Chief Epidemiologist Sakshi Faulkes, MPH

(upbeat music) Take a chance. It's okay. Most people, especially when you're an early career, want to help you and support you. So it's okay if you get rejection. That's part of life. That's fine. But take a chance and talk to people. If you really have questions, if you see somebody at LinkedIn and go like, "Oh, that's a cool person. I like their job." Take a chance and say, like, "Hey, I'm an early career." Maybe they'll not respond back. That's the worst sometimes, right? But a lot of us want to reach out and support epidemiologists. Welcome to Epidemiology, a podcast where we learn about the different specialties within the field of EPI. Through conversations with epidemiologists, we'll talk about how they got into their fields, turning points that shaped their careers, and any advice that they have for new epidemiologists entering the field. I'm Dr. Casey Ingalls. I'm a disaster epidemiologist and I work in governmental public health. This shows for anyone wanting to learn more about the field of epidemiology or to just learn about what it is that Epis do day to day. In today's episode, I talk with Sokchi Fulks, Chief Epidemiologist for the first day foundation. We discuss the importance of taking chances, especially by reaching out and creating opportunities through building connections, as well as highlighting that success in epidemiology comes not just from technical skills, but from being able to identify gaps and using data to create meaningful and actionable impact. I was kind of trying to think about when was my first introduction to Epi or public health. And that was actually back in high school. My first year in my English class, one of the books that we had to read was "Demon in the Frieza" by Richard Preston. And that was about, you know, smallpox readiness and things like that. I'd never heard about anything like that before. So I thought that was so cool, but I didn't really, at that time, connect it to epidemiology. But I still remember having that feeling of this is such a cool job, you know? And then at university, honestly, I really didn't know what I was gonna do. I was not one of those people who were like, this is just my gym. So I studied philosophy because I was interested in ethics and biology. And that's really where I started to think about public health because we did this in the ethics role and because I was a biology major in that competing, they gave me all the medical ethics or public health ethics cases. That was the first time I thought how much your zip code affects your health. That just that concept of population health just came in front and center. So that was the first time I thought about my God, the social determinants of health are, you know, it's such a place, such a big role. I'm Indian, so I come from India. So I grew up in Udel-E and then I moved to the US when I was about 15 years old. So I started relating back to my health with, you know, kind of environmental health and those types of things, air pollution, of like, how does your life expectancy change? You know, the same person having the same habits but in different places, how does that play into effect with access and some other things? So that's kind of really where I started thinking about public health a little bit seriously and that I went into my masters, I did a public, I did a masters in public health and started looking at things like policy and I thought that was very interesting. How did you choose like the school that you went to and what kind of like factored into your decision for that? I went to University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, which used to be Pan American. I lived in Rio Grande Valley, so that sort of made sense to me at the time, you know, I was an immigrant's kid so it had to be very financially conscious of where I went and I stayed at home to basically save money and I got a great education out of it, right? I ended up publishing first-order research papers while I was studying at the university. And so at the time, I actually was encouraged to go to like med school, like a lot of people. I wasn't really sure that that was kind of my jam but I didn't well enough on them cats that I actually got in. And spent like about a semester or so in New York and decided that was not the thing I wanted to do. It was just not my thing. I kind of really was interested in back to your biology and realize infectious diseases, but you know, the art of medicine was just not something I realized very quickly that I wanted to do the science of medicine was interesting. So I decided, nope, that's not the right for me, came back home and I was just trying to, I was tooling around, trying to figure out what to do and Texas A&M had, I kind of knew a faculty member at Texas A&M, so I just had a random conversation went into the university and talked to them about, hey, this is kind of where I'm at, what should I do? Just so happened that that person walked me over to the Dean's office and said, you need to be in an MPH program. I have never met somebody who's a better match for public health than you. You don't know this yet, but this is something you're gonna love. And I think this semester was starting, I wanna say two weeks. And so they filed my application in that room and that's how I got into the A&M MPH. It was just, like I said, I fell into public health and I'm so glad and I was accepted, like basically in the next day, because I'd taken an CAD, it all kind of worked out. So I didn't have to take the GRE or anything at that point, but it was just, honestly, a lot of the ways that I ended up where it was was having very open and honest conversations about what I like, what I can do, what my skills are and they aren't. And I found that people are very responsive to that, to this day. And so, started the MPH program, absolutely loved it. It just