A Conversation with Dr. Robert Centor

“There’s a word in Yiddish called KVELL. It’s that special pride you get when your offspring does something great.The good mentor is not looking for more fame or recognition themselves, they’re looking for the mentee to succeed because that means that the team’s doing well. It’s very much a team thing.”

Bio

Robert Centor, MD, is a Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Chair-Emeritus of the ACP Board of Regents. He has served as Dean of Huntsville Regional Medical Campus as well as Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at UAB. Dr. Centor has held many prestigious positions in national organizations and has been the president for The Society for Medical Decision Making, The Association of Chiefs of General Internal Medicine and The Society of General Internal Medicine. He has over 100 publications including his widely read publication from which the “Centor Score” was developed to identify the likelihood of a bacterial infection in an adult with sore throat.

What are the major events that shaped your early life?

“I grew up in a very small town of about 8,000 in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia,” Dr. Centor began. “And growing up in a small town you couldn’t help but embrace the socioeconomic diversity because everybody went to the same school.”

From a young age, Dr. Centor always had a sense for how fortunate he was compared to some who attended his same school. “When I was in high school, somewhat traumatically at the time, one of the best things that happened to me is, right before my 11th grade year in high school, we moved from a small town, Marion, Virginia, to Richmond, Virginia. And so I had to fit in, in a new place where nobody knew me. It allowed me to reinvent myself a little bit. I think the biggest thing was that I had the opportunity to experience a variety of different things before I got to college and then made a really good decision about where I went to college.”

The son of a PhD psychologist, he grew up in a household where his father instilled in him the belief that you did not know something unless you could explain it to someone else. To be a good teacher and mentor, you had to understand what you were saying and be able to explain it.

How have you overcome moments of failure?

“I had a very mediocre second year in college when I probably partied a little bit too much,” Dr. Centor remembers. “And that summer for the second time I had a job at a hospital for emotionally disturbed children. And during that summer, I decided I really did want to go to medical school. It wasn’t just what my mother was telling me I should do.”

Prior to entering his third year in college, Dr. Centor recalled being told that he would probably not get into medical school unless he earned a 4.0 GPA moving forward. And that is exactly what he did. That conversation proved to be a turning point, and from there he blossomed, and he was able to turn his first two years of failure into a final two years of success.

All throughout his career, Dr. Centor was faced with the challenge of turning failure or rejection into success. A key example of this was an article he wrote about sore throats. Initially, it was rejected by two other journals before being published by a brand-new journal of medical decision making that was little known at the time. From there, a kind editor turned his work into a polished final manuscript. And even though it would be twenty years before Dr. Centor’s article would receive the majority of its citations, this was a classic example of turning two rejections into a massive success.

How did you become the “ultimate mentor?”

It all began with Dr. Centor’s father, who served as Dr. Centor’s coach. Another influential figure was his first chairman of medicine, who seldom understood the scope of what Dr. Centor was doing, but he believed in him and that made the difference.

Because there were not many actual mentors at that time, peer mentorship played a large role in Dr. Centor’s life. And along the way, Dr. Centor found more people who believed in him. This included a microbiologist who helped him a great deal and a statistician who gave him some helpful coaching.

In Dr. Centor’s words, “I just found help wherever I could. I don’t think there’s such a thing as having a mentor. I think that really has to be sort of a team of mentors who might not know each other, but they’re your team.”

What is the best process for developing a network of mentors?

“I think it depends upon what specialty and/or subspecialty you’re in,” Dr. Centor stated. “I always encourage our junior faculty to go to meetings and meet people and talk to people from other institutions, compare notes.” That is where the magic happens.

Also important is the role of having good sponsors. According to Dr. Centor, mentors provide wisdom and advice whereas sponsors provide opportunity. Mentors will question if that path you are taking will get you to your intended destination, whereas sponsors open doors that could not be opened without their help.

What are the traits or habits of the most successful mentees?

“Not being scared to talk to their mentor,” Dr. Centor replied. “Good mentors make themselves available. Good mentees take advantage of that. They don’t overdo it, but they come around and ask questions, schedule meetings, ask for help.”

Being a good mentee also requires a willingness to learn from peers. It takes the willingness to have them review a paper and provide strong feedback, all the while committed to letting this be a growth process.

As Dr. Centor indicates, good mentors are not looking for more fame or recognition for themselves. They have KVELL, a Yiddish word that is the special pride you get when your offspring do something well.

Good mentees recognize there are people who want to help them. All they need to do is ask.

Pearls of Wisdom

1. Build on your strengths and work with others in areas of weakness.
2. Pass on what you have received to others. Seek to pay it forward wherever and whenever you can.
3. Good mentors have KVELL (A Yiddish word for special pride in success of your mentee). They are not looking for more fame or recognition, only that you succeed.