Dr. Jia Ng: Writing is very cognitively demanding. We always think that writing is only words on paper, but actually writing comes from processing. When you just go in to a session, thinking that is going to come up with it within five minutes is impossible. Academic writing is nobody's first language. Everybody has trouble when they first start, there is a structure behind it and there is a skill.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A ...
Dr. Jia Ng: Writing is very cognitively demanding. We always think that writing is only words on paper, but actually writing comes from processing. When you just go in to a session, thinking that is going to come up with it within five minutes is impossible. Academic writing is nobody's first language. Everybody has trouble when they first start, there is a structure behind it and there is a skill.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a family medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes, the last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
Okay. I am so excited today. I am going to talk to a dear friend of mine. This is Dr. Jia Ng, and she's a board certified nephrologist and a clinical researcher at the sector school of medicine at Foshe Scott Northwell. And she's also the founder of PublishedMD. Where she coaches clinicians on how to publish research papers and achieve their academic goals without the overwhelm., oh my God, this is such a needed thing.
You know, one of my biggest limiting beliefs is that I'm not a good writer, that I'm a slow writer that I can never publish anything. I remember it was always so painful to do, you know, any type of like project that required writing. I would rather be like, can I turn in a video? You know, but obviously you need to be able to communicate in written form and also, you know, through video or whatever form. Right?
I am so excited to have you here so that you can share it tricks and anything, but I'm very curious. How did you decide to coach other clinicians to do this? The writing part? I know a lot of us have problems with writing notes, much less something more like this, like a research paper and stuff.
Dr. Jia Ng: Thank you so much for having me. Yes. I went into this because I was struggling myself. And first I am, English is not my first language. And then I came in thinking I wanted to do research and I struggled for a whole year. Could not write, could not get first draft all my projects. I like abstract conference abstracts, but never a full paper.
And so I know the struggles and after getting, courses and coaches, because that's my path. I found certain ways. And so then habits that really helped me. And so now I see clinicians in the same pain and I know I can help you. So I decided, and I was giving workshops and saw the results like, oh, just by doing simple steps, you can improve and you can like get it.
So that's why I kind of started doing this.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's so great to hear that we all like simple, believe me, your brain wants to tell us it's no, no, it's complicated. I can't even start. So when you break it down and make it simple that at least sparkles or interest, and obviously we got through med school, right.
So we could do, we do a thing or two there, and it's interesting. English is also my second line. Primarily Spanish speaking first, up to the age of 10. And then I, I learned English. When did, what is your primary language? And then when did you learn English?
Dr. Jia Ng: So, I'm Malaysian. I went to actually a Mandarin school and we learned Malay and English as part of. Even though I speak English as Malaysian English, which is somewhat broken with a mixture of dialect can in there. So when I write my, my essay it's is usually, I've missed either grammatical errors or spelling errors. So that's, that's my issue with writing initially.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah for us, we call it TexMex, you know, Texas English and Spanish mixed together TexMex.
And some, we make up some words that have nothing to do with like either English or Spanish, but whatever it's fun. Right. So tell me. Have you ever worked with anybody who has ADHD or have you, what do you think would be some tips or techniques that might help somebody who has, you know, in their mind, maybe a limiting belief.
You don't have to have ADHD to think you're not a good writer, but some of us with ADHD have that belief. What kind of advice would you give them?
Dr. Jia Ng: Yes, there's this myth like you birth is you feel like you have to be a naturally good writer. That that is a big myth because it is a skill. And I would even say that academic writing or academic writing is not, is nobody's first language.
So everybody has trouble when they first start, there is a structure behind it and there is a skill. So usually first you need to know. The, the invisible structure in a paper, like what goes in, what, where, and even though like the discussion section looks like paragraphs of something, but actually if you look closely and if you know the insight part, there is a structure like paragraph one, You need to write something, paragraph two, you need to write so then wait. So, there is a structure, first know the structure, what needs to go in where, and, and once you go there, it is more like, how do you break it down? Which section needs to have only methods, which only have certain results and you don't mix them. And it's very prescriptive. It's almost prescriptive that that's why it's easier once you know, the, the prescription or the algorithm. I find it easy.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: You know, you bring such a good point up. Most of us, any tasks that we're trying to do, if we don't understand the rules of the game, right. Or the task, it's going to feel impossible. Right? If you are giving the 411 Hey, This goes here, this goes here, this goes here then at now it doesn't seem like such a big task or such a big thing. And so how long have you been writing or publishing papers yourself?