clicked from day one, right? I felt like this is what, even though I couldn't articulate it, this is what I wanted to do. So I'm just deeply grateful for that experience. - What year was this, like you did your MPH? - 2010, I know the degree requirements have kind of like changed over the years, like what, 'cause when I did my MPH, we had to do like an applied learning experience. That was like our main thing in order to graduate. - So for my program, it was really focused on rural public health, which at the time, not a lot of programs were, but I was interested in that. And so for me, I could pick from a lot of different types of projects, but I was kind of honestly more looking around for what I could even get, right? Because it had to be with an organization. And so my first call, at first I've got to do like a research project with the university, but really I wanted to do more practical based project, because I wanted to understand how the system works. And that was very, very important for me. I literally colon called our local health department. I think I talked to the chief administrative officer over there, explained my situation, and said, is there anything I can do? And I think at first they were like, well, we don't really do capstone projects, that's not. And I was like, well, that's okay. I can volunteer, I can come in and sort of support any projects that you don't have any people for. Here's a free labor. I can help. And they said, well, let me think about it. What are you interested in, I think, as infectious diseases? So they only had one epidemiologist at the time. And so when I talked to them, talked to some of the fat people of emergency preparedness, public emergency preparedness people. And one of the things they wanted to do was, hey, we absolutely need an outbreak response guide. And I was like, I can do that. That is something that I can totally come in and help with. And so that's kind of how I did my practicum. I think I really appreciated the fact that I had to step out of my comfort zone and make these connections and cold calls. And not back down when they said, we don't have anything like that. And so I think that's an incredibly important skill that we all need to build, especially in today's world, where you do just call and say, how can I add value here? How can I support what you're doing? Maybe it doesn't look like what you were thinking, but thinking on your feet a little bit. I think it's just so important. Yeah, I agree. And the self advocacy, too, I was like, I have these skills that I can bring. I can add value even in an MPH program. When you were in your MPH program, was your focus on epithet or was it on policy? It was on policy. I took some extra EBS classes, but it was mostly on policy. And again, at that time, I remember like, I was not a-- I'm going to do a public health. I have a lot of biology research background. I love infectious diseases. But I also-- because of my philosophy, a background I was interested in policy, right? I wanted to understand both worlds. So I've always been a person who likes the right person. research likes the hard data analysis, but also wants to see that translated into policy and is interested in bridging that gap. So I did do policy and then took more epi classes and understood how the data analysis portion actually works. After your MPH, you were then hired at that-- Was it a local health jurisdiction then? Yep, yep, I was working for Hidalgo County Health and Human Services. So I was working as an infectious disease epidemiologist. I started off as-- I think I was on the ELC Foodborne Grant, so did all foodborne illnesses. Our health department was kind of interesting. What we used to do was we used to investigate pretty much most infectious diseases. And then we would do home visits for infectious diseases when we were doing contact investigation. So if the person didn't pick up three times, we would actually go to their home, which I learned that that was not something that other health departments do. I think I learned more than probably even school in my first job as an epi. I basically, after the first year, did every investigation you could possibly think of. We had day and day in the valley, so did a lot of vectorborne things. Worked with our environmental group to sort of set up. Grab it traps, did research projects, brought the university together, did cross trainings. So just had a lot of opportunity. And you're at a small local health department, and you have two epidemiologists when you really need like 15, maybe not 50. But you know, a lot more. You just wear a lot of hats, and you have to do everything. So that was probably one of the best experiences I could have as a starting epi because if there was anything with fat related to public health, yes, what? I'm doing it. Right? If you have to sit in locals, you know, just control, I guess what you're doing it. So just got a very well-rounded education in terms of learning the ropes of how does infectious disease epidemiology work in at a local health department. I've talked to some others who had a similar first epi job out of grad school, and they shared a very similar sentiment of being just responsible for everything and learning so much. I'm really curious about the home visits. I can only imagine that as like a government employee showing up at your house, like what was kind of the response from people when that happened. Did they know you were coming? Or if you can't get a hold of them, it was like a surprise visit. So right. So we obviously would leave voice messages. So this is again very different because we are on the Texas, Mexico border, right? And so one of the things that our agency talked a lot about was trust. And I know everybody talks about it, but really it took years for public health to build trust in communities because you can imagine being at the, I mean, we're