Latest / EHA Unplugged / A Successful Mentor’s Mindset: EHA2025 Education & Mentoring Award (Prof Jan Cools)

Transcript

A Successful Mentor’s Mindset: EHA2025 Education & Mentoring Award (Prof Jan Cools) · EHA Unplugged

• 0:00
  Now there's a lot of failure of course in experiments and I
• 0:02
  think it's good to learn from that.
• 0:04
  I think that's what I try to approach also with with always
• 0:06
  with my students. There's nothing wrong with
• 0:10
  failure and we that's part of research.
• 0:14
  It's also part of growing up. You try things, you fail, and as
• 0:20
  long as you learn from that failure, I think that is the
• 0:23
  important part, then there is nothing wrong with it.
• 0:30
  Welcome to EHA on Float, the official podcast channel of the
• 0:33
  European Hematology Association EHA.
• 0:36
  I'm your host, Isabella Rivera, and today we have the pleasure
• 0:40
  to have Professor Jan Coles. Jan Coles is a full professor in
• 0:48
  the Department of Human Genetics at KU 11 in Belgium, where he's
• 0:53
  also serves as the group leader at the VIB KU 11 in the Centre
• 1:00
  for Cancer Biology. He has served as an board member
• 1:06
  of EHA and is now the editor in chief of EH as Open Access
• 1:12
  journal Hemisphere. So his dedication to hematology
• 1:17
  extends well beyond research and he has been awarded this year at
• 1:25
  the HA Congress, the EHA Education and Mentoring Award.
• 1:31
  And we want to hear more about your experience at mentoring
• 1:35
  students and researchers. First of all, congratulations of
• 1:40
  the on this award. Thank you very much.
• 1:42
  And thank you for being here with us.
• 1:44
  It's a. Pleasure.
• 1:47
  So in this podcast, we want to discuss what are the qualities
• 1:53
  of a good mentor, then how to learn to be a mentor, if there's
• 1:58
  a way to learn and in your case, these skills has expanded way
• 2:06
  beyond researchers and students to go your role in hemisphere.
• 2:10
  And finally, how mentor mentoring is changing with all
• 2:15
  the new tools in this digital era.
• 2:22
  So if I want to congratulate you again on receiving this award
• 2:28
  because you were nominated by your students and your postdocs,
• 2:34
  why do you think they appreciating you?
• 2:39
  Oh, that's a difficult question. Yeah.
• 2:40
  I think what they appreciate and you, well, I would say
• 2:45
  definitely is, is that I try to have a personal approach for
• 2:49
  each of them. I, I don't have in mind what a
• 2:51
  good postdoc, what the best postdoc should be or the best
• 2:54
  student, because all of them are different.
• 2:56
  And I try to find their strength, which can be in
• 3:01
  science, but it can also be outside of science, maybe for
• 3:04
  their future careers and try to try to help them to, to achieve
• 3:10
  what they really like to become. Not driving them into academic
• 3:15
  research or into one particular thing that I think of for
• 3:19
  myself. But I try to see what is, what
• 3:22
  are they good at? What are they dreaming of?
• 3:24
  What do they like to do? And then try to give them
• 3:28
  indications of with my experience and how they can use
• 3:31
  the best of their own strengths to become a very good scientist
• 3:36
  or become a very good person in the company, become a very good
• 3:40
  artists, become a teacher, any type of thing that they they
• 3:45
  want. I think that's maybe not always
• 3:48
  possible. I think in academic research,
• 3:49
  many of the many of us or senior people try to see how can we get
• 3:57
  our students further in academic research and try to build their
• 4:01
  career there. I think for some of them that's
• 4:03
  definitely their goal, but for others that might, that might
• 4:06
  have other aspirations that are outside of academic research.
• 4:11
  And I have seen some of my postdocs be starting their own
• 4:15
  company in, in artistic images for, for research.
• 4:19
  Others go to a biopharmaceutical company and, and take leading
• 4:23
  roles, others starting their own company.
• 4:26
  And I think you have as a good mentor, I think you have to let
• 4:28
  them grow in the way they want and just give them a little bit
• 4:32
  of a push to do that well and give them the best possible
• 4:36
  advice to to achieve that. So what are the qualities of a
• 4:41
  good mentor? So I think what I try to do at
• 4:45
  least is, is listen first of all carefully to what they like and
• 4:50
  try to understand then where that's coming from.
• 4:52
  Some, some of the students have no idea what they like to do.
