Interview with Dr. Nilesh Dave – Episode 335

Today's podcast episode describes Dr. Nilesh Dave's four-year career transition to health system Chief Medical Officer. We pick up from his previous appearance 4 years ago in Episode 99, as he lists the steps he took on his interesting career journey.

Starting with his role as medical director at a regional Blue Cross Blue Shield subsidiary, he describes the steps he took to land his position as VP for Clinical Effectiveness and CMO for a large hospital system.

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Dr. Debra Blaine is a physician like many of you, and her greatest challenge was fear. The whole concept of leaving clinical medicine was terrifying. But she is so much happier now as a professional writer and a coach. According to Debra, “It’s like someone turned the oxygen back on.”

If fear is part of your struggle, too, she would like to help you push through those emotional barriers to go after the life you really want. Click this link to schedule a free chat.

Or check out her website at allthingswriting.com/resilience-coaching.

Career Transitions and Leadership Growth

Dr. Nilesh Dave's evolution from medical director to CMO for a health system highlights the importance of diverse skill sets in nonclinical leadership roles:

1. Adaptability across domains
2. Cross-pollination for innovation
3. Strategic thinking
4. Learning and adapting to new technologies

Nilesh emphasized that a combination of clinical knowledge, business acumen, and the ability to adapt to new technologies is essential for success in these roles. Some of these skills developed as he pursued additional formal education, including an MBA and executive training in Artificial Intelligence in Health Care at M.I.T.

Navigating Challenges as Health System Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Dave's role as a CMO involved navigating the challenges of a complex healthcare system. It requires a combination of strategic leadership, analytical thinking, effective communication, and collaboration to drive improvements in clinical outcomes and overall system efficiency. He began developing many of these skills in his previous management roles.

Summary

If you're interested in connecting with Dr. Nilesh Dave and exploring more about his insights into nonclinical roles in the healthcare industry, you can reach out to him on LinkedIn. Dr. Dave often shares valuable perspectives on clinical effectiveness and leadership, making his LinkedIn profile a great platform for networking and staying updated on the latest developments in the field. You can find him on LinkedIn by searching for Nilesh B. Dave MD. 

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode. 

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Dr. Nilesh Dave's LinkedIn Page
• First Gain Know-How Then Secure an MBA – 099
• The Eight Essential Abilities The CEO Wants In A Chief Medical Officer
• 6 Important Assignments of a Hospital CMO – 218
• How to Become CMO in a Year – 052
• Dr. Debra Blaine's Website

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Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 335

What Makes a Great Health System Chief Medical Officer?

- Interview with Dr. Nilesh Dave

John: I can't believe it's been four years since I last interviewed today's guest. I wanted to have him come back because his nonclinical career has flourished since he was here before. And he's in a leadership position now of a large hospital system, which is awesome. I think he has a lot to share with you all today. With that, let me welcome back Dr. Nilesh Dave. Hello.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Hi, John. It's great to be back. I'm looking forward to chatting with you over what's been going on over the last four years and hoping that any of your listeners out there will hopefully get some nuggets of information and hopefully that'll help them get to the similar or whatever pathway they're on.

John: I think it's going to help a lot, and I have a lot of questions. But when we last spoke in July of 2019, I think it's okay I can mention you were basically working for one of the regional Blue Cross Blue Shield companies but you're no longer there, obviously. That's why I wanted to have you come back. You've made a couple of different changes and you've also done some other things in between. Why don't you tell us what happened, why you decided to move on and what the next job that you did was that would utilize all of your skills and education?

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Yeah, sure. I'm happy to. When I was working for one of the subsidiaries of Blue Cross Blue Shield, I was outreached by another insurer to join their team. And the resources there that they had in analytics and the opportunity to get involved with more business innovation in that space, as well as population health, was too hard to pass up. And so, I literally had to just drive down the street for that when I took that position and learned a ton. I was never someone who actually liked the utilization management component, and this was a minimal part of the entire role.

A lot of jobs in the nonclinical world will sort of describe themselves as working across a matrix or working across silos, so to speak. And I have to say that doing that transition to the other insurer ended up really teaching me some of those skills that it's not anybody that is above or below you in sort of a hierarchy. It's another department and group, but you've got a common client or something like that. And that's what brings you together in achieving some of the business objectives.

And when I was there COVID was starting up. And so, I was enjoying that role. And then I thought, you know what? I want to maintain my clinical skills. And so, I signed up to do some tele ICU moonlighting shifts. With being in a corporate position and having regular hours, it was not difficult to find time to do a clinical shift.

I started doing that and it was different. It kind of checked off the box of, yeah, it's critical care, and I'm an intensivist by training, but it was in a different way. It was tele ICU. I wanted to learn more about that because things were shifting towards telehealth and certainly COVID accelerated that and made telehealth a more accepted way to also deliver healthcare. And so, I just expanded my skill and exposure to it and signed it up.