very close to the border, pretty much just close to the border as you can get, right? That's really at Rand Valley. And so the relationship building between public health and showing up to somebody's house, it was just, it was very important to have those conversations. A lot of times I had conversations with people who were like, yeah, can you just come over and say, yeah, I'm going to go back to the community. I'm going to go back to the community. I work for them for three and a half years. I was doing a research project with him at the time. Especially for later. That's a really complex and complicated coordination between all of these different organizations. And you're an early career epi at that point. How did you learn how to do that? How did you, I guess, have the, I don't know if it's confidence is the right word, but how did you step into that leadership role to start pulling all of those partners together? One of the great things about reading a small local health department is that I had access to our chief administrative officer. Right? And there's one more epi. He is my age. Right? So when you're young, sometimes you don't really know the barriers yet. And I think that you should use that to your advantage. Right? So I was very enthusiastic. I like to think that still am. But at the time, I was like, nothing can stop me. And I think this is something that I've learned to realize this is my skill. Whenever I enter a space, whether that's a new job or university, I kind of look at, and this is maybe a millennial thing, honestly, where I look at like everything that people are doing. And then it irritates me when there are gaps that can be filled by somebody else. And I want to kind of put things together and like, you know, take a, take a jigsaw puzzle. And I'm like, hey, you don't know how to do this. this, but you know, we can get here by using this piece. So, how do we try that? And of course, there's a lot of social, cultural things that I'm aware of now that I didn't before, but sometimes when you're young and people want to encourage you, it's a perfect time to just kind of go in and be like, "Let's try and do that. What's the worst that'll happen? It won't happen. What's not happening now?" Right? So, I went to a chief administrative officer, I was like, "Hey, I'm doing this research project and I noticed that are environmental people. They don't do the surveillance. I talked to somebody in Florida and they do this. We should do this too." And they were like, "Well, we don't have money. We don't need money. We don't need money. It's okay. We can do this." I was very, I was a golden retriever puppy. I was very excited. And I was lucky that I had people who were encouraging me. And when people would shut me down, I would kind of double down and be like, "No, no, no. This is a problem. That's fine. I'll find a different way to do it." And so I think that's what it was. It really came from a very pure enthusiastic, young, epi. I want to change things and I want to add value. What can I do? And because my partner, epi, was also very young, I'd kind of be like, "Let's go. Let's go. Let's do that." That's really good advice. I mean, there's a little bit of, "You just kind of don't know." So, leave him in. Try it. Try it. But like what you said, it's like, it's not even being done. So if they say no, like, okay, what's the harm? Yeah. Why, you know, tell yourself no before you even ask about it. Yeah. And I think if you come from a place of like sincerity and enthusiasm, you know, there are a lot of things that you can try and they won't go anywhere. And for sure, I'm sure that happened. I don't remember anymore. And that's okay. You know, you just can't let that part of you that wants to constantly improve things and get better died because people really respond to that. You know, now I'm in a much different, much higher leadership role. And when I see that same sense of enthusiasm, you know, I get why people want to encourage me because I want to encourage that. You know, it's, it's, it's a human nature to be drawn to somebody because we're all in public health for I think very similar reasons. We want to serve. And so I really encourage people to just like take a name. Nobody is going to hate you because you wanted to do something well or you wanted to improve something. All they can do is ship you down and then you come up with something else. Everything that's happening and happened and just public health and I mean the pandemic and people are burnt out and how do you maintain? You're enthusiastic and you're just like continuing to work towards improvement when there's just a lot of things that are going on. I'll tell you how ideal with it, I go through like peaks and valleys, like a lot of people. There are days where I'm very frustrated. I'm very unhappy. And honestly, I am negative where it's like, what's the point? And so and it's important to acknowledge that because it is very frustrating and kind of scary time. At the same time, I never forget the reason why I did this, right? Because all of us are hard working in us, smart enough, care enough, have great enough work ethic to be doing other things that we could be, let's be honest, making a lot more money. But I come back to the fact that in my doctoral program, one of my corporate mates said something really interesting. She said, Mr. Rogers said, "When things get tough, look for the helpers." My friend Jackie said that and I think about that a lot because guess what, we are the helpers. And we don't, as hard as it is, we absolutely have to make sure we're taking care of ourselves. But there are a lot of people who are relying on us. There really are. And it's tough time for us, but it's a much harder time for them. And so we decided to be the helpers. And when times get tough, we have to find that will within us to keep going and to keep that