In this post, I summarize my conversation with Dr. Nneka Comfere, Professor of Dermatology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Dr. Comfere stresses the importance of open-mindedness, intellectual curiosity, and hard work. She encourages students to apply themselves and have fun in the process.
Check out the full interview here:
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
ISHA: Hello everyone, my name is Isha Kapoor. I'm a senior at Mayo High School, and today, I'm joined by Dr. Nneka Comfere.
Dr. Comfere, can you please start by telling me about your background, medical training, and current position at Mayo?
DR. COMFERE: So, I am currently a dermatologist and dermatopathologist here at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. That means I take care of patients who have skin, hair or nail disorders. I also interpret skin biopsies, nail biopsies, or hair biopsies from patients that we see in clinics. I have subspecialty training in dermatopathology. My journey to get to where I am right now started after I graduated from college and applied to medical school. I had an interest in science
all through high school, but also through college, and I was a biochemistry major. So I took a lot of science classes in college, and then medicine was kind of a natural fit for me because I loved health sciences. Medicine also gave me an opportunity to do what I love best, which is really working with people and helping people who are in need.
So I applied to medical school after taking the requisite exams and interviewed and secured a position here at Mayo Medical School where I completed my medical training. It was a very special place to train. We had a very small class—smaller than the average medical school class in the country. We had about 45 students per year, so it was really nice because you really got to know your classmates. We really got to know our faculty, most of whom were physicians practicing in the clinic. And then after completing medical school, residency came next. Throughout medical school, I had an opportunity to gain exposure to multiple fields of medicine, both in the medical specialties and in the surgical specialties.
Dermatology stood out to me as something that really appealed to my way of learning. I’m very much a visual learner. I see patterns and pictures, and I would say 80% of dermatology is really recognizing and being able to describe critical features on the skin or the nails or the hair and recognizing patterns, and then being able to classify those patterns into diagnostic groups. So that came very naturally to me. And I fortunately had the opportunity to do a few rotations in dermatology, and that further cemented my interest in that space. So I did my training here at Mayo Clinic in Dermatology and then pursued a one-year subspecialty fellowship training in dermatopathology before joining the staff. So, that is just a quick overview of the path that I took and what led me from one step to the next.
ISHA: Can you speak about some of the hurdles that you personally encountered in both your professional and academic journeys, and also how you overcame those?
DR. COMFERE: I think, first of all, training to be a physician is challenging in a lot of respects. The training is long and it's arduous and requires you to devote hours in your day to studying—whether you're in medical school or spending time on the floor, learning about your patients and taking care of your patients, and even when you're out in practice as a practitioner, a significant amount of time is spent caring for your patients. So I think that with a profession like medicine, there are a lot of challenges, irrespective of who you are in the space. But I think that specifically in an academic setting, there are also unique challenges, because aside from the practice of medicine, there's also the educational side of things because we are a training program; you're training the future physicians that will go into the various specialties. So there is an educational obligation.
There is a scholarly output obligation to do research, put out publications, [and] advance and answer pertinent questions in your specific field. So you can see that there are multiple responsibilities that one bears.
I think as a woman in certain fields in medicine that have not been sufficiently diversified, in terms of background, prior experience, race, ethnicity, or gender, I think there are great opportunities to be more diverse, whether it be the trainees we admit into our programs or the faculty that we bring into our departments.
I think at Mayo specifically, it's been a unique experience for me because I've been here all the way through—medical school, all of my residency, fellowship, and now on staff. And you know, I think the challenges one faces are not unique just to this institution. I think [at] any academic institution you're going to face these. I think the biggest challenge is just time management and balancing all of the different obligations that I just described within your workday. But then also, that work-life balance is always something that you're going to be dealing with, particularly because a lot of time is spent and is required to be spent in medicine as a practitioner. So I think developing those organizational and time management skills early on and then refining them over time is absolutely critical in medicine. So if I had to pick one thing, I think it would be that.
ISHA: I think those are overall really great skills to have, not just in the field of medicine, but I think it carries forward [into] other professional fields as well. On the tail of that, I’m sure you mentor some junior colleagues. So do you hear of any specific hurdles that they've encountered in their STEM journey, particularly women, and what key advice do you offer to them?
DR. COMFERE: Don't limit yourself. I think that it's easy to fall into stereotypes about specific areas of medicine or science, or whatever the field might be. [In] STEM fields in general, it's easy to believe that “Okay, math is difficult, so I can't do it. There's no way I would major in math; I'm not going to be good at math.” I think that happens very early on because you may hear people say it, or you have a hard time in a subject and you think you're not going to be able to surmount it. I really think keeping an open mind and realizing that you could literally do whatever you want to do, STEM or otherwise. But there's nothing particularly special or unique about STEM, or nothing distinctive about it that would make it challenging or difficult for anyone to master. I think it all comes down to your attitude. It comes down to how much work you're willing to put into it. So I would say my biggest advice would be to just keep an open mind and not fall into [believing] in certain stereotypes about what you can or can't do.
