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In this episode, our host, McKenzie Ritter, Associate Director for Education and Training and Director of the ATLAS Program for the CTSC, sits down with Mary Dolansky, PhD, Co-Lead for the Workforce Development Team and Associate Professor at Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. McKenzie and Mary discuss ongoing developments in workforce development, research education, and how we're building the future of the Research Support Profession.
Links:
- Become a CTSC Member
- Learn more about the ATLAS Program
- Learn more about our Workforce Development Initiatives
- To gain access to these systems or to request an consult, submit a SPARC Request
Transcript
"...I gained a lot of knowledge about how you spread education, how it's important to listen to the learners, to what they need, and then to be innovative and how you deliver it. Because I think our attention spans are getting short these days, and we have to learn quickly, swiftly, you might say." - Mary Dolansky, PhD, RN, FAAN
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[Intro]
From Research to Real Life, A podcast by the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Northern Ohio.
McKenzie Ritter:
Welcome to episode six of From Research to Real Life. I'm your host, Mackenzie Ritter, the Assistant Director of Research Education and Training, and the director of the Atlas program. Today we're diving into a critical topic, education and training and research. It's something we've touched on before, but today we're going to be taking a deeper dive into things like workforce development, research, education, and how we're building the future of, research support professionals.
I'm joined by a fantastic guest, Mary Dolansky, who's been working hard behind the scenes at the CTSC to improve training, resources, opportunities and tools for our community. Mary is an Associate Professor at the Francis Payne Bolton School of Nursing. An Assistant Professor at the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences. The director of the QSEN Institute and a senior faculty scholar with the VA Quality Scholars Program and the co-lead for the workforce development team within the CTSC. It's great to have you here, Mary.
Mary Dolansky:
Well, thanks, McKenzie. It's really great to be here. And a pleasure to work with you.
McKenzie Ritter:
As an exciting bonus, today's episode is extra special because it marks the final episode of season one of the podcast. So we've had such a great time diving into the important topics with you all, and we're thrilled to close out this season with a conversation that really gets to the heart of the work that we're doing to shape the future of research. We've been hearing a lot about the challenges in the research world lately. There's a shortage of trained professionals that help run clinical trials, a gap in access to, critical resources, high turnover within these research support roles, and the clinical research profession itself is experiencing a shortage. So today we're going to explore the solutions that are being worked on to tackle these challenges and, ensure that there's a clear career trajectory in the field. So, Mary, let's start a little bit with the background of your role within the CTSC and the work that you're doing with the workforce development team.
Mary Dolansky
Well, I'd like to just give a little background in my work in the past just to frame up this work in this initiative. So I'm a nurse and a scientist by background, and I've been involved in many grants related to both advancing clinical and implementation science. And I've done a lot with education also. One particular initiative in my past was the as the national leader of the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses, or QSEN, an initiative, and this work was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. When the grant was funded, when the grant funding ended, we created then the an institute and which we continue that important educational resources, providing competencies and other teaching strategies for nurses really internationally we used we got like 20,000 hits on the site. So I feel like that, background that I had and running that initiative was part of, what I bring to this initiative. And we also had a web based platform and had 250 teaching strategies on that. And the faculty really benefited from that and access to it quite a bit, just to have those easy to, use kind of resources help in these educational initiatives. During this time I also received some internal Case Western Reserve University funding to develop a massive open online course. And this course was a great experience for me to learn about what online learners would need. And it really warm my heart to see so many people use the massive Open Online course, which was specifically related to teaching quality improvement.
We had students or learners from across the globe, and I think through these experiences that I had out here with education, online learning, and competencies, I gained a lot of knowledge about how you spread education, how it's important to listen to the learners, to what they need, and then to be innovative and how you deliver it. Because I think our attention spans are getting short these days, and we have to learn quickly, swiftly, you might say.
McKenzie Ritter:
So, Mary, can you tell us how did you first learn about the CTSC and get involved with it?