enthusiasm and care because times are going to hit them a lot harder, right? And so some of it is just surrounding yourself with people who will encourage you, right? Some of it is trying to find some improvement, right? Make some change. Maybe it won't change everything. But what, asking yourself, okay, today, what can I do to move forward? Right? There are 17 blocks. Is there a way to get through somehow? Uh-huh. Understanding that it's okay that we're not necessarily making huge strides right now. One of the things that happens when structures around us fall is that we have an opportunity to think about how we can rebuild things in a better way. And so sometimes I spend my energy thinking about, if I had to rebuild XYZ, right? How would I do it? How would I make it more sustainable? How could I make it more inclusive? How can I add more value to it? And so sometimes thinking about things in a kind of a different way almost as an opportunity to think about, I'm going to be ready with a lot of ideas when that opportunity comes because it will, right? I don't believe public health is going away anytime soon. And so I think part of moving forward is to understand that we will have an opportunity, we will have more resources, and then how can we engage those resources, maybe even in a better way than they were before? How can we get to a better place than we were before? I think about it more in terms of communication, honestly, how can we communicate with people better? That's something that all of us in public health can do better. Right? We can be better. Especially epidemiologists because part of data analysis is, we tell a story, that's what we do. We look at our data and we see what the story is. And so what's the best way that we can communicate that? How can we be out there talking to the people about the value we add? So I would say, think about those things now because we will have an opportunity to rebuild. And so think about how you can, what will you do to contribute to do that better? Burnout is real in the public health. Absolutely. So yeah, I agree trying to find those little glimmers of hope and ways that we can kind of like keep moving our work forward. I appreciate your insight on that. Was there other positions that you had after this local health jurisdiction that you worked at? How did you decide that you wanted to go into a doctoral program? What were your big career turning points that got you to your current position? So after that, I, a lot of that job was really hard because I loved it. But honestly, I just wanted to live somewhere else. I'll be completely honest. It wasn't like a big career move. I was just kind of looking around and always wanted to live in Vermont. And then I found this job working as a, and I wanted to do something a little bit different. So this was like part of my kind of career building thing that I wanted to get a little bit of experience in every then I wanted to get a little bit of experience in something else. And so I got a job working as a health educator in Vermont. And that's something that I cared about a lot. I come from a family of educators. And so I worked there for about a year and a half, almost two years, I think. Great opportunity to understand how to talk to people, which now is such an important skill. And what does cultural competency actually look like? And so again, picked up some different skills from there. And then I kind of fell into a couple of years later into the job that I have now. Not exactly. I was working as a public health director. This was a very different job. Now I'm working as their chief epidemiologist. And at the time, it's really a nonprofit organization that supports, actually a whole lot of things. The biggest thing that they, or one of the biggest things they do is support emergency management in response for state of Texas, Louisiana, and some other places. And so I kind of went in for a little bit of a quick stint. I just kind of dealing with an outbreak and had some conversations with the president of the company at the time. And we just sort of, again, wasn't really thinking about a full-time job. There was no opening. I just was doing this response work and I literally physically got up and introduced myself. Somebody said, "Oh, that's the CEO." And I was like, "Oh, I should go and introduce myself." Again, date two on the job, right? Don't know anyone? Only public health person there, by the way. And I did. And I asked some questions. I said, "So, you know, what are the kind of public health things that you do?" He asked me some questions and I was like, "So, what are you doing right now?" And I told him, "Oh, I just got married. I'm moving back to the valley from Vermont. And I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'll figure something out." And he said, "You know, we don't have a full time public health person. You should come in and join us." And I was like, "Doin' what?" And he's like, "You should be a public health director." You know, talk to Carrie, who's, by the way, my boss is boss now. And that's how I got the job that I did. I did not know what that would be at the time. There had been no public health director for the organization, but they knew that they needed somebody to oversee public health activities. Because they were doing a lot of different types of things, refugee shelters and all kinds of things, assisted living facilities and things. So they needed somebody to coordinate all of that. Got the job, moved back to the valley for a bit. And within about a year, we had a pandemic. And that changed our lives, all of our lives. And I was doing COVID, and COVID only because I was the public health person, obviously I was suddenly elevated. Everything was not everything, but a lot of things were under my thing. As we all did, I think, as epidemiologists learned new skills very quickly. I was exhausted, was