Dr. Kimberly Luu

Saffanat Sumra: Thank you for making time for this interview! Always appreciate your guidance as my [CMC] coach. So, on the topic of coaching and mentorship, what impact has mentorship has had on your surgical career?

Dr. Kim Luu: I think medicine includes heavy mentorship because our training model is based on a kind of an apprenticeship model. When we are medical students and we are trying to decide on the subspecialty that we want to do, it is very much looking at the role models and examples of people who are in the positions and whether we can see ourselves in those positions. So in that sense, I think that it's very natural to think about having mentorship kind of dictate what your career is going to look like. I see mentorship in many different ways. I would not say that I have one mentor that has stuck with me through it all and is the one person that I aspire to be. But I think that I have many people that have guided me in different ways whether it be through specialty choice, acquisition of clinical and surgical expertise, or research. Then there is also mentorship for career guidance. Now that I'm faculty and thinking about my next five years or ten years, I think I have a lot of different mentors that play those different roles.

Saffanat Sumra: Do you have any advice for medical students or residents who might be currently trying to find mentors?

Dr. Kim Luu: I had read once in a book and I think that's kind of resonated with me-- the writer of the book said that a lot of women come to me and say “oh, I want you to be my mentor.” And she thinks, “I don't know if that is how mentorship relationships necessarily work.” I think that there needs to be some kind of authenticity to it. There are certainly formal mentorship relationships where you're signing up to with a PI to do research. But I think the key to a successful mentorship relationship is authenticity. It should also be mentee led, meaning that they're clear on what the goals of that relationship are. So, I don't think that you can go to someone and just say, be my mentor. I think you have to be specific, “I want to work on this skill or area, and I want to work on a relationship in which you can help me do that.”

Saffanat Sumra: Amazing. So being open to mentorship in multiple areas, whether it's clinical research, career advice and then being mentee led and being authentic. Thanks Kim. So kind of switching gears, could you talk a bit about your own journey to ENT?

Dr. Kim Luu: So when I entered medical school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I kind of had an idea, but was also very open to see what speaks to me. My sister was in medical school and she was kind of the only person in my close circle (other than obviously my med school peers) who was in medicine. And so I did clerkships and rotations to see what I wanted to do. I initially thought that I would want to do medicine but I really liked surgery. I think it's just one of those things where if you're exposed to it and you like being in the OR, I think that's a special thing. Not everybody has that kind of affinity. So I knew that I wanted to be a surgeon. And then I was looking at the specialties and subspecialties to think about all the factors that would influence my career and what I liked about it. And so I picked ENT. I'm really, really happy. But I also think that I'm the type of person who would have been happy to do a lot of things. So I think it's a fundamental fork in the path of your life. But I think if I had forked in a different direction, I still would have been equally fulfilled and happy.

Saffanat Sumra: Thank you for sharing that. So if not surgery, what would you be doing? And this doesn't have to be within medicine. It could be outside of medicine.

Dr. Kim Luu: I really don't know. It's so funny-- your path in medicine is so long that all the things that you had before, that could have been your career, are different. But before medicine, I was an engineer at Microsoft. So maybe in a different life, I would have continued that path. I think some of the things that I didn't like about that were I didn't necessarily like being in a big corporation, and I didn't like the corporate ladder. I think a lot of that kind of influenced how happy I was in my early career. 

But I think if I had explored different avenues of being an engineer, I would have found something that resonated with me a little bit more. I do like the direct impact and the relationships I build with people that happen in medicine. I also really like planning. So maybe I would be a wedding planner.

Saffanat Sumra: Wow, thank you for sharing that. So what's one thing that you know now that you wish you had known during training.

Dr. Kim Luu: I don't know. That's impossible to know since you're doing the best that you can in your current situation. But one of the things, and I don't know if this is possible to teach, that I would think about is residency, and now that I'm faculty and I look back to how I was as a trainee, I think I could have done things to make my learning more efficient. The autonomy and the responsibility that you have for your patient once you become faculty is a huge factor for you to think about in terms of the details of their care in a deep, deep way, which you don't do as much when you're a trainee because you're not the ultimate person responsible. So if you could somehow channel that autonomy and responsibility for the patient, I think you would approach every patient that you saw as a trainee in a different way. That would make you better at critical thinking and decision making. So I think if I went back, I would change my mindset. As a trainee you may think, someone's going to be there to back me up. Whereas now a lot of the times, no one's going to be there. So I need to figure out what my options are. I also try to visualize-- visualize what is going to happen in the operating room. And sometimes I'll write down the steps or I'll talk through it before the operation, or I'll think about things in a lot of detail to prepare myself-- “if I struggle here, what am I going to do if this happens? What am I going to do?” In a way this is deeper than what I ever did as a trainee, but would do if I could go back.

Saffanat Sumra: Great. Thank you for sharing! What are you most proud of, personally or professionally? It doesn't have to be in medicine.

Dr. Kim Luu: Most proud that I feel like I am living my life in an authentic way. I feel like I've made decisions that align with my core values and intrinsically resonate with me, and not with any extrinsic or external motivations. So I'm proud of that.

Saffanat Sumra: Amazing. And then at some point you made a shift to also include medical education in your path, and then you became a Bridges CMC coach. What led you to that path?

Dr. Kim Luu: I think that I’ve always been really interested in it. Similar to what I was talking about before, a lot of it came about when I was a resident. I think residency is this crazy time in your life where it changes the way you learn, and you’re really starting to learn the thing that you’re going to be doing for the rest of your life. I wanted to be really thoughtful about it, and I wanted to optimize my training.

I also think residency is this beautiful, privileged, and unique opportunity where there are patients who trust you and physicians who trust you with their patients for your benefit—for your learning. That is amazing, and I didn’t want to take that for granted. That really inspired me to think, "I need to be the best learner I can be."

That led me to think about what it means to learn expertise in medicine. What does it mean to learn surgical skill? What is expertise, and what is competence in medicine? Those are very much fundamental medical education theoretical questions. That led me to think about it in a more scholarly way, so I did my master’s in medical education to learn more about that. That’s how I ended up pursuing opportunities in medical education.

Saffanat Sumra: That’s amazing. You can be this fantastic ENT surgeon, and then you can also go into education. Switching gears here, what are some of your hobbies outside of the hospital?

Dr. Kim Luu: Babysitting my children (laughs). I mean, I love all the normal stuff. I think that I’m very social, so I love getting together with my friends. I love going to see movies, and I enjoy very active things like hiking and snowboarding.

Saffanat Sumra: That’s awesome. Hiking and snowboarding sound amazing. Is there a quote, mantra, or some lesson that you live by?

Dr. Kim Luu: I think there is one that resonates with me—“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.” The essence of it is that we are born into circumstances that we cannot control. We have a responsibility as a society to provide equity and equal access to opportunity, regardless of the situation you’re born into. Another way of saying it is that equity is important. Acknowledging that and giving opportunities to others is really important. 

Saffanat Sumra: That’s amazing. That’s something we can all learn from—medical students, residents, and attendings. There’s one last question-- What’s a question that you wish more people asked you?

Dr. Kim Luu: From a student perspective, I guess a question like, "What’s the process of making life decisions?" I don’t really want people to ask me that, but I do want people to think about that. It’s important to think about the meta-level of thinking—why we think the way we do and how that way of thinking leads to decisions and actions we take. A question like, "Why do you think like that?"

Saffanat Sumra: Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me in this interview today Kim, really appreciate your time!