And then I guess serendipity is what happened next, because I ended up being asked to oversee that multi-state tele ICU operation. And I almost did a double take when I was asked that because this was an opportunity that aligned my clinical skills. I had gotten a business degree before. I was in charge of quality, metrics and policies for the health system that this was a part of. And so, that had some inroads to my master's in public health I did in between medical school years. It just seemed like this makes complete sense. Like why not do something like this that you can get at all these skill sets in under one roof?

John: That's impressive in a way. But also what was the old saying? What is good luck? It's the combination of preparedness and opportunity. Unless you're open to it and you're prepared, however that preparation occurred, you just never know when you take a new position or volunteer somewhere or whatever, what opportunities might show up. What were you doing there? Just to clarify, I was going to ask you about the location, but it sounds like you did not have to move to take on this new role. You said it was down the street.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: No, in fact the company's headquarters moved from Boston to Dallas. And so, their operations for their tele ICU was also located literally within a block of the other two jobs I had previously. It was just sort of a business park, I guess, and that's why. I didn't have to drive really anywhere else.

John: Another serendipitous thing in the sense that there's a lot of movement out of many states, but Texas is one where there's a lot of movement in. And that includes corporations as well as people.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: That's for sure. Yes.

John: You loop selected a good place to live and grow in your career. That's another thing to keep in mind. Tell us again, at the beginning, before you were doing the moonlighting, before you were heading down this telemedicine service, what were the actual duties that you were doing that were different from what you had been doing earlier in your career?

Dr. Nilesh Dave: At both insurance positions, there was a new program that both insurers had started in terms of a white glove population health management service for employers, employees or members of the insurance. And looking at cost of care, drivers of care, managing and understanding the population of workers and really using your medical knowledge and understanding like, okay you've got diabetes, which is a risk factor for coronary disease, and the folks that work in the different divisions of this company. The company had 400,000 people in the Blue Cross Blue Shield subsidiary that I was overseeing. And so, that was a lot of that population health more so. But when I moved to the other insurer, there was more sort of KPIs, key performance indicator, and data associated with that that we focused on as we were managing.

I was managing three different companies with very disparate populations and risk factors. And so, I had one that employees would be in remote locations building solar farms, wind farms and stadiums, and another that was building nuclear subs and the third in drug development. And these are all employees with different kinds of health problems and some very similar.

But in that second role, there was a lot more of a business focus, a lot more strategy, data-driven analytics, and the opportunity to use that data capability that the company had to think of innovative approaches to some of those problems. And so, when I pivoted away from the Blue Cross Blue Shield position, that's what I got out of that second job.

And that retrospect, I think that set me up pretty well for when I started doing the tele ICU operations across multiple states. We had the same kind of set up. We had a lot of analytics. We were in charge of quality and metrics. We had key performance indicators that we had to meet. The usual ventilator length of stay, ICU length of stay, mortality. That's in the medical clinical world, that's when you're in these sort of hybrid clinical business positions, a lot of those things are what you're looking at. And so, being able to be in that tele ICU position really solidified that. And I was able to leverage then my clinical knowledge as well, knowing what does it take to take care of an ICU patient and translate that into the business side for health system.

John: That's what I think is great about physicians that move into these more executive positions, is that they do have that understanding of the relationship with the patient, the needs of patients, medical terms and all that. And if you can just add the business side of it, to me, it's an ideal situation. I think the companies you've worked for, they've recognized that. They have CMOs and they have physicians in pretty high leadership positions unlike a lot of hospitals. Some large hospitals do, but there are a lot of hospitals out there that the first thing they did when the pandemic hit was get rid of their CMO because it was an expensive position, at least from what I've heard. That's why I think physicians sometimes get frustrated working in a health system, but I think you still have to fight for that. And if your colleagues that are at the hospital recognize that they can hopefully encourage the leadership of the hospital to get more physician leaders like yourself. Tell us the next steps. Anything else you want us to tell us about that position you were just describing? I know after two or three years then you found something new to pursue?

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Yeah. There were a few variables that sort of were in the mix, that the health system where I was doing the tele ICU had some struggles and things that were financially related. And so, the tele ICU program was being contracted and expansion was being halted. And being able to grow in that position, it was pretty clear it was going to be delayed for several years. And a lot of the planning and things that we had at the beginning of when I took it a few years later, that was all sort of cut. And so, at that point, an opportunity at a Dallas based health system, the largest one by footprint, in terms of hospitals and things, was advertising a clinical effectiveness chief medical officer position.

And so, I threw my hat in the ring. And obviously after rounds of interviews and things, they offered me the position. One of the things, my background is a divergent one. When you look at, I'm at a system level. We have a system CMO. In some ways you could say I'm an associate system CMO, but they carved out a different CMO role with different parameters. And my background does not fit the "Hey, I've been in a hospital CMO for years and now transitioning to a system level." I was at a system level with the tele ICU, and in some ways I was the critical care subject matter expert overseeing our tele ICU operations and quality and meeting all those metrics. In some ways, there was some similarity to that CMO role, but I did not follow a traditional pathway. And in fact, I think I was very fortunate to be in a company now that actually appreciated my payer experience and my telehealth experience, which they've never had that background. And they thought that that would be an advantage for them based on the personnel and skillsets that they had which was a nice refreshing thing to hear.