scared, but kept going. Right? I think this is all of us having the same story. I have questions about, because it sounds like a lot of, like the opportunities that, or like in the positions that you've had, like really have this stem from just your confidence to just kind of talk to people, walk up and have a conversation. And I just feel like that's really impressive. And really admirable to just like, oh, that's the CEO. And as you said that, I'm like, ooh, I would be like, turn it around. But you're like, I'm just going to go over and say hi. And I get opened up this great opportunity for you. And I just think that, I don't know. I just think that's really cool. And I feel like, how did you get that? Yeah. Like, how, what did you do to like gain that confidence? Let me tell you that skill. Confidence is not something that I have, innately. This is not a skill that I was like always had as a kid or anything. I have a lot of anxiety. I have a lot of imposter syndrome a lot of times. But one of the things that I was told by some mentors was don't ever rob yourself of an opportunity, right? Let people say no to you. That's okay, right? Go in and talk to, if you want to be a leader, observe other leaders, observe people who are decision makers and just go say, hello, go talk to them. By the way, that's very, very effective, especially when you are early in your career, right? One of the best ways to build confidence is from competence, from me, at least. Okay? So I rely a lot on the fact that one, I have the ability to learn things that I don't know and two, I can work extremely hard. It's hard. It's very difficult to outwork me. It might not be the smartest person all the time, but I will be the most hardworking and I am very, very consistent. And so people ask me all the time, how can I distinguish myself from other people? And my answer a lot of times is be the person who can be relied upon. Like if I had a project to give to somebody, be the person that if you are getting that, that per, anybody who's giving you something will know that the product you will get back is excellent. And if you don't have that capacity, you'll say no, but that it will be consistently good. If I have this saying about like, you know, part of it is self-respect, right? I don't like putting my name on something that is not excellent. I need to make sure it's good. And you do that consistently and you come from a place of enthusiasm and sincerity. And it's hard to then not look at that person and go, okay, that's a person I can rely on, I can trust. And as far as talking, walking up to leaders and talking, I was very, I don't do that without meaning, right? Like I don't just go in and be like, you're the CEO, hi, and now I have nothing to talk to you because I have anxiety, I can't do that. And I'm not, I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'm not necessarily the kind of person who will walk in the room and be the life of the party. I'm just not that person. So I've worked very hard on developing a scale of going up. I, in my head, go, I'm going to introduce myself. I'm going to say this is what I'm doing. And I'm going to say, is there anything I can do to support you or support the mission? That's it. That was the only thing I was going to say, right? Because I thought, how can you get mad at somebody who just comes in, introduces themselves and says, I'm here, I'm here to work. This is what I'm doing. And if you need anything, please let me know or how could I support you? And that's not just to leaders. That's to the person sitting next to you, right? Having that interest in developing that takes a long time. It's easier for some people than others. I would say I'm a medium. Sometimes it's easy for me. Sometimes it's not. But yeah, but leaders are not no different than anybody else. They're people. They're people. They really are. And so that's what I said to Kevin. I was like, hey, and he just started talking about they had responded to your bullet. And I was like, oh, you know, and then I had a story. And I was like, did you do this? And did you do this? I'm so interested. And I don't know what he saw in that. I kind of joke even now to him. I'm like, you're stuck with me now. But yeah, it was part of it was luck. And I want to be honest about that. A lot of these things seem like I have done, but there are plenty of people I've talked to where not only nothing came out of it, it was just a very disappointing conversation. And that's okay. That's 90% of that in your life is going to be nothing comes out of it, right? And then you'll have that one conversation where it's like, oh, wait, here's an opportunity. Here's a door open. But that door is not going to open if you don't do the 90% of rejection work. So that's kind of where it comes from. Yeah, that's really helpful. I also have the idea. I'm going to use your method. Yeah. Yeah. Just ask a question. How can I support? How can I support? Is there anything that you think that I can do better to support you? People love that question. And this is a question I like because I think it's meaningful. And sometimes it's a no, but you'll remember if somebody asks you that, you'll remember, like, oh, that person cared enough, right? To ask. And also it doesn't put pressure on you to keep having a conversation. