5 on the , or listen and subscribe on , , or wherever you get your podcasts.