Mary Dolansky:
Well, I got a random call from doctor Grace McKenzie, and it was late in the evening, and she, said, I have an opportunity for you. And you were recommended by Doctor Shirley Moore. And Doctor Shirley Moore was my mentor and guided me through all these past experiences. And so I felt very honored that, you know, my mentor would, recommend me for this position. And doctor McComsey is such a great saleswoman, and I could really tell her passion for the enterprise and the importance of research. And I had some prior experiences myself with trying to find clinical research professionals to be on my grants and, and train them. And I felt like this was a big need. And so I was very, honored and then eager to, you know, join in. And that's when I met. Then, she mentioned to me that I would be a co-lead with Doctor Catherine Dell, and that was a great partnership because I'm very clinical, research oriented and more health services research oriented. And Doctor Dell is, pediatric nephrologist and more of the lab and more of the, basic science to translation to the, clinical arena. So she knew so much that I didn't know, but I knew a lot about competencies in education. So I felt like it was going to be a good match. And then we had to write the, the, a grant for it. And it took us a long time because we had to do a lot of investigate and to learn about what who were the stakeholders, who would who were the pipeline, what were their needs. And then we also had to do a lot of investigation about what was already in existence and trying to find stakeholders and partners and, building this workforce development, I guess team.
McKenzie Ritter:
So can you tell us a little bit about what you're hoping to accomplish in this work? First of all, in this module.
Mary Dolansky:
Yeah. So I know Catherine, we were the first thing we did was she she brought in like 20 of her clinical research professionals. And we had a focus group or, you know, an online zoom. And they just shared that most of the time they really weren't aware of these positions. And they shared that they, did a lot of jumping from job to job because there was a lot of opportunities that gave them newer, experiences that they, moved. So there's a lot of transition in the field. And after that, that's in sort of focus group that we had with them.
Then we decided that the two things we would work on would be that pipeline. So we wanted to attract a diverse, clinical, professional workforce. And we thought about, well, what would be the big kind of categories. And then we determined that they would be the community, you know, community, people that we would like to have more community people involved in research and, and educate them. And then another group was the clinic. The research support professionals. So all these, research assistants and the regulatory people and the finance people, all the infrastructure for supporting a grant. And then we knew that we had to focus on high school students because that's the next generation. And they're very important to inspire about research and then college undergraduate and graduate students.
And then of course, investigators. But we learned that there was a lot already in existence for investigators. So we really wanted to put our emphasis on that. Clinical research support, professional career path. And with that, then we also wanted to focus on diversity. You know, we want to make sure that when we recruit patients that they're being recruited by, like people. There's a lot of misrepresentation in clinical trials. And so our one of our goals was really to ensure that when we are enhancing this pipeline, that it is a diverse pipeline. And then the second thing we knew, we were going to have to develop some kind of online learning, learning platform. And my past experiences with the museum and with the MCC, sort of gave me an idea that, Heather Bolden over in UTech, that she would be a perfect person for this because she helped me with all those, those platforms in the past. And so I called her up and I pitched the idea to her and she says, well, let me talk to my boss.
Mary Dolansky:
So then Tina Oestreich, Doctor Oestreich got involved in it. And is that a right name? Yes. Is it was right. Okay. Yeah. Tina and Megan. Megan, right? Yes. So anyways, they were very interested and they wanted to contribute. And then it was another learning, experience partnering with the UTech as to what was this Clinical Translational Science Collaborative and how was it that they were going to support us. And so, they then did some research on their own and learned about canvas catalog. And so now we have this great public access learning management system called Canvas Catalog. And then we're populating this learning management system with courses for these five groups the community, the high school students, the college students, the investigators and then the research support professionals. So you're real familiar with this canvas catalog, right? McKenzie. Because you're directing this initiative on the workforce development team.
McKenzie Ritter:
Yeah.
Mary Dolansky:
So I've been working closely with the UTech team to develop all these courses. And this is something that we've really identified. This is a gap.
McKenzie Ritter:
There are so many roles in clinical research like as you had mentioned, you know, not just the investigator role but also research support professionals. And so there's not a lot of education out there about what these roles are, what people are doing. And then just in general, what is clinical research?
Mary Dolansky:
We're seeing a lot of people don't actually know what that means. So I think that this learning management system, which is canvas catalog, is really filling that gap. And that's the hope that we can get, like you said, the next generation out there to learn more about not just what is research in general, but what is clinical research, what's translational research. And to get them interested to hopefully go into those career paths.
McKenzie Ritter:
Yeah. And I know then we also talked a little bit about some ideas of how to incentivize people to get excited about coming onto the canvas catalog and learning more. And we were thinking about Badger badging, maybe some kind of, credentialing of some nature where they can get, something they can put in their CV or their resume to show that they've accomplished these courses.
Mary Dolansky:
Right. And we've talked about that, and we've seen even the state of Ohio, right, has these micro credentialing and badging systems for a lot of the high school students that are going through these internship programs. And so I think that's something that is the hope is where workforce development is headed with Campus Catalog.
