Sep 5, 2023
Robert Soiffer, MD, is the Chief of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the Worthington and Margaret Collette Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. A renowned malignant hematology researcher, Dr. Soiffer has served as President of the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and is the immediate past chair of the board of the National Marrow Donor Program. He has co-authored more than 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts, book chapters, review articles, editorials, and monographs.
“Early in my career, when I would mentor people, I would explain to them exactly how I did what I did. A lot of folks would say, I want to be like you. But you need to realize that you’re not like me, you're different, you're YOU. So you have to find your own path.” Known as a “mentor to mentors”, Dr. Robert Soiffer teaches us how to best utilize mentors to carve our own path, how JOY in medicine lies in the JOurneY not necessarily the outcomes, and the ephemeral nature of success, which is why “you can’t enjoy the successes too much or wallow in the failures too much because they’re going to flip around.”
2. Don’t connect failure or success to the end result; focus on improving the journey and finding joy in that process.
3. You don’t have to be a mentor’s shadow; talk about your path and vision with them to gain insight on how you can achieve that.