John: When you were looking at the job title, if they posted it as such clinically effective CMO, they could have said chief clinically effective as medical officer or something else, but I've heard the term clinically effectiveness, but I've never heard that applied to a CMO. What were you thinking when you first looked at that?

Dr. Nilesh Dave: I figured that there were probably service lines or clinical service lines that between hospitals, they were probably performing at different levels. And I'm sure I expected that there would probably be similar sized hospitals with similar availability of specialties, but their quality metrics, we're not predictably the same. And so, I was sort of trying to figure out what's driving that? And it turned out that thinking before learning more about the position, the position was a new one that they had. It wasn't one that they had established years ago. They got rid of one position and sort of reformatted it. And so, for them it was also a new thing. And it was not only clinical effectiveness from the way you would think in the service line area, but also risk management, safety, credentialing, medical staff affairs.

I'm also involved in deploying our telehealth strategy. I'm on their AI governance task force, the tele ICU. And I've always been into the tech stuff. And so, now with AI, generative AI and things really versioning and so many platforms and vendors out there trying to get a piece of the pie, we had to create a governance structure, and I helped create a framework and took some time to take a certification course from MIT on AI and healthcare as a way to just compliment that because I knew some, but I didn't think I knew enough. And I just did that on my own while in the role taking classes and things online and learning that stuff. Once I saw some of these other aspects of clinical effectiveness, and it really is just making the clinical engine run, as smoothly as it can, that's what it kind of boils down to now. And it's been a phenomenal experience.

John: Describe some of the things that you do in that role, that are more leadership management and so forth. I think it's difficult sometimes for physicians to understand what it's like to move from that strictly clinically, even if you're the head of a service line or something, to working at the level of let's say a senior VP chief medical officer. But it's going to be different for every system as well. You move from one to another. What does it look like for your system? Who are your peers? Which other senior leaders do you regularly meet with or report to for that matter? That would be interesting to hear how that's structured.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Yeah. Interesting. I'll add one other point is that when I was in the tele ICU position, I had 40, 50 nurses, and probably the equivalent number of physicians on our internal tele ICU operations. I had a whole team, had administrative folks helping to run the operations, a nursing counterpart, and a few other internal business partners. When I joined my current role, the directive was to get things done working through the business. Other than an administrative assistant who's fantastic, I do not have a hundred person team under me or any of that. That's one big difference that I have already in the job, which was a bit strange to me, based on the projects and things.

But I came to learn through listening to interviews like this, that there are many folks who are in these sort of officer positions that work through the business and get things done. And so, on a day-to-day basis, the folks that I interact with could be other VPs who oversee our hospital channel, for example. We have all our hospitals in a channel. We have an ambulatory channel and telehealth channel. And so, we have VPs that oversee that and a lot of them are nonclinical, business trained background. And so, I work a lot with them on different aspects of my projects. I even will directly collaborate with the COO of the company, and occasionally with the CEO and CFO as well as the strategy officer.

It's not a completely sort of flat organization in that sense, but the opportunities are there, and at times necessary. And I also work with the chief medical officers of each hospital. They don't all report to me. They're sort of a dotted line to myself and my colleague. And so, we collaborate together with them. We work with the chief nursing officers, hospital presidents are sort of in the business channel, but we work with those executives at the local hospital levels and then their sort of system counterparts who are maybe senior VPs or executive VPs or whatever. It's all across the board. I work closely with the VP of care transition management who oversees all of the folks in the hospitals. And so, it really is a pokery of various officers. At all levels, it's not just officers.

John: Yeah. When I was working as a CMO, of course, it was a small, it was a hospital, so it was very contained. But we just say that was a matrix relationship. We knew that if we had something we had to get done, it wasn't that I had to go through another VP. I would just deal with whoever I had to deal with to get it done. And then hopefully we're all on the same page, had sort of the same strategic plan and management plan that we were working on. And so, at that level, you even have to learn how to give up a little bit of something. You have to make someone else's thing work, because it's for the overall improvement of the organization, not your own little fiefdom within it. That sounds really goods.

The other thing that it makes me think about is when going through some of the courses at the AAPL and what I've taught when I've heard from others doing MBAs and so forth, the importance of things like negotiation, communication, persuasion even as a thing. And it's all about doing that rather than there's no such thing really anymore for the most part of just saying, "Okay, I'm the boss, so I'm going to tell you what you're going to do."

Dr. Nilesh Dave: I think that's a great point because one of the things you had mentioned is that a lot of times folks with these opportunities sometimes struggle, and in reflection, I think there's a struggle. Part of the struggle comes from just the language. A lot of us who may be doing day-to-day clinical practice and maybe are involved in some greater hospital initiatives or maybe it's the health systems doing your cardiologist and there's some cardiovascular service line initiative, and you're doing some of that, but being able to translate that into business speak.

And in fact, when I had to do my resume as I was pivoting into the nonclinical world, I think on our last discussion, I had mentioned that it took me a while to understand how to convert "Hey, I set up a system-wide inpatient hospice program." Well, there is another way of saying that on a resume that resonates with the nonclinical business executives that you might end up working with.