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're like, oh, no, thanks. And then you can go. Okay. Thank you. And then yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you offered this position as like public health director, which didn't exist. Correct. So how did you, I guess, what directions were you given? Or was it just very like you kind of were able to create this position as you saw fit? Or I guess for people who are maybe in like a similar position where they're like, provided a program and said, like, okay, you're going to start this program. Yeah. Create a program with like very little direction. So I guess how did you go about doing that? Yeah. I had just come out of a job that did exactly that. My previous job, nobody had held it before the health science educator job. And so I just come off of working with my boss and that job and developing the job description. So I felt very confident in my ability to be like, okay, well, let's see what you have and what you need. Okay. So some of it was just having a lot of conversations of, so what do you need? And the hardest thing was to figure out sometimes people didn't know what they needed. If you're the only public health person, you're not going to know. And so then my response was, If you don't know what you need from me, then I need to know. what you do. So I can actually figure out how I can add public health value in what you do. So I spend time learning about the programs, I spend time understanding licensing, I spend time understanding what the, what the, and the, and every public health activity that was occurring right now and what were some of the biggest challenges. I talk to people in every program and then I looked at my official job description deliverables, took all of that and then created basically a document of, so this is what I think we should be doing in this program. What do you think? Is this a direction? Do you think it's worth it to go to? And I asked my supervisor that. I found that it's very helpful when you do this kind of legwork if you have nothing. Sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes people have a pretty good idea of where you want to go and then you can kind of take that and run with it. But if you really have no, you know, or if you have free reign, which is actually really exciting, or terrifying depending on, you know, where you are, I think it's a good place to understand the system and then pull back and go, okay, so where is the value that I can add? What can I do? And then start having conversations with, well, have you thought about doing this? And what are the reasons you're not? Like kind of doing almost like a barrier analysis of why are you not doing that? Sometimes it's, they haven't thought of it. Sometimes it's money, sometimes it's something else. And then working with the vision, with the strategies of your supervisor and developing these programs and kind of taking direction from that. That worked great for about a year. Again, like I said, until the pandemic hit. Everything was out the window. Everything was about COVID then, right? We did a lot of work. Again, that's when my position changed from public health director about a year in to chief epidemiologist because we just needed a lot of work. And we just kind of restructured a lot of things. And now that position makes a lot more sense. And so now I do epidemiology. I do really anything related to infection control, public health, policy building. So now I can take all of the skills and put them together. And so last fall, I started my doctoral program at Indiana. And it is a cohort-based program. So I think they're like 14 of us. And it's a programming, global health leadership kind of an interesting time to be delving into, but very exciting as well. And so my project now is focused on really looking at misinformation during public health emergencies and finding evidence-based realistic ways that how can really the question is how can local health departments implement evidence-based strategies to fight misinformation during public health emergencies? That's my actual research question. I will say it's obvious. I like to think why. And I think it draws a lot from my work really starting off with building trust in communities. And I think my entire careers kind of brought me, I feel like, to this point of like, there's a lot of research people do, but I'm interested in. Yeah, but I've been an epi. How can I help, you know, epidemiologists and local health departments actually do this, you know, culturally appropriate, politically feasible, real world environment because, you know, that's the challenge of a generation in a lot of ways. So that's what I'm kind of working on now. And how did you decide, because you're in a DRPH program, right? Not a PhD program. Was it always a DRPH that you wanted to pursue? So I look at PhD a lot more in terms of, I know this is not the right word for it, but bench research, right? And so you can go in, you can teach, and PhDs, of course, do all kinds of things. I was interested a little bit more on the practitioner kind of side of it. I've, like I said, I've always been interested. That's why I didn't just like go with an app, PhD, just straight and epi. I knew I could pick up a lot of those technical skills, but I'm interested in bridging that gap from evidence-based research and policy to actual implementation. And the reason I picked global health leadership was, you know, I came across this, this very interesting article that talked about, we have a lot of people doing research trying to find solutions, right? But there is an actual dearth of either research or understanding of why these evidence-based solutions absolutely fail in real life, right? Like so what is, whether you call it a momentation science or leadership differences, but really, how can you be trained as a, as a public health leader to be able to successfully implement these evidence-based solutions? Because we know in real life just because something has evidence behind it, they're not always those solutions are not always being implemented. And so I really wanted to understand that and get trained on, okay, so as a practitioner, how can I really do this in a systematic way? How can I be an agent of change, right? Because I think that's what's needed now. So that's, this part of it was like from COVID, there are a lot of lessons, I feel we all learned. And I felt like I was far ahead in my career