On the job with…Dr Mike Todorovic

@drmiketodorovic

EMCR Forum interview with Dr Mike Todorovic

Name: Dr Mike Todorovic

Position: Senior Lecturer of Anatomy and Physiology, Griffith University

Time in Role: 2 years, lecturing for 6 years total

Describe a typical day in your job

What I love about my job is that there is no typical day! A typical week might involve the following:

• Record YouTube videos on anatomy and physiology
• Record a podcast episode
• Record a Human Body episode with ABC Radio Brisbane
• Deliver a lecture to my nursing students
• Deliver livestream tutorials (now using YouTube due to COVID)
• Many, many emails
• Catch up with PhD students about their projects (their thesis topics are spinal cord injury and pain in dementia)
• I am currently acting as Deputy Program Director, so many, many meetings
• Connect with students via Facebook and Instagram

What are the most challenging aspects of your job?  

Time! There is either not enough hours in the day, or I am doing too many things—still figuring that out.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of your job?

There are so many! Like many scientists and science communicators, I love engaging with my students and the public. COVID has changed the world, so it is now becoming more common for me to engage people via social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, podcasting).

How does your PhD help in your daily role?

That’s an interesting question. Apart from the obvious answer (that it provides me with the tools to adequately enquire, research, and summarise information)—it lends a legitimacy to my science communicator persona—which is more important from my perspective. The PhD is like a litmus test for the general public to know whether they can trust you and engage with you. At the same time, this puts a lot of pressure on us not to let them down.

Any advice for EMCRs wishing to pursue a career in this area?

Here is some unhelpful and helpful advice (though both are true).

Unhelpful: Do what you like doing and be lucky.

Helpful: Find a mentor in the position that you aspire to be in. Take their advice and apply it to your context (don’t forget that they will think they got there because of their expertise and skill—this is true, but they also got there because they were lucky and because of their circumstances).