Amanpreet Kaur on managing impostor syndrome as a health professional

Medical Librarian Amanpreet Kaur talks about having imposter syndrome, what it feels like to be “in a rabbit hole of learning,” and how she’s leaning into her impostor syndrome as a health professional.

How many letters do I need behind my name? That rhetorical question was put out to me from Medical Librarian Amanpreet Kaur. In today’s episode, Aman talks about an issue that I’m sure many of us struggle with: imposter syndrome. Aman talks about what imposter syndrome has to do with her communication, and how she navigates being both an expert and learner together.
Hi everybody, I’m Dr. Anne Marie Liebel and this is 10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication, recently ranked #20 of the top 100 podcasts in the social sciences by GoodPods. If you want to take your communication to the next level, we’ve got the way. BRIDGES is our continuous improvement process. We evaluate your communication on seven important dimensions to help you reach more people. For more information, visit healthcommunicationpartners.com or you can message me on LinkedIn.

Medical librarians are in such an important position in the whole patient communication and patient education ecosystem. And they are champions of health literacy. What I especially appreciate about Amman’s choice of topic is that it’s reflective. She reminds us how much we are each a part of our work, our communication work, our education work. We bring it all with us: our position, identities, histories, worldviews, assumptions, fears. And this show and all of my work with Health Communication Partners tries to make space and support such reflective practice. So I was very happy to have Aman sit down with me and talk with me. So let’s turn to that interview.

I’m live via Zoom with Amanpreet Kaur. Amanpreet is a Health Literacy librarian and a Master of Public Health student at University of Pennsylvania. Aman works at the Leon Levy Dental Medicine Library, which serves the information needs of the School of Dental Medicine. In collaboration with the School of Dental Medicine’s Community Oral Health Division, Aman coordinates the Health Literacy Study Club, which is a virtual dental student -led discussion series for anyone interested in health literacy and patient education focused on oral health and dental medicine. Aman, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Now you and I have known each other for a few years through the health literacy community. So I’m glad to have you on the show for how much we do talk about health literacy here. So let me ask you the question that I ask all of our guests to start us off: What is the problem or issue that you’re facing in patient education or communication?

That is a great question. My, um, I guess issue is imposter syndrome. I don’t know how many letters I need behind my name, what kind of credentials, what makes me an expert in this field. And it’s one of those things where I feel like I don’t know enough.

Well, thank you for that. That’s a really brave response. A lot of times when we talk about health literacy and problems in patient education or patient communication, we’re looking out. We’re looking at society, or we’re looking at something that patients or communities might be struggling