where I was taking some leadership roles. So I wanted to get additional training on that and I'll tell you it's very helpful so far. And so that's, that was the basis for me picking a DRPH over at PhD. Maybe one day I'll teach, but mostly it's because I want to get into more of the practitioner side of things. I feel like that goes back to something you said earlier too, where you're like, I like focus on where the gaps are and then like trying to like fill the gap. So yeah, that's a really good point. There's like, there's so much research out there and then I feel like it's everything as silent. There's like the research and then there's like the applied epidemiology and then there's, we need that kind of like go between to actually work on like the implementation of the evidence-based research. What can you talk a little bit more about? So you started last fall and how long typically is like a DRPH program and again, like what kind of are the degree requirements and can you talk a little bit more about like either a project or your research that you're hoping to accomplish regarding like misinformation? It is an accelerated program. It's so my program is cord-based. It's a three-year program and so I'm taking I think three or four classes every semester including the summer so we don't really get a break. We have two international residences that we do. We just did one in Thailand. We're going to Kenya the summer. So very excited. Yeah. And we move through all of the classwork as a cohort. I already, I think our first semester, we already needed to have our research question pretty much nailed down or it was highly recommended and then we worked on getting a chair and everything. So you are working at a very high accelerated speed. It is expected in my program. I think they take a lot of people who are already, who've had five, 10 years of work. So again, it's, I don't think it's called an executive program but from what I understand, again, it's kind of for people who have, who have a lot of experience in their field already. And the idea is like you've worked enough in your field that you have identified a problem and you kind of know the solution as well but that solution's not being implemented. So your job is to kind of figure out what's going on there. And so as soon as I started, I had a pretty clear idea that misinformation was something that I wanted to tackle and then it was just a matter of kind of working with my chair to get the question refined quite a bit. And so now I'm at a, I think we're because I'm in year two. I've got one more summer left and then got another year to work on the actual project. I'm actually working on my proposal defense this semester. Oh yeah, okay. So it's a lot. Yeah. And then we do a comms in the summer slash fall and then yeah, it kind of goes through. So it is intense. It is not a five year program. You don't have that much time. But the best thing about the program is you get to rely on your call for it. I met amazing. executives through this program who will be friends for life and we do rely on each other a lot to help us. So if anybody has an option to be in a cohort program, I highly recommend it. I'm curious about the international residency is that you do? Like can you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah. This is, I think that's a global health part of it, right? As it is a global health leadership program. So two residencies are required. We just did the first one in Thailand where essentially we spend a week as a cohort together with some faculty members in Thailand. And we learned about their healthcare system. We learned about their industries. We learned, we talked to people from different ministries. We learned about their surveillance programs, their emergency management. We talked to the universities there. That was kind of the main liaison. So really understanding what is the healthcare and public health situation and what are the kinds of solutions that they're employing. And I thought it was fantastic. The kind of work they were doing was blown away with the types of resources. So it was idea, it was like an exchange of, they would ask us questions. How would you solve this problem? We would ask them, well, how did you manage to do XYZ with these resources? And what do people think about it? Just really trying to understand how their health systems and public health systems were. And it was great. We loved it. Yeah, that sounds like a really great experience. Do you, did your cohort, I guess, did your cohort have input on where you went? Or do they change each year? Or, yeah, I'm just kind of curious how they selected Thailand. Yeah, so it changes. I think every year the cohort before us went to Norway and then they went to Thailand with us. For Thailand, we didn't have an input. They did ask our input about the next. And I don't know if they take that into account or it kind of depends on what programs they have in those countries. But I can tell you, we are all crazy excited about Kenya. We're going in a couple of months and actually in a couple of weeks we're going to find out what are those specific details. So we're very, very excited. Are you still at the same organization while you're doing your DRPH? Yes. Yes. How is that? How do you balance like being in school and working? So, full time or part time? Yeah. So the way my program works is once a week I have a class and it has to be its synchronous. So we all have to be in there. It's a three hour class and there are two classes in there and then it kind of goes from there. So when I applied to the program, I had a very open conversation with my boss, with our CEO. And I was like, guys, I'm doing this. I'm going to need your support, right? And they were amazing. I'm very thankful. Especially my boss. He wrote me a recommendation letter. So thank you, Dr. Hartzel. Amazing. And so I've