And to your point about getting allies and strategizing, it's a lot easier when you have that one patient in that one room and you're talking with different consultants. For one consultant or for a combo, your hand is forced because of the clinical scenario situation and the direction it is going in. And so, you have no choice but to agree and just take care of it. On this side, you know that is going on, but you're doing things system-wide that aren't directly related to that patient and related to operations or strategy, and a lot of that maneuvering, change management negotiating, let me do a solid favor for them now and hopefully that'll be repaid when I'm in dire need of something as well. And I'm not keeping a little notebook of what I've done, but the people you work with, you kind of know, they'll remember and sometimes you have to bring it up. That's a different skillset. I had to learn a lot of it. I wasn't like one of those schmoozers who could easily just do that kind of thing naturally. That's not always the kind of people who can get things done in these roles. There are skills to learn.

John: Yeah. Yeah. If you have a culture where that's the way things are done, it helps, but there's always individual personalities and some people are more forthcoming. I remember I had a director that reported to me, and I loved her dearly, but she may be crazy because if somebody didn't do something they promised like within a week, she'd be like, "It's not my problem. But they said they were going to do it." It's like, no, you have to take responsibility beyond yourself and enable those other people to do what they are supposed to do without being so black and white. That's just another example.

I'm glad you're here because I did have one or two other things I wanted to ask your opinion on, because you have some experience with these things. For example, you did that MPH back while you were in med school or between years or whatever, you did get an MBA and at Kellogg too, I think it was. It's not a community college MBA. And you've done other things. I don't know if you've ever been a member of the AAPL. I'm just wondering your opinion on all of those things, whether there's a prioritization, if someone hasn't done any of them, or what your advice is on deciding on an MBA, deciding on doing an MPH or doing some other things. Like you said that you got some additional training in telemedicine and AI and that kind of thing.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Yeah. Funny enough, when I was in med school, my desire was to be in infectious diseases. And at the time, I wanted to learn more about epidemiology, biostats and health outcomes. At the time that was the buzzword. And when I did mine at Johns Hopkins, they had a program for with all that, and it was just a one year program. I didn't go into infectious disease but I did learn some skills, especially with the epidemiology and the biostats that from a data analytics perspective, which I would not have predicted back then, ended up helping me out. I pursued that because in the moment it made sense for what I was trying to do.

The business degree, I've been asked and I also hear the question of, "Well, I wanted to do something nonclinical so I better go ahead and get my MBA because that's like a lot of our physician pathway, we've got to get a medical degree, or a doctor of osteopathic medicine degree or something and be able to be that doctor." But here, an MBA is not mandatory. There is the American College of Physician or I forget, Healthcare Executives or something. The ACHE or something.

John: Yes. That's the one that's more for the hospital. ACHE.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Yeah. There's an MBA like program you can go through there. I did it because I knew I lacked the ability, and when I was doing system-wide stuff as a practicing intensivist, getting involved in some of the health system initiatives, I was having a hard time trying to communicate effectively with nonclinical business leaders. And if anything, I felt like I was just oversimplifying things and as I listened closely in meetings, I saw that there was a gap. And so, I did that.

But at the time, I was not doing it hoping that it's going to open a thousand doors of opportunities. That did not open really any doors right away. Even with an alumni network that was strong in all of that. That was not something that was automatic. You still have to hustle and try to find those opportunities and hope that one thing builds on another and sort of strategize like that. And those skills ultimately will come in handy and they have for me now.

But it's a false way of thinking if getting an additional degree is the gateway to doing things like this. There are plenty of folks that I know that don't have a public health degree or an MBA or Master's in Health Administration, or any of those, that are fantastic leaders. And whether they've done work on the side to learn that stuff, it's possible, I don't know. But it's not necessary.

John: What I'm hearing, it was like the MPH, there was a reason at the time that you did that, and then with the MBA, you were already understanding, I don't know, maybe budgets, maybe financial statements. You had the people you were talking to at that time and you thought, "Okay, this is going to help me to address that need."

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Yes. And I was also at the time thinking a little bit entrepreneurial that maybe I'll sort of do something different on my own. I wanted some of that background and I thought about should I go and pursue a healthcare related MBA or not? And I actually decided conscientiously to not do a healthcare one. I wanted to meet people from all kinds of industries because my background is divergent, my thinking is divergent. I like to cross-pollinate with folks in other industries to have a better innovation mindset. And so, I looked at it that way and chose a program.

John: Yeah. That makes sense. Because I do hear the same thing. "I don't know what I want to do. I want to get out of medicine, so I'm going to get an MBA." And it's like, well, that's a little bit of a shotgun approach in the sense that it doesn't really give you any particular direction. And I think employers too, they're going to be working for someone like a big system or insurance company or pharma. They're going to look at that and say, "Well, it doesn't really fit in any kind of logical step in your career." You just decide one day to get an MBA while you're practicing full-time in family medicine or something. I'm sure those things long-term can benefit in unknown ways as well, but it's a lot of time and money to invest without having necessarily a direction that you're shooting for.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: I wanted to add, especially for the benefit of the listeners, that when I took on this role, and even when I was in my previous role, I had started to work with an executive coach. And at first I was like, "Well, I don't know. Do I really need that? We're all smart and savvy enough. Maybe we can figure this out." But no, emotional intelligence is probably the number one most valuable skill and capability that you need to grow and mature when you're in these types of positions.

