First-Time Travel Grant Winner, First-Time CHEST Attendee
By: Aaron Lampkin, MD
March 22, 2018
I am very appreciative of the CHEST Foundation travel grant. This was my first time attending a CHEST conference. Certainly this award allowed me the finances to attend but also presented an opportunity to become more involved in the organization. I have attended other national conferences and have had feelings of being lost and unsure of how to best use my time. Thanks to the CHEST Foundation, this was not the case in Toronto for CHEST 2017.
As a newer member to the organization, I did not know many people at CHEST outside of my own training institution. The CHEST Foundation had several organized events (Breakfast of Champions, mentor/mentee partnership, NetWork Trainee Mixer, CHEST Challenge, and so on), each allowing me to meet at least one new person/CHEST member. During these conversations, you find out about people’s interests, research ideas, career advice, etc.
"Meeting all these people makes you feel part of the organization."
Meeting all these people makes you feel part of the organization. A good example of this was CHEST Challenge. Prior to this travel grant, I honestly did not give much thought to our institution trying to participate. After seeing this and experiencing a wonderful conference, I plan on actively trying to accumulate points for the fellowship and will encourage my co-fellows to do so as well. I also found the trainee recharge lounge to be quite nice. It offered a place to sit and work on some things outside of CHEST sessions.
One of the other wonderful opportunities the grant provided was linking me with a mentor at the conference. To me, this may have been the most impactful part of the grant. It is nice to hear ideas from someone with similar interests and also to get feedback on some of the research plans I have during fellowship. Not only did I meet my mentor, but she also introduced me to several other CHEST members with similar interests to me. Certainly that has a lot of value now but also will be a great resource down the road. Having a mentor with similar interests also points you to several interesting sessions to attend.
I also felt like the balance between required sessions and the opportunity to pick my own sessions to attend was well done. As a second-year fellow, the sessions were very relevant to the challenges I face now and will be facing in the very near future. Topics such as career advice and financial planning feel so important as things I am doing now will affect opportunities I have to be prepared for over the next 12 to 18 months.
"As a second-year fellow, the sessions were very relevant to the challenges I face now and will be facing in the very near future."
It is not an area that is covered often, and it always feels nice to ask several people what their experience was like and what they found most important or helpful. It was really nice to have several people tell me that I don’t have to have my entire career figured right now and that research interests and career goals can change even after you start working as faculty.
This grant provided a wonderful opportunity to me and really has given me a lot of incentive to be part of the CHEST organization down the road. I am somewhat introverted and still met a lot of new people and faces who I hope to see again. I am not sure how broad the different clinical interests were for grant winners, but perhaps in the future fellows could be paired somewhat based on these interests, much like the mentor/mentee relationship. I felt very well supported at the conference and that things were coordinated very well. The overwhelming feeling I have from this award is gratitude.