McKenzie Ritter:
Yeah. You mentioned internship programs.
Mary Dolansky:
I know that that's our next avenue. Then our next year we're going to pilot a few internship programs, because I think we realize that it's important for experience learning to get in your hands in there, to get shoulder to shoulder with, clinical research professionals and really learn what the job is about. So I think that's going to be a next, focus for us and learning about, how to do that.
McKenzie Ritter:
Well, yeah, I think that that's something that's really important to note as well, is that these internships are not just for students to go in with and investigators.
Mary Dolansky:
Right. That's typically what we're seeing is you go work directly under a PI and you do research. But I think a big thing that sets us apart is that we really are hoping to place these students, just not in those roles, but also with research support professionals to see what they're doing. And I think we, you know, I'll admit, even myself, when I first started in this role, there were so many of these jobs that I was like, I have no idea what they actually do. And I think that that's probably the case for a lot of high school students that right, you've heard that term before, but you don't know what they're doing on the day to day.
McKenzie Ritter:
So I think that's something that will be really, really beneficial to give them the option of like, you don't have to just go, you know, into a lab and work under, you know, an investigator. But you can also, you know, choose like, what if you wanted to work with like a research pharmacist, right. Like that. There's a whole other avenue that I think a lot of people are not aware or not aware.
Mary Dolansky:
Yeah. And I really think that, to be a recruiter or to, you know, collect data on the field or to work in the IRB is really something that people really don't consider as a career trajectory at all.
McKenzie Ritter:
So one other, observation that I had is a lot of people who I've talked to, they start out as a research assistant or a project director in research and then as they're in the work, they realize that they would like to be an investigator, and then they work part time, and then they go to school and get their PhD, and then they end up becoming an investigator.
So it is what we've been thinking about, a trajectory like a career trajectory that you enter into research, and then you can, get promotions in the field and then also possibly get more another degree and, you know, do something else. But to see this as a career path, I think is really important.
Mary Dolansky:
Right? So I think too, that hits on a good point that, you know, this typically a lot of these research support professions, they are seen as a stepping stone, like a lot of people are doing these as gap year positions and then right, moving on to graduate school or going to medical school. And then we're also seeing though, and this is from a lot of like our colleagues and people that are working within workforce development, we see that, you know, the intention was for them to do this as a gap year, and then they're like, I blinked, and ten years later I'm still in this job. But of course they've been promoted. And now, right, they're like the manager of a team. So someone that we work with, for example, she, you know, was intending to go to pharmacy school and then decided that wasn't the correct route for her. She started as a research assistant and then was a coordinator, and now she's working, you know, as not only in workforce development with us, but she's also right, like leading other teams in terms of education for high school students. Yeah. So and she said, right. She's been in this now for like eight years and thinks that this is something that she will continue to do because she loves it and found the thing that like, makes her really excited and so, you know, it kind of went a different way than she was thinking. And really, she had envisioned she would be a pharmacist. And now it's like these experiences that she had led her to, you know, this education for high school students. And we'll continue that. And I love working with Amanda. She is fabulous. And you can tell like this research is her thing. So that was neat that she found her. She found her niche.
McKenzie Ritter:
So Mary, you you are the one who came up with this idea of PODs or the 'Partners On Development'. So could you talk a little bit more about that and kind of how you came up with this idea and what the intention is in terms of having all of these different groups, of these content experts?
Mary Dolansky:
Yeah. So I think when Kathryn, I started to investigate what was the phenomenon, where were the needs were were the gaps. We started to realize we were not the experts and that we needed to partner and build relationships with these different groups. And so we thought of this structure, this pod structure in which there was a leader for each one. And then they would convene a group, their friends or their colleagues, or maybe people who they knew in the area, and then they would have like quarterly think tanks where they would think about, you know, what are the needs, where, where can we fill the gap and what would be some of the curricular, that would need to be put on to the learning management system? And so the pod structure has been working, I think, very well. They've been connecting us to the community on which we're trying to form this pipeline in the community in which we're educating. And, interestingly, they have a lot of intersection where they, say to another pod, hey, did you ever think of calling this person?