And there's frameworks of how to manage workloads and how to have those conversations and negotiating the talking with different folks and trying to not only get the stuff on your table moved forward, but a collaborative project as well. There's skills there, not necessarily soft skills, but there are some hard skills as well that for me, it was something that I thought would play into the brand that I wanted for myself. What I want to be known for and how do I want to execute on that.

An executive coach was something that continues to make sense. I've been working with the same person now on a second year, monthly, before it was more frequently, especially when I was onboarding in this new role at the end of April. I throw that out there just because not everything is in the books. You do need it. You do need sometimes some coaching. Will there be a time where I won't need it? I'm not sure. It just depends.

John: Yeah. Unless you've had a coach like that, you really can't imagine the amount of wisdom that you can get from a coach. And they're kind of like a therapist in a way. They don't just tell you what to do. They get you to generate the "aha" moments and just help you to clarify your thinking. The bottom line is it doesn't make you a better person. Everything you would've maybe eventually learned, I think just happens faster when you're in that situation.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: I agree. And sometimes in the chaos, they can help tell you "Yeah, that's not the way for your role, what it is. You should be really having this resource or support, or you should really be looking at things this way. Or you're now in a position that's different than what you did before." You got to start sort of shifting, to have executive presence or to do those things which are skills to get success.

John: No, it's a really good point. Because we know how we feel in our internal talking to ourselves. When you have someone who's objective and really has no vested interest other than in your success, it's just a different perspective that just really can open your eyes. It reminds me too of something that one of my friends colleagues, advised me, and he was a hospital leader way before I was, and he said, "The next time when you apply for a job at one of these hospital systems or something, you should ask them to provide you with a business or leadership coach as part of your contract." I thought that was a brilliant idea. I never had the chance to implement that, but I thought that is a really good idea.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Yeah, I agree. I had been told that after a year into the job that my company also provides that.

John: Okay. Nice.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: I was like, "Whoa, really? You guys actually provide that kind of stuff?" I'm very blessed to be in a company that really invests in their own people, with innovation programs for officers and things like that, to really understand the business. That was one of the other things that I went through as I was learning the company. They're like, "Well, we're going to throw you in this program for seven weeks." And I heard from all the strategy leaders, finance leaders, and it kind of fast tracked me in my education of just knowing where am I working at? What have been their goals? Where are they trying to get to? And how do I fit into that? And that's just investing in their people. Not every company does that kind of thing.

John: Yeah. That's awesome. It really is. I think outside of medicine, it's very common for large businesses to invest in coaches for their CEOs and senior leadership team, and even managers sometimes. We're a little bit over time here, but I do want to ask you any thoughts about AI in medicine? It sounded like you have some experience. Is this something we can ignore for a while or do we have to really start to learn about AI if we want to get into clinical or nonclinical future jobs?

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Yeah, I've been involved in my own current job and just reading and talking to different folks in the AI space. I think that some of the takeaways that I would say to answer your question is, one, the physicians and the healthcare teams that learn to work with AI as a tool are going to do better than those who say, "Well, I'm not getting into this. Or maybe reject the idea or think that it's a fad and eventually it'll go away." I don't think it's going to go away.

But with that said, the most important thing is understanding how do you evaluate a proper AI partner for your clinical operations? What they're calling AI, why are they calling it AI? How do they develop it? How do they test it? How is it biased? What's the risk that it can create harm? And that's a lot of the governance, sort of points that we set up. For anyone working in the hospital side, if your health system or your independent hospital doesn't have a governance structure, you need that.

Secondly, you need a framework to evaluate all the different vendors and folks that are going to come at you with, "Hey, we've got this cool thing." And you never know, it could be half baked. And they're just looking for a partner to use data to test it and iterate on it. Well, do you want to be that partner or do you want to wait till it's baked more?

But I think overall it's going to be a very helpful tool. We're using it, we're piling it in our outpatient clinics, especially generative AI. There are ambient AI programs that can listen to in a HIPAA secure fashion physician patient interactions and create a soap note or an APSO note and then you can edit that and clean it up a little bit. But it's screened by human and then sent to you very quickly so you can just focus on talking to the patient and not even need Scribe.

We have it being used in imaging, some of our business side, like revenue cycle. And so, we're looking at that, even looking at programs that will evaluate when patients call a hospital and have a conversation, what's the tonality and what is that doing from a business side? What's the engagement? What are they mad at? What are they telling us that we may not have picked up on? Because it's otherwise done manually. There's some cost savings potentially there, but in all of these, you want to have a governance structure to work through. Because data security is also a very important thing.

