October 24, 2025
2 min read
Key takeaways:
- A career in academic medicine offers opportunities for teaching, research, leadership and complex patient care.
- Long-term success in academia requires prioritizing wellness and setting boundaries.
Academic medicine can be a rewarding path filled with opportunities for personal and professional growth, from teaching opportunities to handling complex patient cases, according to a presenter at Real World Ophthalmology.
“The magic of academics is that you get involved in teaching, discovery, healing patients and shaping the future,” Grayson W. Armstrong, MD, MPH, instructor in ophthalmology and associate director of medical student education at Harvard Medical School and director of the ophthalmology emergency service at Mass Eye and Ear, said during a presentation.
Long-term success in academia requires prioritizing wellness and setting boundaries.
Driven by his interest in teaching, research and curing blinding diseases, Armstrong said he found academia to be his ideal professional environment.
However, a career in academic medicine can have its challenges. Armstrong said he has faced a range of difficulties including rejected articles and grant proposals as well as moments that put his leadership skills to the test.
To handle the stress of academia, Armstrong emphasized the importance of balance, wellness, and making time to rest and reflect, even for brief 10-to-15-minute periods. Although early-career professionals may benefit from saying yes to all opportunities that come their way, he said physicians must eventually set boundaries and decide which opportunities to prioritize.
One of the earliest lessons Armstrong learned in his career in academia was the significance of mentors. His own mentors played a crucial role in helping him develop grant writing, clinical practice and pedagogical skills. Later, he learned how fulfilling it could be to become a mentor himself to colleagues, fellows and residents.
Grayson W. Armstrong
“[Medical students] are always so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” Armstrong said. “It makes your day-to-day so much more exciting. The same is true with residents when you show them a new surgical technique, let them operate, and get them to trust you as a teacher and you to trust them as a surgeon. It’s incredible.”
In addition to his love of mentorship, Armstrong enjoys his career in academic medicine because of the opportunities for teaching, collaboration, leadership, research, patient care and the ways they all intersect.
Armstrong said research offers the opportunity to collaborate with other departments and institutions at national and international levels. He appreciates that his ability to teach shapes patient care by molding future physicians and providing him with communication skills that he uses to help educate patients on their diseases.
Armstrong said at the end of the day, caring for patients is the heart of his work.
“As a doctor in academia, you will handle the most intense, complex and rewarding cases,” Armstrong said. “You will see the second, third and fourth opinion consults. Patients come to academics for the final answer, and you get to be the end of the road for them.”
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
Armstrong GW. What I wish I knew when taking an academic position. Presented at: Real World Ophthalmology; Sept. 27, 2025 (virtual meeting).
Disclosures:
No products or companies that would require financial disclosure are mentioned in this article.