• 4:56
  Do they want to stay in academic research?
• 4:57
  Do they want to go back to the hospital, maybe if there's a
• 5:01
  hematologist and do only clinical work.
• 5:05
  And I think if you listen well, then you start to hear what they
• 5:09
  prefer, what they really like to do or what they get most of
• 5:12
  their energy out of. And then of course, you have to
• 5:15
  match it with their capabilities.
• 5:17
  And some people have dreams, but you find out that they are
• 5:20
  potentially not realistic those dreams.
• 5:22
  So you have to learn and talk to them on, on what are then
• 5:27
  realistic goals to achieve. And maybe you step by step
• 5:30
  getting there also. So I think as a, as a mentor,
• 5:34
  that's, that's very important to have an individual approach.
• 5:38
  There's no just one approach to, to mentoring.
• 5:41
  There's many different ways and many different types of people
• 5:46
  and many different ways that you can help them.
• 5:47
  So I had two very good mentors. I learned from them what they,
• 5:51
  how they approached it in their labs.
• 5:54
  I learned a lot from them. I took some things over from
• 5:57
  them. So that's also think how we
• 5:59
  become a mentor ourselves by just looking at others, how they
• 6:02
  do it and and then combine all the, the good parts that that
• 6:06
  you like. Oh, I think it's improved that
• 6:08
  there is more and more attention to mentorship and also from EHA
• 6:12
  and with this award, I think it's good to to highlight that
• 6:15
  that this is important and that we also get some knowledge from
• 6:20
  other sources. There are courses now, more
• 6:23
  training courses. TRTH is very good.
• 6:26
  I think that what EHA and HASH are organising themselves the
• 6:30
  TRTH course where there is so focusing on mentoring the
• 6:35
  postdocs and the students. I think that has evolved a lot
• 6:39
  over the past 30 years since I started my my first steps.
• 6:44
  And I think that's very good because young students and
• 6:47
  postdocs really need a good mentor to help them get the best
• 6:52
  out of themselves and also find their way in this complicated
• 6:55
  structure. Sometimes at academic
• 6:57
  researchers, but also in companies.
• 6:58
  It can be complicated and also balance with other personal
• 7:03
  life. The the world is becoming a
• 7:06
  little bit more complicated I think.
• 7:08
  And so mentoring is definitely also more and more important.
• 7:13
  So in research, there are more failures than successes.
• 7:16
  How do you help students keep motivation and.
• 7:22
  Now there's a lot of failure of course in in experiments and I
• 7:25
  think it's good to learn from that.
• 7:26
  I think that's what I try to approach also with with always
• 7:29
  with my students. There's nothing wrong with the
• 7:32
  failure. We that's part of research.
• 7:37
  It's also part of growing up. You try things, you fail and as
• 7:42
  long as you learn from that failure, I think that is the
• 7:45
  important part, then there is nothing wrong with it.
• 7:48
  So I try to sit together with them, look at why did an
• 7:50
  experiment fail? Maybe we didn't have the good
• 7:53
  control, maybe we were not prepared to do this.
• 7:55
  So we have to take a step back and prepare better before we
• 7:59
  repeat it once more. Because nothing is, is as bad as
• 8:03
  repeating as an experiment 5 * 5 times, getting a, a, a wrong
• 8:07
  result or a, or a failed result. So that's important to learn and
• 8:12
  then only go back. And also for the trainees and
• 8:16
  the, and the, the postdocs and the researchers I, I mentored, I
• 8:20
  think it's always important also to, to allow them to make
• 8:26
  mistakes. You know, also in their way they
• 8:29
  approach their career. You have to mentor.
• 8:33
  And of course you have, that means you give advice to them
• 8:35
  how to do things. Sometimes they listen and it
• 8:37
  works out, then everybody's happy.
• 8:39
  Sometimes they don't listen to you and they try still something
• 8:42
  that you said and you shouldn't do it and then they fail
• 8:45
  sometimes. But that's also important.
• 8:47
  I think if they don't try something new and something
• 8:50
  different and they have the right to fail and if they learn
• 8:53
  from it, then that's good. I also had with my own mentors.