had nothing but a lot of support. Having said that, I can't remember the last weekend I had off. So all of my evenings and a lot of my weekends going to work because it is extremely intense. It's really a program that is only three years. There are a lot of programs that are longer. And so you get a little bit of time here and there and they're not cohort based. So you get that flexibility. If you are in a situation where I would say where maybe you don't have as much support or maybe your life is really intense and you can't deal with that, then I would say go for a longer program. But I couldn't have done this during the pandemic. There's just no way. Now things are a little bit better. Even so, there's enough work that it's like six o'clock. I log off and then I'm trying to do some readings and I'd lunch and trying to read. So every really minute that I have, maybe not every minute, but a lot of time, is dedicated to this program. I really did have to kind of stuff my life for a bit to work on this program. I'm always curious to hear how people kind of manage their work life balance, especially. I also work in emergency response for sometimes. It's like, sorry. It is what it is. You have to go. There's an emergency. You have to work now. And that's the nature of emergency response, which I was very clear about to my program. Like, look, I will do everything. But if Kevin calls and says, you need to get on a plane and be here, that's what I'm doing. That's how that works. There's nothing, you know, that's emergency management. And that's more important, not more important, but that is something that's going to take priority. But luckily, everybody's worked with me. So. That's great. Yeah, that's great. It sounds like the program is accommodating in your, you know, your employer is accommodating. So I'm very thankful for that. Yeah, I'm really, I'm just like, really curious to hear the outcome of your research. Yeah, I'm just personally and professionally. I will send you a copy, Casey. Please send it to me. Yeah, please send it. I find like misinformation and disinformation just like absolutely fascinating. And I know there's like, what is it? Like, John's Hopkins has like a- Yeah, Tara is doing, Tara's doing some work. I think I'm using her solution. Her is in the world called the organizations as like affidim space solutions. But mine is like, how am I going to end it? And I'm with the barriers. So yeah, they're doing some great work. Caitlin Jadalina is doing excellent work. I hope she's publishing on what's working and what's not working with misinformation. So yeah, I, it's such a big passion of mine, you know. My closing question is if somebody were to come to you and say they wanted to be an epidemiologist, like what advice would you have for them? Yeah, I think one of the biggest lessons I've learned in my career is take a chance. Like really take a chance. It's okay. I think that a lot of us, especially Eppies, are very type A. I don't, I hate to generalize, but we are. Like I have to lie. No, we don't. We absolutely are. You know? And we are perfectionists. And so I guess two things because this is something we love to do. And the other thing I would say is zoom out a little bit. As data analysts, as epidemiologists, one of the things I notice is that we love to dive in our data and we hold on and we love it. And sometimes when we are talking to people who are not epidemiologists, we don't know or we don't tend to talk from their perspective. I think having zoom out, knowing the story and thinking about your audience is very important. I learned that when I was dealing with emergency managers because I would give them my beautiful, you know, long paper on what I think is going on and they'd be like red, yellow or green. Do you understand? Or bullet points. You know? And I was like, well, but that technically doesn't mean this. But, you know, and I would never want to make a statement because that's what we're taught to be very, very nuanced. You don't have to give up nuance, but you do have to be confident enough to say this is what this means, right? And be able to be clear, easy communication because if you're talking to emergency manager and you give them a three page long paper, they don't care. Let's be honest, right? Maybe they do, but most people are going to want to say, I'm not an epidemiologist, stop writing for other Epis. You need to write for the people you're talking to. So the number of times I had somebody say, yes, but does that mean I need to buy N95s or not? What does that mean? So always think about what does the action item that this data is revealing to me? And where do I stand with that? And if you can't make that connection, then you need to say, well, there's data a little bit more and understand what it actually means, right? Be able to have those conversations because we are the keepers of that data of a lot of stories. But unless we can share that, people don't know our value. Evidemiologists are incredibly valuable and a lot of times, a lot of other people don't know the skills we have and the stories we can tell and the action items we can give. So that's something I would say that synthesize your information and share it in a way that adds value to the person you're talking to. If you can master that skill and we really all need to master that skill, I think you're going to go really far in your career. Thank you for listening to this episode of Epodemiology. Be sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you don't miss a new episode of the show. And if you have any questions about epidemiology or suggestions for future guests or if you are interested in being on the podcast yourself, please drop a comment on this episode or send me a note on the Epodemiology substack which will be linked in the show notes. Again, I'm Dr. Kise Ingles and you've been listening to Epodemiology.