Is This Really What I Want to Be When I Grow Up? Mentoring, job changes and the joys of a serpentine career. – 2/1/2017
Speakers: The presenter is Sarah L. Lathrop, DVM, PhD, a Professor of Pathology at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Objectives:In the not-so-distant past, earning an advanced degree would lead to a steady, linear, rather comforting progression in your chosen area of expertise. After securing and working at just a position or two with a well-funded employer, you would happily retire. As we now know all too well, those days are long gone and today’s ‘average’ person changes jobs 10 to 15 times over the course of their career, spending five years or fewer in each position. With so many transitions and so much uncertainty, how can we possibly chart a course for our careers? Using examples from a career that has varied from large animal veterinary medicine to the Epidemic Intelligence Service to epidemiology at a medical examiner’s office, Dr. Lathrop will discuss early career mentoring, flexibility in your career, the challenges of returning to school and the rewards of a career in public health.
- Compare the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) and the CSTE Applied Epidemiology Fellowship.
- Identify methods to assess the costs and benefits of returning to school for a terminal degree.
- Describe strategies to identify potential mentors, both formal and informal, in the mentee’s areas of interest.