Yeah, you should get on to the bandwagon, but carefully I see. With structure, with a framework and see where it can help you the most. I think all these burdens and cumbersome tasks that have been attributed to burnout, there's an opportunity here to reduce some of that. Doing all your notes at the end of the day and all that stuff. There are tools out there that are good.

John: Yeah. Okay. Good to know. We need to embrace it at some point but also to make sure there are ways to monitor it and make sure it's safe and it's secure.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Absolutely.

John: I really thank you for being here today. I hope the listeners get the same that I got out of it. It's very interesting and it's inspiring and it's also a lot of good points to think about and remember as maybe my listeners are pursuing a career in hospital management or any kind of management or leadership position. I know that we'll probably have some questions for you. I think LinkedIn would probably be the simplest way for people to reach out. I know they can just look up Dr. Nilesh Dave and they're going to find you. If you do have a question, those of you at home listening, then Nilesh can help you out.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: I'm happy to.

John: This has been really good. I'm going to have to catch up with you again in a few years. Maybe I'll have you come back, even maybe a panel on AI. Again, I'm just afraid it's going to become overwhelming very quickly. All right. Thank you very much for being here and with that I'll say goodbye.

Dr. Nilesh Dave: Thank you very much for having me. Happy holidays and happy New Year.

John: Thank you.

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The post What Makes a Great Health System Chief Medical Officer? appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In today's inspirational interview, Dr. Nwando Anyaoku teaches what health equity is, and how to pursue a career as a chief health equity officer.

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We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Education

Dr. Anyaoku received her medical degree from the University of Nigeria. She received residency training in pediatrics and served as chief resident at the Children’s Hospital of New Jersey.

She holds an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. And she completed an MBA from the University of Washington Foster School of Business.

Becoming Chief Health Equity Officer

Dr. Anyaoku has had an impressive career, with more to come. She is well-positioned to move into other leadership roles. And she had excellent advice about how to position yourself for positions with ever greater scope and responsibility.

She attributes her ability to move into progressive leadership roles to constantly learning and volunteering to lead new initiatives.

In addition to her work as Chief Health Equity Officer, she is a speaker, coach, and consultant. If you want to reach out to her, the best option is to go to her website at nwandanyaoku.com.

Summary

Bu constantly looking to pitch in and solve problems, Dr. Anyaoku learned new skills and demonstrated her competence for ever more challenging jobs. She is happy to come to your organization and speak about health equity and working as a Chief Health Equity Officer. She is also interested in coaching and mentoring young physicians who would like to follow her path to leadership. 

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Dr. Anyaoku's website
• Dr. Anyaoku's LinkedIn Page
• NewScr!pt

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Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 235

How to Go from Population Health Strategist to Chief Health Equity Officer

John: I like talking about trailblazers, and today's guest is the first I've met with the title of Chief Health Equity Officer. So, I'm really excited to talk to her today. Hello, Dr. Nwando Anyaoku.

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: Well done, John. Hello, Dr. Jurica. Hello to your audience. Thank you so much for having me. I am looking forward to this conversation.

John: That's my pleasure. The reason I like talking to people like you is number one, we want to learn how you got to where you are, but then we also are going to learn about the subject matter that you're an expert in at least a few minutes, because I think that'll be educational, and there might be people out there that want to follow in your footsteps. So that'll be great. As we usually do, let's just have you tell us about your background, your education, your clinical background, the work you were doing, and then you can jump to what you're doing now and then we'll fill in the gaps after we get that overview.

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: Of course. I am a pediatrician by training. I went to medical school in Nigeria. I came to the US more years ago now than I care to numerate. I did a master's in public health. Really because out of the background that I came from, public health really made a big impact on people's lives in real-time. I think in the United States it's become par for the course, but it was much more proximate to my experience, growing up in Nigeria.

I came to the United States. I did a master's in public health at Johns Hopkins. I worked in the public health arena for a couple of years. Then I went and did a residency in pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of New Jersey at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. I stayed there for a decade and change, working in the clinics as a general pediatrician.

I left as Division Chief of General Pediatrics and was recruited out to the Midwest, by a large health system in Omaha, where I was recruited to build their primary care pediatrics offering. I did that for a little bit of time and then was recruited even further west to where I am now in the Pacific Northwest working for another large health system, where I initially came as their associate medical director in charge of primary care pediatrics for the enterprise.

I shortly thereafter took over primary and specialty pediatrics and ran that for about four years. Along the way, there was a lot of conversation about population health and I kept waving my, "What about kids' flag?" Well, what about kids? Because people talk about population health and they talk about grown-ups with high blood pressure and diabetes and I'd be what about the kids?

I think I waved that flag one too many times. And so, I was invited to sit at the table of the larger system to which we belong, where I got to convene pediatrics specialty clinical and operational leads across seven states and 10 regions of our organization looking at population health from the lens of pediatrics.

And because I was at the population health table and because of my passion for speaking for the people who don't have a voice, I shortly thereafter got to be the clinical lead for our Medicaid strategy. And so, then I was looking at the impact of our work on children and adults.

