Janet Larson, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN

For many women, the family at home is the focus, while others choose to try to balance family with work. At Monday’s ATS 2010 Women’s Forum, Janet Larson, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, took a different tack, focusing on the excitement she gets from her career. The forum was sponsored by an educational grant from Merck.

Also during the luncheon, Sharon I.S. Rounds, M.D., received the 2010 Elizabeth A. Rich, M.D., Award in recognition by her peers for excellence in her field and service as a mentor. Dr. Rounds is a professor of medicine, and pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown University Medical School, as well as chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the Providence VA School of Medicine.

In her address, “A Career Driven by High-Novelty Needs,” Dr. Larson, who is a professor of nursing and the director of the Division of Acute, Critical and Long-Term Care programs at the University of Michigan, focused on her career decisions, but also touched on her personal decisions. One of those decisions, made with her husband, was to not be a parent.

“For me, it’s all about keeping it exciting and challenging. I have high-novelty needs. I’m easily bored,” Dr. Larson said of some of the decisions she made early in her career.

As a young professional, she changed jobs every three years to five years, going from a clinical practice to working on advanced degrees. This led her to follow a path in research and to change her transient approach—she remained at the University of Illinois at Chicago for 21 years before moving to the University of Michigan.

Sharon I. S. Rounds, M.D.

“There, I was able to meet my high-novelty needs through research,” Dr. Larson said, as she began to talk about the focus of her three NIH R01 grants. “I found it exciting to master new areas. That gets me charged.”

Those grants varied from producing a monitored adherence system for inspiratory muscle training to training to improve upper-body strength. It was the variety that appealed to her, Dr. Larson said.

“That keeps it fresh for me,” she said, but compared her work that of a colleague who has focused on one subject throughout her career. “There are other ways you can do this. It’s important to figure out what your motivation is and go for it.”