Dr. Jia Ng: I would say four years. No, no. I've finished my fellowship two years ago. So that means that was the time it was my biggest struggle. Couldn't get any paper out. And so truly writing it's two years more intense writing. And, you know, when you set about that structure, like HPI, you know, when we first write our notes, assessment and plan it is always just a mess, but now you've been a physician or attending for a long time. Oh, everything's easy. This goes here. This goes there. So paper is the same. You just need to know the underlying structure.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, that's so good. I mean, I always tell my patients, like, if you don't even understand why I'm having you check your sugars or what is actually a carb, like, how are you going to win at this game?
It doesn't make sense for me to just tell you here, some meds. Goodbye. Right. I said, because you know, your diet is obviously going to negate. If you go and drink, you know, a whole 12 cans, right. That cost you $5 of Coke. Those $5 Cokes are going to negate your $2,000 insulin or Tresiba, right.
And so it's the same thing with our brain. If we allow one. To say, like you're not a good writer, like that might negate the whole experience. That of what, if you could have shared your findings with the world and it made a change, right? Yeah.
Dr. Jia Ng: Yeah, exactly. That's, that's why I'm doing this. Like, if I can help one clinician do it, that one paper means they can help a hundred patients. And that means I would indirectly I'm helping another a hundred patients. So, so that, that's why I want to do this.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So you're trying to help spread the word and make more of an impact for others, right? Yeah. That's, amazing. So, what do you think are one of the biggest challenges when people are trying to do the, this research papers or any writing in general?
I mean, you just said, if you don't know the structure, but what do you think are other things that can get in people's way when they're trying to do something like this?
Dr. Jia Ng: So first is the writer's block, try and put too much in, in too many hours. So writing is very cognitively demanding. So we always think that writing is only when words on paper, but actually writing comes from a processing, synthesis.
So you first need to read the words. Then needs to synthesize and transform it into an idea, then idea, go to the paper and then paper, you need to write over, over again to get a clear, beautiful message. Right? So this whole process is like five or six steps. And when you just go in to a session, thinking that is going to come up with it within five minutes is impossible.
Even for the most, the experienced person don't do that. So sometimes I think it's better to flip kind of think through, oh, at this, this time I'm actually only doing synthesizing. I'm writing is part of my writing activity, but I'm only thinking about idea. Let me form my idea. Maybe I'm just scribbling.
And so you take the pressure off of trying to write a beautiful paragraph within that session. So, so that's one like taking off the pressure. Second thing. It's better to do a short, intense focus within like 20 to 50 minutes instead of four hours. Because as I say, it takes so much energy that once you're done, and if you don't build a habit that you can't do more than 15 minutes, if it's a, if you haven't written a paper forever or any, you can't expect to do it.
So I usually coach, say, you start with. 10 minutes, get the flow. Even if nothing's coming out, you just write, oh, I can't figure out something. Or let me scribble a few things out. Just the whole thought to hand to paper, that itself is a skill, a cognitive skill that needs to be a habit that needs to be built.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: You know, you just describe one of the key things that I coach my clients every single time. It's that initiation state of taking off the pressure. When we have a backlog, it's almost daunting to look at that in-basket or to look at that amount of charts that you have to close. We are used to sitting there for eight hours and like, almost like quicksand.
Right? You feel like you're not productive. And so the first thing I tell him is, yeah, you're gonna do 20 minutes. Short, intense focus, no phone, no Instagram, no Tiktok, you know, NO! You're gonna work and then five minute break, 25 minute break. And I said, max, two hours. That's it. Even though I know you want to sit there for eight.
No, you're not doing that because you're going to get the same amount in the short amount of time versus the eight. I've done this before. I've done it multiple, multiple times and people have. Themselves now all my clients. And they're like, oh my God, you're a genius. I'm like, I'm not trial and error. You just do trial and error because what happens is that, like you just said, there's certain amount of executive function that is required and certain amounts of energy level that is required.
Like you have to know any of you tell yourself that you're going to. Yeah, eight hours or four hours to writing. That's intimidated for the brain sometimes. Right?
Dr. Jia Ng: Right.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Exactly. You freeze up, but if you tell yourself, like you just said, well, whatever comes out in 10 minutes and then walk away, then there's like, like you said, there's no pressure, but more importantly, what you tapped into is that 1% initiation, because people with ADHD.
We can think about it like the mountain, but we don't realize that it only takes one step to start climbing the mountain. Like you don't need the whole mile up, you just need one step. Right. And just when you start, then it's easier to take the second step and the third step and the fourth step. And then you look back and you're like, oh my God, I come this far.