ISHA: Yeah, that's really good advice. Going off of that mentorship question, what do you think someone should look for when they're seeking out a mentor? Is this like a singular individual or a broader concept, would you say?
DR. COMFERE: Yeah, I think it's hard to find everything in one mentor. I think it just depends on what you want to do—what you see as your long-term goals. I think you have to first understand what you want [and] what you want to achieve—what are my long-term career goals?
And then you have to think very carefully about who you approach as mentors. It's hard to find one mentor [who's] going to fulfill all of your needs, so it's very likely you will need a couple of mentors who cover specific aspects of what it is you're trying to do. So, you might have a mentor [who] is very much a subject-matter expert in the specific field that you're interested in going into. Or you might have a mentor who's a mentor because they have a certain set of experiences navigating a specific space. And so then you go to them for that. Or [if] they have leadership experience, and if that is what you're seeking. So I'm a strong proponent of not pigeonholing any one specific mentor. It's going to be hard to find one person [who] does it all, but I think having what I call a “mentorship group” or “a mentor panel” [is helpful]. A group of individuals who best meet your needs for mentoring.
ISHA: Yeah, that's really good advice as well. So, another mentorship-related question: I'm specifically interested in learning about what the approach should be for mentoring young girls, because I recently started a STEM mentorship program for girls of color within our school district, specifically guiding them to participate in the local and potentially state science fairs. What advice would you have for students that fit this demographic in middle and high school?
DR. COMFERE: First of all, work hard. Apply yourself. If you don't apply yourself, then it's going to be hard to know what truly interests you, because I think part of the issue is that you have to engage deeply enough with something in order to figure out whether it resonates with you. And the only way to do that is by truly embracing your school work, at every level. Once you do that, I think maintaining a level of curiosity [is important]. I think [it is] so important to be curious—inherently curious about what you're learning in school, because that curiosity is what's going to lead you on this journey of discovery. And that's essentially what any kind of STEM major does. It's a lot of discovery work where you're trying to answer questions that you formulate. But you need that basic curiosity. In order to have that curiosity, you need to seriously engage with the subjects you're learning in school. So, I think that would be my biggest advice to girls [and] young women of color who think they might want to pursue a STEM field. STEM's not easy, you know. STEM fields are challenging, but embrace hard work. I think it's most rewarding to do hard things, especially when you apply yourself, and you can look back and there's great fulfillment in feeling like you accomplished something. Don't shy away from the hard subjects—embrace them, dive into [them], learn as much as you can, and maintain a healthy level of curiosity about what you're learning.
ISHA: Yeah, for sure. So this next one is a reflective question. What would you do differently as a high schooler if you could go back in time now?
DR. COMFERE: Oh, that's a good question. I think I would go back to my last response. I wish I would have dug in even deeper. It's one thing to know that you love STEM, for example. You find it interesting. You think “Maybe that's where I want to spend my time. STEM is where my career is going to be headed”, but I would encourage you to think broadly, as well, because there are things you learn outside of the STEM sphere that make you a more well-rounded individual, and that actually make you appreciate the STEM- based topics you might be learning even more. So, I think there are multiple other fields that are equally important. And to be a well-rounded, well-educated individual, it's important to embrace non-STEM fields, as well, because I think part of life is learning a whole range of different topics and subjects. And while you might have an area of focus, I think broadening your horizons a little bit and just learning as much as you can, as broadly as possible, will help you ultimately in the long run. So if I had to go back, I would do a little bit more of that, because I knew early on I loved science. But I wish I had spent as much time also learning about other fields.
ISHA: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Do you have any parting advice at all? This can be as broad, or as focused as you see fit.
DR. COMFERE: Yeah, I would just say have fun with it. I worry, because young women [and] men today feel very pressured [and] confused about what to focus on [and] what their interests are. They have a hard time determining what they're interested in, and that's okay. I don't think you need to know what you want to do, at least at your stage as a high school senior. I think you just need to be open. I think you need to be curious. I think you need to be interested in learning in general, and eventually you'll figure it out. So my parting advice would be [to] keep an open mind, enjoy every phase you're at, and just engage to the fullest extent possible with what you're learning in every phase you go through. Don't worry so much about “what am I going to do? What does the future hold?” Just focus on the present and keep an open approach to learning as much as you can.
ISHA: Yeah, that's really solid advice. Well, that is it for the questions I have for you today. Thank you so much for participating in this!
DR. COMFERE: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
ISHA: It was great to have you here!
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