At Lucens, we believe there's no one "right" way to build a fulfilling medical career, and every medical professional has a story worth sharing.
Our "Behind the Scrubs" series pulls back the curtain on the diverse journeys of remarkable individuals in healthcare. Join us and discover the human stories that make medicine such a rewarding field.
Jason Mendler, MD, Ph.D.
Jason Mendler, MD, Ph.D., is an oncologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center specializing in myeloid malignancies. Jason is an alumnus of U of R, where he earned his MD and Ph.D. degrees and completed his Medical Oncology fellowship at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. At U of R, Dr. Mendler has a busy clinical practice, is involved in teaching/mentoring trainees, and conducts clinical and quality improvement research.
Jason is married and a father of three children. When he’s not at work, Jason enjoys exercising, competing in triathlons, traveling, and spending time with friends and family.
When did the concept of medicine and doctors first become a thing in your life?
I'm one of those people who's wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember.
I've always been fascinated by both the scientific and human aspects of medicine. I felt like the best way I could help society, and humanity would be to take care of people who are very sick.
[When I was a kid] I thought I wanted to be a pediatric oncologist. There was a family friend who had a brain tumor when he was very young, like two or three years old. He went into remission for a long time, but ultimately, it relapsed, and he died in his teens. He was a big part of my inspiration.
Can you share your MD,PhD training experience?
So… I had a very difficult Ph.D experience. In terms of the MD, Ph.D training as a whole, I underestimated how long eight years would feel and how much my life and worldview would change from the time I was 21 (when I first applied to MD/PhD programs) to the time I was 30 when I finished.
My Ph.D. experience was the first time in my life that I had really experienced academic failure. I had a goal. I wanted so badly to make an important finding that might help cancer patients some day. I worked really hard toward this goal and didn't get the outcome I wanted. I mean, I ultimately got my PhD, but the project didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. There is a long, interesting story about why the project didn’t turn out well which is probably best saved for another day.
Despite my project not working out, I learned a lot about myself through my PhD experience. I learned critical thinking skills. I learned about relying on myself and my own instincts and analysis. I also learned about perseverance.
How did you deal with this feeling of failure?
I remember crying the night before my thesis defense because the project hadn't turned out how I had hoped, and I had to defend it in a public venue. I was embarrassed to have to do this. I was extremely disappointed. I managed to push through and successfully defend my thesis, largely through support from family and friends.
My wife Ticia, in particular, was extremely supportive and carried me through. She saw the pain my PhD experience had caused me and knew that I needed to move on. She put her foot down and said, "You gotta be done with this. You gotta finish this."
She was able to recognize that it was a toxic situation for me and that I needed to get out of it.
Looking back on it, there’s a part of me that wishes I had not stayed the course. I've always been the kind of person who's felt like I could push through any pain and get to a better place on the other end.
That experience told me that sometimes there's a level of pain that isn't worth pushing through. It's okay to realize that and stop.
I remember crying the night before my thesis defense because the project hadn't turned out how I had hoped, and I had to defend it in a public venue.
Why do you think things didn’t work out with your PhD project?
I needed more support and guidance from my PhD mentor. I think he could have done a better job looking out for me and ensuring I hit the milestones I needed to meet.
I needed to be seen and valued and cared about as a human being. Instead, I felt like I was viewed by my mentor as a tool for getting the scientific results that he needed from me. Despite multiple experiments pointing to the fact that my project was heading down the wrong path, we persisted down that path because it was the right thing for him. I wish he would have been able to see me as someone separate from him who had different needs.
I learned that there must be benefits for both when there's a relationship between a mentor and a mentee. There needs to be a recognition that each person is getting something out of it.
As a mentor now, I try to create a place where mentees can be seen, not feel judged, and feel open to talking to me about different possibilities. I try to figure out where they’re trying to go and help them get there.
How have you brought your work to a wider audience?
I have been fortunate that since my PhD experience I have had many positive research experiences and have been able to present and publish my work in multiple venues. One particular experience early in my career as a faculty member stands out. In 2014, I gave an oral presentation at the American Society of Hematology meeting. I stood up in front of a room of probably a thousand people and talked about a mouse model of acute leukemia that I had created. That was just super exciting, like a super high point.
I still remember being in my office when I got the email saying our abstract had been accepted for oral presentation. I was thrilled. I was shocked. I was anxious. At that time, I had no idea that my presentation would be in a room so big with so many people.
What was funny was that there were six oral abstracts in the session. It was a very popular session, and five of the six abstracts were reporting on big clinical trials and were being delivered by very well-known people in the field.
And then there was me, this little known guy from the University of Rochester with his mouse model. It was funny because the talk was much different than the other ones in the session. There was a buzz. [Afterward] some very well known people in the field were asking me questions about the mouse model.
I think a lot of what made that experience so exciting for me at that early point in my career was the recognition.
Up to that point, I had had very few positive research experiences. So this was validating for me.
When you're starting out as a faculty member with a research lab, it's scary because you really don't know if the work you're doing will be perceived by others in the field as interesting or important.
It was both the excitement of being up in front of a thousand people and the feeling of "Wow, people are interested in what I'm doing. I can actually do this."
It was my idea to create this model and then to have it accepted like that was thrilling.
When I got the email saying our abstract had been accepted for oral presentation. I was thrilled. I was shocked. I was anxious.
That experience sounds a lot like winning a startup pitch competition or getting your first business client.
I've never really thought of it like that. But I think that’s a pretty good analogy.
Generating new ideas and contributing to advancing your field is a huge part of academic medicine. It's what makes it super exciting. You are constantly trying to take steps forward with research, education, and patient care.
And so to feel like you've done that in some way is really exciting.
Can you explain the challenges you faced running a lab?
After five years of having a lab, it just felt like too much. Having your own lab is like running a small business. Doing this while taking care of patients and trying to be a good father and husband was more than I could handle.
I was applying for grants because, basically, you have to get grant funding to keep your lab going. I was submitting grants, and some of them actually scored quite well, but they weren't being funded.
Only a very small percentage of grants are funded. So, there are a lot of good people who are applying for grants but aren't getting funded. At some point, I realized that despite the positives of having a lab, it was third on my priority list behind my family and patients.
It's a really competitive environment. It was killing me to keep trying. My health was suffering. I wasn't sleeping. It was just too much.
So, I decided to close the lab and look for other ways to build my career.
After five years of having a lab, it just felt like too much.
How did you transition out?
It was very scary. It felt to me initially like another example of failure.
I never got the big grant, and I felt ashamed about failing. That was a lot of what was driving me.
Once I could separate that out, I could see that I wanted to do something different, research that was more collaborative. I wanted to do something research-wise that would fit better within my clinical responsibilities.
I decided to get more involved in clinical and quality improvement research.
During that time at the university, there was really good lab science in myelodysplastic syndromes, but there was a strong need for someone in the clinic who could translate that science to patients.
That was something I was very interested in. When I decided to apply to MD/Ph.D. programs in the first place, what really drove me was the idea that someday I could try to apply science to patients.
Once I made the switch and got over my feelings of failure, I was like, "This is a great fit for me because I can be in the clinic, but I can still be doing research."
I've always felt like my strongest skills are interpersonal. Being with patients, talking to them about trials, and simplifying concepts for patients really helped me to utilize my greatest strengths.
I'm currently having more fun and more success than I ever had previously in my career, and it's interesting how those things follow each other. The success? It followed having more fun.
