Empowering Future Doctors Through Mentorship with Dr. Marshala Lee-McCall and Dr. Kristyn Mitchell

Choosing your profession can be difficult no matter what path you choose. But when medical school is part of that path, life can get a little more complicated.

Sometimes fate can step in, in the form of a mentor. On this week's episode of For the Love of Health, Dr. Marshala Lee-McCall, Director of the iREACH Harrington Community Partnership Fund, and ChristianaCare OB/GYN resident Dr. Kristyn Mitchell share how their mentor/mentee relationship became so much more and discuss how mentorships are important for achieving equity and representation in healthcare

Marshala Lee-McCall, M.D., MPH serves as the Harrington Trust Physician Scholar and Director of iREACH's Harrington Community Partnership Fund. In this role she is responsible for strengthening community partnerships and developing new models of patient-centered health care delivery and methods for addressing the social determinants of health.

Kristyn Mitchell, M.D. is a first year resident in ChristianaCare's Obstetrics & Gynecology program. 

Links

• ChristianaCare News - Mentorship Matters: Kristyn Mitchell, M.D., Returns to ChristianaCare to Serve Her Neighbors
• ChristianaCare Mentorship and Teamwork
• ChristianaCare Institute for Research on Equity and Community Health
• ChristianaCare Underrepresented Minorities in Medicine
• ChristianaCare Office of Inclusion and Diversity
• Contact the Harrington Trust: Harrington@christianacare.org

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

A lot of students have mentioned that they have never received this level of mentoring and advisement in their careers.

Speaker 2 0:09

You're listening to For the Love of Health, a podcast about delivering care and creating health, brought to you by Christiana Care. And now here are your hosts.

Speaker 3 0:19

Hello everyone, I'm Megan McGerman.

Speaker 2 0:21

And I'm Jason Tokarski. Welcome to another episode of For the Love of Health brought to you by Christiana Care.

Speaker 3 0:26

Choosing your profession can be difficult no matter what path you choose, but when medical school is part of that path, life can get a little more complicated.

Speaker 2 0:33

Sometimes fate can step in in the form of a mentor. Here to talk with us about the importance of mentorship in health care are Dr Marshala Lee McCall, director of the iReach Harrington Community Partnership Fund, and Christiana Care OBGYN resident, dr Kristen Mitchell.

Speaker 3 0:48

Marshala and Kristen. Thank you both so much for being here today.

Speaker 1 0:51

Thank you so much for the opportunity. It is a pleasure.

Speaker 4 0:54

It is definitely a pleasure, very exciting opportunity. Thank, you.

Speaker 3 0:58

Mentorship seems important for everyone, but why are we specifically talking about mentorship in medicine? What is it about medicine specifically that is so important to have that kind of relationship?

Speaker 1 1:10

Yes. So medicine is the lifeline to good health, and it is so important that you have a good relationship with your physician and healthcare providers. Significant health disparities exist in the United States, and we know that a lot of that has to do with the relationship of underserved communities and their interaction with health providers and healthcare, and one way to mitigate these disparities is increasing the diversity and the representation of physician and health professionals from underrepresented backgrounds. Increasing the diversity of healthcare improves patient outcomes, improves quality as well as satisfaction. So it is so important that we increase diversity in the US physician workforce and health care in general as a way of mitigating health disparities. And so I'm a physician today because of the great mentorship that was in my life, and so I think it's so very important that I pass the torch and continue to serve as a mentor to support the health professionals of the future.

Speaker 2 2:10

Christiana Kerr has a number of programs through iReach and our mentorships and our pipelines. Can you give us some of the information about that availability and opportunity here?

Speaker 1 2:20

Since 2019, I have had the pleasure of mentoring more than now 300 students, and so I have not done it in a silo or just by myself. But thankfully, christiana Care is truly invested in health workforce and the pipeline, so I've had the pleasure of working with the Office of Inclusion and Diversity, academic Affairs, the Medical Society of Delaware, you name it. We've worked together and are strongly invested in our health workforce. In particular, I serve as the director of the Harrington Trust, which sits within the office of iReach, which is the Institute for Research on Equity and Community Health, and so we train the future workforce to be physicians and health researchers of the future.

