Get Advice about the Little Steps Posted on December 3, 2007 Ihsan M. Salloum (bio) encourages investigators to find supportive mentors.

I think that’s very, very important how you set up the relationship as well with the mentor and with the expectations. It's important to know who is your mentor. So, before asking somebody, maybe you want to get familiar with their work, what they have been doing, what’s their interest, and so it would be nice to have a compatible interest between you and the mentor.

Sometimes as a trainee, it's hard to find the way, hard to know what actually they want. But, basically ask the mentor. Say, "Well this is what I like, and what would you offer in this area? How should I develop this?" Ask some specific questions and maybe not be afraid to ask even the simpler kind of questions. Every research project these days you have to get approval from the IRB, that is the Institutional Review Board, and even the simple fact of making an IRB application could be very daunting to anybody who is starting.

So I would ask my mentor not only try to help in my ideas, how I can shape them and make them researchable, which is the major part of doing research, but really trying to get the fear out of all of those little steps that people have to go through, and maybe try to get the mentor help me of being a little bit patient.

I think the research enterprise here, you have very delayed gratification. And you need to like the process, and many of the processes are very tedious. And so, I would make sure that the mentor is there also to provide help in those areas.

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