But then work people who want to complete tasks, we do. And so then that 1% where those 10 minutes. Are so good because they breaks through that. Well, I'll wait for the perfect time. When, when the hell is it going to be the perfect time, it's never going to be the perfect time. Right? And so sometimes you have to have a messy first draft.
And that's what I say do have messy first draft, because you're so much ahead because you started it.
Dr. Jia Ng: Right! You know, you're charting and in academic writing is exactly the theme. So would a messy first draft and sometimes, and you talk about. What often happen is, oh, you start the first sentence in, oh, I need to find out a statistics.
Then you start open the Google, Google scholar and you start looking for statistics and then, you know, like the tent article, anything. So, so instead I say you put a placeholder and you just type and you put, oh, need to find steps. Parenthesis or you find a better word, then you move on. It's like, oh, mortality. I think I need a better word, just put, need a better word and move on until you're done. And you're like, oh, maybe let me think about a better word. Find us the SAR is, you know, so, so then you, you at least have something on a paper and you can chip away, you know, you first need to have the stone. before you can start, what do you call it? Carving it.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, that's perfect. You're so right. You need to, you need to just start. And like you said, you don't have to have the details. All your brain wants you to. I have to have that detail before I move on. And like you said, you can squirrel yourself. You're all of a sudden you're your tent. And then you forgot because something else was more interesting when you were reading, you forgot what's the statistic you were looking for there, right?
Like all of a sudden you have all these. Statistics and you're like, wait, was I going to, I don't think that was the point of that paragraph, but it sounded good. So now you post it in there and that was not even what you meant, yeah, so that's so good because then, like you said, Another day, you can come back.
Like maybe the first day you just did one part and then another day you come, maybe the D that's when you go and research and do all that squirreling or whatever you want to say it, you research and you find the articles that are more credible or not, or which one supports it or not. And then maybe another day you then read, was that really what I wanted to say or not?
Right. And so you can break it up.
Dr. Jia Ng: Right. Right. In fact, I, even for editing, I have a system. So I think writing comes with systems that help us everything. So when I edit, I don't edit words first I go look by. Hmm. Does the, does it overall, does the paragraph look like it flows even though that's grammatical error?
So I just go with big, big chunks. Firs I edit first round. Let me just make sure the ideas. Uh, sequence. All right. Ordered once. That's good. Then let me look at each paragraph. Is that too much extra fluff, then only I go to each sentence. Then only I go to, each individual words then wordsmithing, then, then the next round.
Okay. Let me put all of the references. Then here, I spend one whole hour looking at articles first, looking at stats and looking for this. So if you have a process, then you are not context switching and not switching from one task to another. That makes it faster. And you, because you're breaking it down, it's like, okay, I'm just going to spend 20 minutes looking at 10 articles, and that's it.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Wow. That's that's genius. You know, you're pointing out stuff about task switching. That's something that I like hone in in my course, because we don't realize like, people always say, well, just batch stuff, just batch stuff. Well, when you batch stuff, we don't realize we're tasked with jeans. Sometimes if we're not careful, like it takes a different amount of executive function.
Or I call it energy level or thinking process. However you want to define it to synthesize, like you just said, and then another is just to scan, right? Like it's different areas. So sometimes when you go from like, just writing your first draft to wanting to have your final draft, like you're missing the steps in between.
And that's where you're, you might be task switching, because like you said, now you're thinking, oh, I just thought about that idea, but then I'm looking for this other journal and I'm looking for that. And so you're going back and forth. You're not, like you said, there's not a sequence that you're doing, so you are helping them set up their systems so that they do one task at a time so that they're not scaterred everywhere. And so it makes it more manageable in a stepwise approach.
Dr. Jia Ng: Right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's great. How can people like contact you and like find out ways to work with you? Because I'm pretty sure you're going to have a lot of people be like, okay, yes, I need a system. Cause I'm all over the place. And it's going to take me like six months to do something, to even choose a topic.
Dr. Jia Ng: Yes, yes. Right. Choosing a topic. It's also a big thing because we always think it has to be a sexy topic, but, but actually we, the, the topics are already in it's because, um, you see patients all the time. That's where your questions are, you know, where the problem is.
And, and research is not about just creating data, but solving a clinical problem or solving a research problem. So we have it in us. It's just that sometimes we need to know how to dig the questions, then you can answer the question. So, so that's a whole another topic, but bottom line is, it is in us. And if you know how to draw that out, you can find it.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So tell me how, like, how do you see yourself in three years? What are your goals?