And in the wake of the George Floyd murder and the pandemic that unfolded upon us two years ago, our organization made a commitment to health equity. And I became the lead for health equity too. At that point, I had three jobs. About a year ago, my organization made a decision to create the inaugural chief health equity officer position. And I was invited to take on that role and that's what brings me here today.

John: Awesome. We're going to learn about what that is in a minute and some other things, but that's pretty impressive, number one. I don't always ask my guests, but I see some people are a little more intentional than others. Were you thinking along the way, "Look, I want to take these opportunities, I want to expand my role, I want to be a leader?" Was that something you were searching for fairly early?

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: I don't know that I was. I think that my passion, and it's the through-line that runs through everything I've done all my life, is really advocating for the voiceless. And so I was always in a position where I would look up and ask, "Well, how is what I'm doing landing for different groups of people?" As a pediatrician when you become a parent, as most parents know, nobody really cares about you. They just talk about the kid. But I would think about how I am helping the parents so that they can be better partners in the care of their children? How do the parents in the different spaces experience the care that I'm trying to deliver?

And because that's always been my lens, and then when I did the public health training, public health really teaches you to look at solutions for populations rather than one individual at a time. I've always had that overlap in the way that I looked at things. And when I was part of a residency program for many years, I would tell some of my residents, there are some of us who go to work and grind, we just do what we need to do and see one patient after the other. But there's some of us that look up and say, how are we doing this? Can we do it better? Can we do it differently?

And if you're one that looks up, then that's who you are and your responsibility is to step into that, own it, and see how you can make working better for your colleagues, better for you, better for your patients. Because everybody is not called to do that. And that was something that I recognized as a calling that I had very early on to look up and see how I can do things better, how we can run this clinic better, more on time. How can I make it work for my colleagues, my physicians, my patients, and the parents?

And because I was one of those who looked up, I always look up and I'm always trying to build that muscle and to get better skills in their ability to do that. And so, I don't know that I woke up one morning and said, "I want one day to be Chief Health Equity Officer" like you said, until about a year ago, it wasn't a thing that existed. But the through-line of my passion and my calling and commitment is what has brought me here. And it's really consistent with who I am and what I've always tried to do.

John: Those are very good observations. Instead of like a lot of physicians, they just put their heads down. They're seeing as many patients as they can. They just deal with EMR. They deal with the culture. They deal with whatever's going on. They don't necessarily pause and say "This could be better. I guess if no one else is going to do it, maybe I guess I need to figure out how to improve it." That sounds like what you're really describing to me.

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: That's how I've always described it. And honestly, it's not bad. Everybody doesn't have the same skills. Some people are designed to grind and they are the ones who identify the molecular differences in things, and the new variants and whatever new thing that is happening to us, but some of us are systems thinkers. And so, if we're systems thinkers, then we need to step into that and try to improve systems, especially as physicians. We talk about burnout, moral injury, how physicians feel disempowered. And part of it is that we just haven't historically stepped into leadership.

And so now as we get our voice, we can actually advocate among the people who are actually doing their best to make the right decisions, but don't have the right input. Having physicians at the table makes a difference for all of us as physicians and for our patients. So that's how I think about it, is that that's my calling and I step into it and own it.

John: All right. I'm going to tease it out a little bit more now because you mentioned systems. That was going to be my next word, we work in a system. From a practical standpoint, does that mean going to your media supervisor and expressing an interest, expressing a willingness to take on new things? Is it to talk, to matrix, to go out and network? How do you actually get that word up so they can look at you and go "Well and come on up?"

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: Well, I will say that the journey is different for different people. And as a woman of color, physician leader of color, your strategy might vary a little bit, but the strategy for everyone really is to raise your hand and say, I will. They're always looking for somebody who's going to do something, serve on some committee or the other, and you can say, "Okay, I can do that." It's not always the first thought that comes to your mind because you're trying to make it through the day and get your RVU quota and all of that sort of thing. But if you think about it, there are ways that you can make it work for yourself. The first step is to say, "I will. I will be part of the change." And healthcare, thankfully, I would say over the last decade has really become more intentional about trying to elicit the physician's voice.

Now, I will say, as a physician leader, sometimes I feel as if they call us as doctors to manage other doctors, just keep them quiet. That's the vision that sometimes leadership has of physician leadership, but that's not what we are trying to do. And if you are not at the table, then that message continues to perpetrate itself. So, raise your hand and say, "I'll do that. We want to do better in this quality improvement process. I'll be the champion. I'll do it." But to go back to my point about being a woman of color, the other thing that sometimes minority physicians need, not sometimes, is that I think every one of us needs a mentor, a coach, and a sponsor. And the sponsor is that person who will say your name in rooms where you are not. Sometimes when a decision is being made about big opportunities, people can get someone who knows them and who'll say, "Hey, this doc is really doing a good job. Why don't we trust them with that?"

