How to Get the Most out of Leadership Institutes
After just attending 2020’s inaugural Leadership Institute in Chicago, and since we still have 3 more to go in February, I decided to offer some advice on how to get the most out of your experience. While many of these tips are PhiDE specific, there are definitely a few that can apply to any conference as well.
Meet as many new people as possible.
Talking to new people is important professionally, as this PhiDE family will be your future colleagues in the medical field, but it also just makes the entire experience better on a social and personal level as well. I still follow lots of friends I’ve met at conferences on social media and it’s so great to see the amazing things they’re doing, and keep in touch with people I never would have met otherwise.
Your new friends are also leaders of their chapters, and I guarantee the best place to get new ideas and advice about chapter events and leadership are from each other, so don’t forget to talk about PhiDE too. I also think it’s helpful and comforting to find out about others’ journey as a premedical student including things like their MCAT study plans, application plans, etc. You might find some new ideas, and you might also be comforted just at the comradery of going through this long journey together.
Even during individual leadership focused sessions, don’t forget to think about how you can apply what you’re learning back to your chapters.
I found every single activity during the institute to be extremely useful on multiple levels. Leadership and communication skills can be applied to us as individuals, to you as leaders of your chapters, and to any scenario or relationship where communication is important. So, even if an activity is specifically PhiDE-related or individualized, challenge yourself to apply the knowledge to more than one role you play.
To my premedical students: don’t count yourself out of activities or prompts that refer to patient encounters just because you haven’t seen patients yet. If you’ve ever talked to or comforted a stranger who was scared, in pain, or emotional, you’ve already had more experience than you realize.
Some new friends I met from Ohio Epsilon actually helped me have this realization. One of the people in my group mentioned that while working at a restaurant, they met someone that was being really difficult, and they came to find that the customer was actually in a lot of pain from fibromyalgia. I love that this group realized that you don’t have to have explicit “patient encounters” to be able to talk about clinical communication skills.
Write everything down!
This advice definitely applies to any type of institute or conference. You’re going to have lots of quotes, acronyms, and advice presented to you in a short period of time. Even though it might seem like you’ll remember what they say later, definitely write it down because these events tend to be an overload of useful information. In relation to this, also try to fully be present, and participate in any interactive parts of the presentations, otherwise you’re not getting the full experience you traveled and paid for.
When you return home, ask that all members who attended share their favorite things they learned with the rest of the chapter.
This exercise may sound simple, but I think it’s extremely important because it will help the rest of your chapter benefit from the institute too. Remember those of you who are “delegates” are meant to represent your chapter as a whole, so an important step to take is to apply what you learn and help build the entire chapter up from your experience.
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I’m so excited and grateful that I get to attend 3 of the 4 Leadership Institutes this year even with a busy third-year medical student schedule. I had such an amazing time meeting those of you in Chicago and can’t wait to meet more in Atlanta and Los Angeles in the coming weeks!