• 8:58
  Sometimes they gave me advice that I thought maybe I can do is
• 9:01
  and I will try it. And then I failed and I learned
• 9:03
  from it. I experienced myself that I was
• 9:06
  not able to do it and only that I believed them that it was not
• 9:09
  possible to do so. I think giving their trainees
• 9:12
  the the right to fail once in a while it's it's also important
• 9:16
  we we learn a lot from failure. So you try to find also the
• 9:20
  right space when to teach them something or try to help them at
• 9:26
  what point to step back. And with them, indeed, yeah,
• 9:29
  that's important, I think. Give them some space, give them
• 9:32
  some freedom to choose some things.
• 9:35
  I most of the time do not give very strict recommendations.
• 9:38
  I say you could do this or you could do that, or you could
• 9:40
  maybe think of something else. Think all of them have maybe
• 9:44
  maybe good solutions, but you have to find out what works for
• 9:47
  you. There's also for one person, one
• 9:49
  thing works and for another person something else works
• 9:51
  better. So I think it's giving them some
• 9:54
  advice but also some freedom. I think that's what I feel is
• 9:58
  very important in in mentoring. So let's move on to your role as
• 10:05
  a Hemisphere editor or editor in chief.
• 10:08
  How has your experience of mentoring students and postdocs
• 10:13
  translated to your role in Hemisphere?
• 10:16
  Yeah. Well, I think for Hemisphere
• 10:18
  I'm, I'm having a theme with different members in the EHA
• 10:22
  office, different staff in the office who's who are helping us
• 10:27
  with the journal and then a team of editors, associate editors
• 10:31
  and scientific editors who all together we make the journal.
• 10:34
  And then of course you have the authors and the reviewers.
• 10:36
  So it's becoming a huge team, team effort for working with the
• 10:42
  with the editors. I think each of the editors
• 10:45
  again, has, has their own view on what is a good article, how,
• 10:50
  how to choose reviewers. They each do that in a slightly
• 10:53
  different way. How to make recommendations
• 10:56
  afterwards. So my role is to try to
• 10:59
  harmonize that as much as possible so that all the authors
• 11:03
  are treated in a similar way and that we have the same standards
• 11:07
  among the different editors. But again, you I also need to
• 11:10
  give them some freedom. Every editor has, again, the the
• 11:15
  right to do that a little bit different.
• 11:16
  We all have a personal touch, and I think that personal touch
• 11:20
  is also important. I think that creates some
• 11:22
  diversity and that's good. But on the other hand, of course
• 11:27
  we also have to harmonize a little bit so that we know
• 11:31
  exactly what are the standards we are standing for.
• 11:34
  What are we looking at in articles?
• 11:36
  Is it good enough? Not good enough for, for the
• 11:39
  journal because of course we want to reach relatively high
• 11:43
  standards for Hemisphere and, and, but that works well.
• 11:48
  I think at the meetings that we have together at the conference
• 11:50
  calls that we do just via e-mail, because each of us works
• 11:54
  in a, in a different space, in a different place, a different
• 11:57
  country. So in a way, giving them some
• 12:01
  freedom, but also try to harmonize the things and, and in
• 12:06
  this way that it's, it's not exactly the same as mentoring
• 12:09
  students of Gordon because they are experts in their field.
• 12:12
  I'm not an expert in many of the fields that they have to
• 12:16
  evaluate articles on, so the expertise is with them, but then
• 12:20
  the way we approach it something that we try to harmonize.
• 12:24
  So in this effort to harmonize, there is this new initiative
• 12:28
  from Hemisphere to teach how to peer with you.
• 12:33
  What can you tell us about this new?
• 12:36
  So we have a session tomorrow here at the EHI meeting together
• 12:40
  with your Schweller, one of our associate editors.
• 12:43
  We're going to have a session to try to teach a little bit.
• 12:46
  What is it, what we expect from a reviewer.
• 12:49
  If you look at the research article and you have to give
• 12:51
  feedback as a reviewer for Hemisphere, for example, or for
• 12:56
  other scientific journals. And there is very important that
• 13:00
  the young students and postdocs also get some advice on what to
• 13:05
  do, what not to do when reviewing articles.
• 13:08
  I think most of us know that we have to evaluate the science,
• 13:13
  that we have to look if the good controls are there, if the
• 13:15
  conclusions that are taken from the experiments are right.
• 13:18
  But the way you write that and the way you put it forward is
• 13:21
  something that is not easy to do.
• 13:23
  And that's especially what we want to show to them.
• 13:25
  Give some good examples of these are good reviews.