So we kind of thought that they would be working individually. But what we're finding is they're working really across the pods quite a bit. And now we even have some initiatives that are like high school and college students together. And so Amanda's working, you know, with, Ron Hickman, with, college students on that internship program. And then now we're realizing, oh, we need the support from the research support professionals for like, internship programs for mentorship. So now we're kind of grouping Ron and Amanda, then with our lead in that group. So the, cross relationship building and cross team work has really been exciting. And I think that will be a real asset to the product that we finally deliver.
McKenzie Ritter:
Yeah, I think being able to join this workforce development team was really cool to see that.
Mary Dolansky:
It's such a large network, and it's a very unique structure that you were able to bring in so many content experts, right? Like we've said before, as this core workforce development team, we are not interfacing with example like high school students and undergraduate students every day. So it's great to have their expertise. They can bring in their perspectives.
Right. Like Amanda, for example, we said is going to the high schools all over and getting in there and seeing what the needs are, where they are in terms of what is the baseline of their education and knowledge about clinical research. So I think that's really exciting. Yeah. And then our other colleague, team player is Sondra Tully, and she is bringing a lot of information and expertise because she has high school children. And so she's connecting us with a lot of the high school, connectors like Polaris, where we had one of our, we joined with them and had a career fair there. So it's interesting where everybody's pitching in and kind of sharing and everybody's sharing their different connections. Yeah. And I think that highlights to like Sondra, for example, is someone who came on, she started what, as a scheduler and then decided to move more into the clinical research space. So that's been really interesting to to have someone in this group who says, hey, this doesn't quite make sense. I don't really know what you mean, which is been really helpful to have those experiences not only as housing. I don't think a high school student would know what this means, but also from her own perspective saying, I don't have, you know, years and years of experience in this field. So we've got to take it a step back and make this more accessible for people who are just jumping into research for the first time.
McKenzie Ritter:
Exactly. Yeah.
Mary Dolansky:
And then she's from the Cleveland Clinic. And then we have people from Metro, we have people from the VA. We have people from university hospitals and then people from [inaudible] and Toledo and NEOMED. So it's really great to have those perspectives and really grateful that we have NEOMED & Toledo, because they kind of the more rural places. And we definitely need to, have pipelines in from rural areas.
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[BREAK]
Learn more about Research Discovery Day.
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McKenzie Ritter:
I would like to shift gears a little bit to talk about one of our other, education programs, the ATLAS program, which is the advanced translational Leadership and Academic Science program. So this is, leadership and team science program that runs over the course of seven months, and it really aims to increase collaboration across the partners of the CTSC, but also to provide formal leadership training for people in the realm of team science. And so you are very familiar with it. You were in the program for the first cohort. Could you just share a little bit about your experience in ATLAS?
Mary Dolansky:
Yeah, it was a great experience. And think the fact the CTSC is investing in leadership in our scientists is really important because there's so much, leadership that's required when we are doing our work as scientists. And for my for my experience, the content was top notch. We had such, a variety of speakers and opportunities. Some of the speakers, talked to us about integrating storytelling into our work. They talked about negotiating and, talked about how to deal with difficult conversations. So really important. Day to day competencies, you know, for us, but what was really impactful for me was working within a small team.
So they had us in all like a five person team, and we had to apply what we were learning in this team. And that was the challenge because we knew we couldn't be acting the way we have acted in the past, that we had to take on these new ways. And so that was most meaningful for me. And then it was also fun that we were competing for a grant, which a lot of you know, investigators are used to that competition. And so that was another fun part of the ATLAS program.
McKenzie Ritter:
Yeah. So Mary knows, that the ATLAS program, part of it was that the cohort was split into teams and they had to address a challenge in translational science, which actually is one of the aims of the grant. So they're broken into four teams, each addressing one of the aims. And so for the listeners out there, there are aware there were actually two teams that won, so they were given a $50,000 pilot or to, implement the program into the CTSC over the next year.
I just wanted to highlight the two teams that won. So the first is E2A or 'Educate to Achieve'. And so they're hitting on something that we've been talking about with workforce development is this challenge of how do we educate people about translational science. And so they actually are going to implement an educational program about translational science, and they are going to use the translational science principles as a framework for that. And so they're going to do focus groups to kind of see where people are at baseline about translational science, and then go off of that to see where they should start and like where they would like to end with this education and how to integrate translational science into their work. So I think that's really exciting.
