AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting 2025—My Last Day
Monday was my last day at AcademyHealth this year. The meeting went through Tuesday, but there were reasons for me to be home, and my social stamina was completely out by mid-afternoon on Monday. That doesn't mean that Monday wasn't just as important as the other days, however, and it is worth sharing some reflections.
I began the day with a walk rather than a run, and then had a networking breakfast. It was wonderful to meet up with others from the health equity interest group. I had the opportunity to chat with a PhD student from Hopkins and one of the presenters I'd seen at the toxic culture session the day before, among others. While this contributed to my social stamina eventually running out, I always enjoy meeting new people and continuing to build my network, particularly among those who feel that the healthcare system should be designed to make everyone better off.
I'll leave the session at which I was a panelist until last. After that, I went to the plenary in which resilient careers were discussed. My three biggest takeaway messages were (1) to network with people outside one's field (which I certainly do, but it is nice to hear), (2) to make use of mental health services when needed, and (3) to identify the purpose of what we are called to do in the world and stick to that (which I am lucky to have done).
The mentoring lunch provided a great opportunity to meet with junior scholars interested in trans health issues and career pivots. One of the three mentees was comparing schools of public health and business schools (which I know something about), and one was a social work PhD student, taking classes in other topics at neighboring universities, and trying to bring a multidisciplinary work back to the PhD program in social work. She didn't fit completely anywhere. I understand that feeling. i also received some bidirectional mentoring from the mentees, and that was great.
I closed out the day by meeting with a JHU alumna and finding out what she works for another alumna whom I know. Cool connections.
Circling back to the panel at which I spoke, the focus was on Innovating in Challenging Times. It was acknowledged that times have been challenging for a while. We were asked to think about (1) whether the questions being addressed needed to change,(2) whether who was going to ask them, address them, and be given access to the results needed to change; (3) whether we need to change methods and definitions; (4) wheher we need to change who sends the mesages to the decision makerland, and (5) whether we need to change invtives. I focused on changing data (sometimes by the fiat of those who are not conducting research), changing incentives (particularly as higher education has very mixed incentives to promote high-quality research with fewer resources); and (3) changes in who communicates findings to relevant decision makers and what tyools we used to achieve this goal
As we approached the end, we talked about changes in the perception of privacy, particularly between Gen Xers and millennials. Who was in the habit of sharing more information? Who understood better how to protect their information, etc. We talked about silver linings and how this type of information could help indicate new possibilities. Could we talk about AI as an opportunity rather than a pathology? We also talked about building the best things and whether, when the dust clears from current political crises, we would want to "build back better" or (preferably) build forward and differently, thinking about new inter-institutional collaboration and how our core values could guide us to more actionable steps.
This type of idea exchange and the opportunity to build forward (with bidirectional mentoring opportunities like the one at lunch and networking opportunities with interesting speakers like the one at breakfast) are several of the reasons to attend meetings like the AcademyHealth annual research meeting each year.