• 13:28
  That's really something that we can use as editor to make our
• 13:32
  conclusions and also give them some examples that we would not
• 13:36
  like to have. And so show some good and some
• 13:39
  bad examples because as a reviewer, yeah, you really need
• 13:43
  to point out if there are problems in the article or if
• 13:46
  there are good, what the good aspects, what are the
• 13:48
  problematic aspects? But also give some advice and or
• 13:51
  try to give some advice to the editor.
• 13:53
  What is lacking in this article to make it strong article that
• 13:57
  you could potentially consider for the journal and, and
• 14:01
  especially is this possible or not?
• 14:02
  Can they do it by doing some extra experiments or doing the
• 14:06
  data analysis in a slightly different way?
• 14:08
  Or is it not going to be possible?
• 14:10
  And is it better to reject the I know script and maybe have it
• 14:13
  for for another journal? Because of course, I think most
• 14:16
  of the manuscripts that we receive can be published
• 14:19
  somewhere, but we cannot accept everything we want to select.
• 14:23
  Those articles that really bring something new to the field are
• 14:26
  really leading the field in a new direction, and so that's why
• 14:30
  we need to be strict. So we're now so in a digital
• 14:36
  era. Let's go back to the pandemic.
• 14:38
  So the pandemic really changed the way we communicate.
• 14:43
  So it made video conferencing very common.
• 14:51
  Has this changed the way you have this mentorship
• 14:56
  relationship with your students, your postdocs in the lab or how
• 15:01
  you approach also this your job at Hemisphere?
• 15:07
  Yeah, of course. I think for Hemisphere, most of
• 15:10
  our meetings can be online now because it's, I think that's
• 15:14
  good. We, we can exchange ideas.
• 15:17
  We're already all very much on the same lines.
• 15:20
  So I think for for just discussions with the editors, an
• 15:24
  online meeting works well. I think for mentoring students,
• 15:27
  I would not prefer an online meeting because I think being in
• 15:30
  the same room feeling exactly what what's going on and also
• 15:35
  see how the person reacts on, on things you say is probably more
• 15:40
  important there for mentoring than what you can do on in an
• 15:43
  online meeting. You don't see everything.
• 15:46
  And it's also good to maybe go to the coffee machine together,
• 15:49
  make a coffee, start chatting a little bit.
• 15:52
  These are all aspects that we of course miss if we do online
• 15:55
  meetings. And online meetings are good
• 15:57
  too. They can be placed to some
• 15:58
  extent. Some things, if one of the
• 16:01
  students have a question while I'm on a conference or or away,
• 16:05
  an online meeting can definitely be used to quickly come together
• 16:09
  and discuss something. But for real mentoring, I really
• 16:13
  like the personal contact sitting together in the in the
• 16:16
  same room or even outside in the sun and, and take a moment to to
• 16:21
  to discuss in detail with each other what you really want and
• 16:26
  what you really think. I think so there online meetings
• 16:29
  can definitely not replay that. There's a lot of online
• 16:32
  resources available that can be used.
• 16:34
  I think also for students and post docs now and mentoring by
• 16:40
  your supervisor is one thing, but you can definitely also get
• 16:43
  some ideas of what what it's like in research or what your
• 16:49
  next career steps can be by watching some recorded
• 16:53
  discussions by by others. So I think in a way it is these
• 16:56
  online tools can help and prepare maybe also for a good
• 17:01
  talk with your own mentor. But the real mentoring still
• 17:04
  have still needs to happen in in real life.
• 17:09
  So they are complement to this mentoring relationship that is
• 17:13
  so important to establish with your supervisor.
• 17:17
  Right, Yeah. And mentoring is of course also
• 17:18
  not just you do once and then it's over.
• 17:21
  It's it's typically going over many years and you see the
• 17:25
  student or opposed to grow and and and so that whole
• 17:28
  relationship is built up over many years.
• 17:31
  And even after the the persons have left your own group, you
• 17:35
  can still do some mentoring if you see them at the conference
• 17:38
  again and and you can discuss a little bit how it's going and
• 17:41
  and give them advice. So it's it's a continuous
• 17:45
  relationship. And now there's AI, so
• 17:51
  artificial intelligence in everything.
• 17:55
  Some people are suggesting to use artificial intelligence
• 17:59
  based mentors as a replacement of a real mentor.
• 18:05
  So what do you think about this? Yeah, at this moment, I don't
• 18:10
  use AI enough. I think I I would I should use
• 18:13
  it more and we should all learn how to use it.
• 18:16
  That's definitely important. I think for mentoring.