Speaker 1 3:02

Harrington supports a number of pipeline development programs, which include our MCAT prep program. The MCAT is that major exam that doctors have to take to get into medical school, and so we support students in studying for that. We've now touched more than 200 students in some type of capacity of preparing for the medical admission exam. We also have a one-on-one mentoring program, where students can reach out to us and we partner them with physician mentors to support their academic career. We have a pre-med symposium and a pre-health symposium. This is only a small list of the many programs that I have the pleasure of supporting at Christiana Care and I'm thankful for this opportunity.

Speaker 3 3:45

Marshall, you talk about the importance of passing that torch and being a mentor for someone else, that someone else here is, kristen, joining us today as well. How did you two first get connected?

Speaker 4 3:55

So I was first introduced to Christiana Care through my mom. She is currently a clinical nurse specialist at Christiana Care at the Wilmington campus. She's been working there since I was about three years old, and so I was aware of kind of you know her career path when I was younger, but I was really introduced to what she was doing while I was shadowing her, essentially, and so that's kind of what started my journey. And so fast forward to when, you know, I graduated from college and I knew I wanted to become a doctor, but I really needed the mentorship and the guidance to figure out where to go.

Speaker 1 4:24

And so, thankfully, at the Student National Medical Association conference I was advertising for our new internship program. Kristen not only submitted the application on time, but it was a very compelling and competitive application, and so Kristen spent the year working with me, doing research and also revising her application, preparing for medical school, and she was awesome. She participated in some great research programs that were in collaboration with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion as well as the OB-GYN department, which I really think sparked her interest in OB, and so she was a fantastic researcher, medical student and I was so happy to support her through medical school.

Speaker 4 5:08

I will say that with Dr Lee, I think, based off of the mentorship that she's had, that really influences how she mentors others. You know working with her throughout this program for a year. We spend a lot of time together and so a lot of professional time. She's basically my boss. We're also pretty close in age and so she was kind of like a mentor, but also like a big sister as well. She knows a little bit of my personal life and vice versa, and then we also have that very strong like mentorship connection and so it's really over time it was a very organic relationship. It's very important to keep up with your mentee and your mentors from both ends, and I think that's really how you can establish a thorough and reciprocal mentee mentorship.

Speaker 3 5:50

So if this was 2019 with that internship, this means you were in med school during the height of the pandemic.

Speaker 4 5:53

Yes and where did you go to med school? I went to medical school at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

Speaker 3 6:00

So you match at Christiana Care. How much of an influence was Marshala in this situation where you said going home, going to go to Christiana Care for residency? You know?

Speaker 4 6:11

to many people's surprise probably, she kind of stepped back and let me make this decision on my own. Because of my great experiences with Christiana Care, I knew that that's where I wanted to be, especially with the program and what they offered. But Dr Lee was definitely supporting me throughout this whole process and making sure that I was taking things into consideration when thinking about where I wanted to be and how to make my rank list. I was telling her like yeah, I think Christiana Care is getting kind of higher on my list, but I don't think I gave her the exact rundown of you know, it's actually going to be my number one on my list and hopefully I get to come home. And so she was pleasantly surprised on match day when I called her and told her the great news I was coming back home.

Speaker 3 6:49

As a mentor, were you like girl. You better get back here. You know where was your head at.

Speaker 1 6:55

Yes, my head was Kristen, please come back home because we need you. So they know that in my mentoring programs and through Harrington, I say it's important that you return the love that we've given to you, and so we always talk about the shortages of health professionals in Delaware and the importance of coming back home. I didn't even encourage Kristen to go into OpiGyne, because of course I would love mirror images of myself, but it's so important that my mentees are able to find themselves and be the best doctor possible, and so I'm also pretty defiant and I know that if someone tells me to do something, I do the opposite, and Kristen is a lot like myself. So I knew that if I overly influenced her to come back to Delaware, that may have pushed her the other way, but I knew that by giving her the good news that I was pregnant and that I needed a great OB-GYN, that hopefully that would be enough to encourage her to come here.

Speaker 4 7:51

Everything happens for a reason right, it did. Absolutely I could not. You can't make up this timing. So I find out that I'm actually at Christiana Care. I tell Dr Lee we're so excited in the moment, but then I'm also thinking, oh my gosh, I might be able to deliver her baby.

Speaker 4 8:04

And so things played out the way they were supposed to and I guess you can say all the stars aligned and so fast forward to when I already graduated, I was moving back home and Dr Lee had an upcoming appointment with her OB and I was available at the time and so she allowed me to come with her.