Dr. Jia Ng: In three years, what really hoping is to expand how to create the system that I can replicate for many people, not just in a small group, but to more, more and more people, because it is so simple. Sometimes it's so simple that, oh, I can't believe it's so simple.
They just follow the steps. Then you can do it. And so I want to spread it to as many people as possible, hopefully institutions, because that's where the gaps are because academic clinicians, they, they need to publish papers, but never got training. And so that's a gap. How do you expect people to publish papers when you have never thought that taught them how to do it?
Like me go to medical school to see patients, but we ex we are expected to publish papers, but never got trained. So I want to fill that gap. That's where I'm going for.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And in terms of your personal life, what are the next big goals of audacious goals or fun goals that you have for the next three years?
Dr. Jia Ng: Next three years, I really want to con continue coaching in a group setting.
But now I want to be going to universities and doing workshops. That's, that's where I'm really heading, because, that will be where they can get the most out of it. Like during that time period where the training, or when it up for promotion does a good time where, okay. They are motivated. It's been, I can help them and then, you know, kind of match made in heaven that way.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And do you have any things that you want to do, like for fun? Like, are you, do you like to go travel? Are you, do you have any goals or something you're looking forward to now that the pandemic seems to be slowing down enough?
Dr. Jia Ng: Yes. One day we're hoping to go through Iceland to see the Northern lights.
So I think that's my next goal. We were going to go this year, but we were not sure that the COVID situation is the war. So, so we decided whole off.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Well, I'm so intrigued. Yeah. It's, it's always amazing to learn from other cultures and other environments around us. Like the Northern lights. I that's in my bucket list too, one day to go and see that over there.
So tell me, I mean, you know, that sometimes we space out, right? And so if my podcast person am I on the other side, Finally started listening and paying attention. What is one piece of advice that you would give them if they just started to pay attention? And what would you do?
Dr. Jia Ng: I would say the, to repeat back, my point is make it so small chunks of writing, right?
Writing does not come naturally. So don't, don't even think it's supposed to come naturally. You actually need to build a habit, start small in small chunks and limit yourself. If you can do 20 minutes. Great. I like to put the timer. If you can, once you get a habit go to 50 minutes, but more than 50 minutes. Take a break.
And then you do a second session as like what Dr. Diana said really no more than two hours, unless you are a seasoned writer. So that's the first one. And the second thing is I can't emphasize enough. This one I did not mention earlier is you have to write during the daytime when your brain is clear, not in the middle of the night, not after your kid's asleep, not after you have finishing, finishing all your patients.
That's not the right time to do writing because. It is so cognitively demanding. So you have to however it is, you may skip a committee meeting here and there, but you're writing. You need to do it at your clearest time.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes, that's so nice to hear that you two have tapped into the whole thing about writing.
When your head is clear when your energy level is up for today. I don't
know why physicians think that it's the writing or notes, you know, it's such an easy thing
to do and it's pajama charting right? Like. And so if you don't take that too to that level, then it just becomes harder.
Dr. Jia Ng: Yeah. Like what you said, but the word respect, you know, writing needs to get some respect from you that the true attention that it deserves. So it does need that.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So, awesome. Well, it was amazing chatting with you where can they find you, like tell us all your social media stuff.
Dr. Jia Ng: So you can find me on my website. I think it has everything. Www.publishedandb.com and I do have a YouTube channel. You can search, it's also published MD there.
I give tips and strategies on, more, more than. How do you write academically, you know, the style and how do you break it down? How do you read a paper fast? How do you like all the tips that we take for granted, but, oh, I wish I knew that then I could have, not squeeze it two hours or two months of my time.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So good. Well, there you have it. Go follow her. Don't make writing harder than it is. Bust those limiting beliefs and find an amazing coach right here. You can't get it any easier. The simple systems to support you all the way as you publish your research papers. Dr. Jia has your back. So go talk to her, break it up and get yourself published because the rest of the people need you.
Dr. Jia Ng: Thank you so much!
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group. Beyond ADHD, a physician's perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will do share this podcast with your friends.
I can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.
About Dr. Jia Hwei Ng
Dr. Jia Ng is a Nephrologist and Researcher, founder of PublishedMD and her mission is to help busy clinicians publish papers and achieve their academic goals.
Website: https://www.publishedmd.com
Email: info@publishedmd.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PublishedMD/videos
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jiahweing