• 18:19
  I don't know if that's that can replace a real mentor, maybe for
• 18:25
  some aspects again, potentially, but it's always a danger that
• 18:30
  these artificial intelligence is not completely aware of the
• 18:33
  whole situation and or making up something.
• 18:36
  So I think it's it's good to use.
• 18:40
  It can definitely help you maybe get some ideas, get some
• 18:44
  information. But then a real mentor is, I
• 18:48
  think, still needed. And it's important because the
• 18:51
  the the real mentor will know much more about the person than
• 18:56
  than the AI. Some argue that they can
• 19:00
  establish this relationship with an AI mentor and then the mentor
• 19:06
  will remember everything. We'll never forget anything and
• 19:09
  knows. Everything, it's maybe it's
• 19:12
  maybe also a good or a mentor to, to forget some things rather
• 19:16
  than to remember everything. I don't know, but who knows, You
• 19:21
  know, I'm open to all these things.
• 19:22
  Definitely. I think AI, machine learning,
• 19:26
  all these new tools that are becoming available to some
• 19:31
  extent, they're really impressive what it can do.
• 19:35
  It can definitely also help for hemisphere again, for correcting
• 19:39
  articles or improving articles, improving an abstract.
• 19:42
  I think many authors already start using that to just improve
• 19:45
  their English, the way the abstract is written.
• 19:48
  And I think these are good changes that happen.
• 19:51
  People use it to improve their texts.
• 19:54
  Some people probably also use it to write it from scratch and,
• 19:57
  and to have AI write a whole new story.
• 20:00
  I think that's dangerous because then there can be.
• 20:03
  Errors in it or it can be AI can make up some, some part of the
• 20:09
  of the story. And so the article is partially
• 20:11
  fake. So that's dangerous.
• 20:12
  So we have to be critical about it.
• 20:14
  But I think, yeah, as we learn to use this, it can definitely
• 20:18
  become important to some extent it in both mentoring and in the
• 20:23
  way we write articles. We we, we correct and improve
• 20:27
  articles and we also publish them and have them red out light
• 20:34
  loud while you're driving your car.
• 20:37
  You can listen to to to an article or so in the future that
• 20:41
  that may all become possible. So AI can replace a bit or help
• 20:47
  what we're doing, but you cannot replace the relationship that
• 20:50
  you have with your mentor. So it might be a good tool and
• 20:56
  provide some answers, but you need this personal.
• 21:02
  Touch or the most rewarding thing in, in mentoring is that
• 21:05
  it's in a two way. So I, I mentor the, the mentee,
• 21:10
  but what the mentee is doing, what the trainee is doing is
• 21:13
  also helping me in, in my research.
• 21:16
  I see how they approach things. I can learn from them and they
• 21:20
  can learn from me. And so this two way approach in,
• 21:24
  in the whole mentor mentee relationship is truly rewarding.
• 21:28
  And I, I doubt that artificial intelligence can, can completely
• 21:33
  replace this. And so also for the mentor, I
• 21:36
  think it's very rewarding to see how the trainees are evolving,
• 21:41
  how they take up your advice and that you can see that they are
• 21:45
  then successful. So so.
• 21:48
  If you want our audience to remember just one thing from
• 21:51
  this this podcast, what would it be?
• 21:54
  I think about mentoring, I would say to everybody who is
• 21:58
  mentoring somebody, don't be afraid for your mentees to to
• 22:03
  make a mistake. Let them make a mistake and
• 22:06
  learn from it. I think that that is sometimes
• 22:09
  more important than to give them very specific advice how to do
• 22:13
  something. I think of course you have to
• 22:15
  give them advice, but let them then also choose their way of
• 22:19
  how they dealing with your advice.
• 22:21
  And sometimes that will work out and sometimes maybe not exactly.
• 22:25
  And so they can also learn from it because just, and just giving
• 22:29
  advice and then somebody following it at exactly what
• 22:32
  you, what you told them will also not be successful all the
• 22:36
  time. So you have to be able to give
• 22:38
  advice, let your mentees make some mistakes.
• 22:42
  They learn from it. You sit together to discuss why
• 22:45
  it failed, why it failed or, or how you can, how they can
• 22:48
  approach it now in the future. And I think that's that's an
• 22:51
  important aspect of mentoring. So congratulations again on this
• 22:56
  award and I hope you have enjoyed this experience and all
• 23:04
  the audience has enjoyed it. And so thank you very much for
• 23:07
  listening and stay tuned for more episodes.