And then the other thing was there was a group that utilized AI, which is very cool. So theirs is called AIimE, which is 'AI Implementation for Equity'. And so they hit on this issue with dissemination and implementation. So a lot of people. Right. You hear that don't actually know what it is. And so they've actually used and created an AI tool that will help people to put in the information about their grant and the research that they're working on. And it will give them suggestions of how to implement, equity. And so that's really, really cool. And they have, health equity experts as well as dissemination and implementation specialists to give their input and to look at what's coming out and validate that the AI tool is correct in giving things that actually make sense. So both of these are very, very exciting.
Mary Dolansky:
Well those are really both great examples of team science where you have different disciplines like working together on a problem and then wallah, there's new, you know, new ideas that arise. So that's another real benefit of the ATLAS program.
McKenzie Ritter:
So because the first year was very successful, and it focused on people like you who are in that mid-career and senior level stage. But this second cohort will now focus on people who are at the early career stage. And so this is the plan is that we'll alternate every other year to kind of shift focus on who's receiving this leadership training. So we are very excited to see this new cohort.
Mary Dolansky:
Another great example of workforce development, right. Yeah. And building our teams here at Case Western Reserve University in Northeast Ohio, right. So McKenzie, what other kinds of workforce development activities are coming up in the near future?
McKenzie Ritter:
So we actually have a really exciting day coming up. And this will be the first annual CTSC Research Discovery Day. So on March 21st, from 830 to 2 p.m. in Tinkham Veale University Center, we actually will be holding this research symposium type of day, but it's really cool because it has so many different components. So not only are we hoping to showcase all of the research that's been done, within the CTSC and all the partners, but also we want to have this as a way for people to learn what is going on at the CTSC. So what services do we offer? What are we? A lot of people, right, say they don't actually know what the CTSC does. So this is a way for people to come in and learn about what we're doing, the events coming up and just what what's going on.
And then the other part that I think is really unique to a lot of the other, like research days that are going on, is that we are bringing in, high school students from approximately 25 schools in the area to be partnered with mentors for the day. And so they'll go through poster judging sessions to learn about, you know, the research is being done and kind of breaking down, like, what is a good research question? You know, all of the specifics of research. And then they'll also have opportunities to learn about what research support professionals are doing. So there'll be a panel for that.
We'll have a keynote speaker and then a lot of other opportunities for them to network and to talk to other people about how they got into their roles and kind of what a day in their life looks like.
Mary Dolansky
So very exciting. Yeah, that does sound really exciting. What a great opportunity for high school students.
McKenzie Ritter:
So yeah I just highlighted the research Discovery Day. But workforce development also has another exciting day coming up if you'd like to highlight.
Mary Dolansky:
Yeah we do. We're hosting a community research day. And this is going to be in April. And we're partnering with Cleveland State. And it's going to be a great day for community members and scientists to spend the day together to really learn about, synergize and research in the community. The keynote speaker is Doctor Edith Parker. She's the dean of the College of Public Health and the professor of community and behavioral health at the University of Iowa. And people are really excited to have her come in because she's an expert in participatory, community research. And she also has prior to being named the dean in 2018, she served as the departmental executive officer in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health. Her research also focuses on health equity, specifically the design and implementation and evaluation of community health promotion, interventions to improve health status and reduce disparities in health.
She's this expert in community based participatory research, which emphasizes the active involvement of community members in all aspects of their research process and then her expertise also includes translating and disseminating research findings for program and policy change. So she's really consulted on and community academic partnerships nationally and globally. So we're really excited to have her come here. And she's published extensively on the use and evaluation of all these partnerships. Her work's been funded by many organizations, including the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and she's got actually over 100 peer reviewed publications and book chapters.
So she's an expert that we're delighted to have here in Cleveland to share her knowledge with our community partners.
McKenzie Ritter:
Yeah. So that sounds like a really exciting event. It's really great to see that these events, are highlighting careers in translational science and research for the next generation.
So now, before we end today's episode, I wanted to take the time to thank you, Mary, for joining us today. It's really been a pleasure having you here on the podcast. For those that are listening, don't forget to check out, the ATLAS program, workforce development and all of our upcoming events at the CTSC and with our partners.
You can always find a link for all of this on our website and in the description of the podcast. As always, we encourage you to become a member of the CTSC. There's no cost to join, so be sure to do that. This is the best way for you to stay informed about all of our upcoming events, funding opportunities as well as research support.
So thank you so much for tuning in. And we'll see you next season. On from Research to Real Life.
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[OUTRO]
From Research to Real Life is brought to you by the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Northern Ohio. The views, recommendations and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the presenters and not necessarily those of the CTSC or its partners.