Speaker 4 8:21

I met her OB, I was more familiar with the plan and her medical history and what we were doing in terms of delivery planning. You know, some things happen by surprise because a lot of things in OB-GYN are very unexpected and so, kind of staying on brand with that, Dr Lee ended up going to OB triage and so it all just happened very quickly. But thankfully I was available and through, you know, Christiana Care, I was able to be there in the delivery room with Jason and Dr Lee and experience the birth of baby Jason, and that was the most beautiful experience ever and it was technically my first delivery as a doctor and so that it just came full circle and I was very grateful to be there in that delivery room supporting my mentor who supported me.

Speaker 1 9:05

What did that mean to you? It meant the world to me. Shout out to my OB-GYN, dr Regina Smith, who was so warm and accepting of Kristen attending my medical appointments, and we had already developed a plan so that she would be in the labor and delivery room with Dr Smith and Kristen at the same time when I delivered. And so I was super terrified my first child, high blood pressure but thankfully my mentee, kristen was there, so I felt relieved, despite the urgency of the situation.

Speaker 3 9:36

Clearly, not all of your mentees will be in your labor and delivery rooms, but what kind of feedback have you gotten from these hundreds of students who are either in the pipeline program, attending these events? I'm sure, marshall, you have made an impact on dozens of future doctors.

Speaker 1 9:53

Yes, so we receive fantastic feedback.

Speaker 1 9:56

A lot of students have mentioned that they have never received this level of mentoring and advisement in their careers, and some of the students have taken gap years and they say that.

Speaker 1 10:06

Dr Lee, if I would have known about these programs at Christiana Care earlier, I would have already been in medical school. But we, as Kristen mentioned, the journey is. What matters less is that we support them through the journey and that they eventually become physician and great health professionals. And the journey is a part of the process and I tell them to be honest and open. I share my failures, my successes, my personal life to let them know that it's important to be a good person in order to be a and open. I share my failures, my successes, my personal life to let them know that it's important to be a good person in order to be a great doctor, but also that allow your life experiences to inform your future career and to be a better person and better doctor. So I'm super thankful for this opportunity and experience and the ability to shape the future of medicine. It really is a pleasure.

Speaker 2 10:52

I would have to assume, based on the way this situation has gone for you, that you're considering being a mentor to somebody, eventually yourself, be it mentor or mentee, and whether it's medicine or any situation, what advice do you give to somebody who is interested or possibly thinks they might benefit from having that kind of a relationship with somebody?

Speaker 4 11:14

Yeah, absolutely. I don't think the question is if they would benefit, it's how, because the answer is yes. Anyone would benefit from having a mentor, no matter what profession.

Speaker 4 11:23

Medicine is hard. Anyone who is in it, who has gone through it, no matter where they are in their journey, they know that medicine is very hard, very demanding profession, and so having people who have similar goals as you, you know us working in synergy and not opposing each other, because it's also a very competitive field at the pipeline, specifically, like for me, I'm looking at people who are in high school who are thinking about becoming doctors, people who are in undergrad who are trying to figure out how do I apply to medical school, how do I study for the MCAT, and so it's like I said, it's a very long journey, it can be pretty cutthroat and demanding, but you need people around you, beside you, who can support you, who can tell you their stories can support you, who can tell you their stories, can tell you their failures, because it's not a perfect straight line and everyone's journey is very different from the next person.

Speaker 2 12:18

You mentioned that there are all these opportunities, and some of the students that you've worked with really wish they'd had the opportunity to know about these situations and experiences before that they actually found out about them. What do they need to know? You know, promote it now and get that word out to them while we're sitting here having this conversation.

Speaker 1 12:31

Thank you so very much for the opportunity to do a shout out. So, as we mentioned, harrington has a lot of great programs and I love supporting students. If you're interested in mentoring, if you don't know where to go, just email Harrington at ChristianaCareorg and we will connect you to the resources at ChristianaCare. If we do not have the answer, I have some great friends, who are colleagues, that are looking forward to supporting you and we will work together to ensure that you're on the right path to accomplishing your goals.

Speaker 3 13:00

Marshall and Kristen. Thank you both so much for your time today.

Speaker 4 13:02

Thank you so much for having us. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Speaker 3 13:04

It was a pleasure. We'll have information on Christiana Care's pipeline programs in the show notes for this episode.

Speaker 2 13:10

You can always connect with us on social media. Just search Christiana Care on your favorite platform.

Speaker 3 13:14

We'll be back in two weeks with another great conversation.

Speaker 2 13:17

Until then, thanks for joining us For the love of health.