But it's not always easy. We have to actually be intentional about cultivating those relationships. And sometimes you think, "Well, who can be my sponsor? I'm the first woman of color in this organization. There is no one ahead of me." But your sponsor doesn't have to be one that looks like you. It just has to be one who knows your work. I tell people to share your thoughts, share the things that you're thinking about, making things better. Identify somebody that you build that relationship with so that someone knows what your interest is and what your passion is. So that when those opportunities come up in rooms where you are not present, there's someone who can say, "I had a conversation with so and so the other day, and I think it'll be great to give them an opportunity to do this." So that's a muscle that I have built over the years, in my leadership journey.

John: Well, that's a really good point. We don't actually talk about that very much. In the 200 plus episodes, I don't think we spend a lot of time on sponsors, but an informal person in the organization who will vouch for you because they know you, you're conversing with them on a regular basis. They understand maybe what you're looking for and what you're willing to do. And maybe other people might not know that and what your capabilities are. That is a very important thing. It's probably overlooked quite a bit.

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: Yeah. Oh, it is. It is by everyone because we don't think about it. You just figure that these things just happen, but they don't. They happen when you have those connections. If you are not part of the majority, sometimes you have to be really intentional about building those connections.

John: I guess it segues a little bit into the health equity or equity and then health equity, these concepts. So why don't you give us a real, good look at what a Chief Health Equity Officer does? At least where you are. I'm not sure they all do exactly the same. I mean, it's a new title, but you would think, well, there's certain things that would be common to that. Explain what health equity is addressing and what a person who's working in that field is spending their time doing?

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: I'm happy to talk about this all day. Health equity is often described as a negative, sort of in a reverse. It's the absence of systemic disparities in health outcomes and experience for different groups of people. The absence, where there is no difference between how different groups of people experience our healthcare, how their outcomes show up. And why is that the case? People sometimes use the term inequity and disparities as synonyms, but they're not synonyms. They mean something a little bit different. You can have disparities in healthcare between different groups, for reasons that are explainable, that makes sense. And so the example I use often is a difference in rates of breast cancer between men and women, biological men and women.

There's going to be a difference because there's hormones. So it's a disparity, but it's not an inequity. An inequity tends to be differences that arise due to systemic disparities in education, income, transportation, social determinants of health. And as such, those differences are not biological and therefore are considered more unjust. And that's what we talk about, when we talk about inequity.

Health, we've known for many, many years that different populations experience healthcare and have health outcomes in different ways. We know that your zip code impacts your life expectancy. We've known this for a long time. Why has it suddenly risen to the top? Well, I would say that it was the twin pandemics of coronavirus and following the murder of George Floyd, what we also as a societal uprising in response to. What people have talked about for years, but was now shown in living color for us to see the different experiences of different people in our system.

And those two things came into together caused us to pause as a nation and say, "What is going on here? And how can we make this better?" The pandemic, I think is the biggest lesson that hit, because we've known that diabetes, these things show up, we know that. But this time it turns out that all those things that we've known, the comorbid conditions, the poor access to health, poor access to transportation, all the things that made it worse for minority populations also made it worse for the rest of us. Because what we've learned from this pandemic is that everybody's health depends on everybody else's. And so we are now motivated to try to find a solution to these problems that we have been aware of, but have now come to sit right in our face.

As Chief Health Equity Officer, what we try to do is first share education about what these differences are, because a lot of people don't actually know because they don't have to, they haven't had to look at it. Help people to look at data and disaggregate the data, filter your clinical outcomes, quality metrics, or whatever performance indicators you look at in your space filtered by race, ethnicity, and language. Filtered by sexual orientation and gender identity. And see whether the work you're doing is landing the same way for everyone. Because as physicians, most people when I have a conversation with them will say, "Well, I treat everybody the same." And my answer is everybody doesn't need to be treated the same. Everybody's coming to this table with different baggage, with different challenges. So you need it to understand what those variables are.

And you're thinking in a 15-minute visit, "How much can I do?" And so what I try to teach you is first, you need to know, because nothing can be solved that is not faced. Once you know, then you can identify partners who can come alongside you to mitigate those challenges. You can put strategies in place to mitigate those challenges so that it's not impacting your time. But if you don't look at it, if you don't understand it, it's never going to change. So that's the work that we are trying to do.

And the amazing thing in 2022 is the influence of data. Data is now, and I live in Seattle, so data is in the land of Amazon or Microsoft. This is what we do, but how do we understand how data can actually worsen health inequities? Because of the way that the system is structured, how can we use the power of that data and all of that to change the way that people see things and understand and make a difference for our population? I could talk about this all day, John. So, I'll just warn you, I'll take a deep breath and pause. But this is what we're trying to do to try to close those gaps.

John: Okay. What comes to my mind is when you're in a role like that, you are part of a system, you are part of an organization. To identify and then address certain disparities or differences, you have to be able to measure them. Is that one of the things you're working on? Do you have good measurement tools? You're not going to necessarily just take public health data from the entire state, although you could, because it's probably across the board, but you have a certain population you're trying to serve. So, how do you address all that?

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: It's literally taking the data that exists. When I have conversations with people, I'm like, I'm not asking you to invent anything new. I want you to look at the data that you currently gather for two reasons. One is that you've already gathered it. Two is that you've already ascribed value to those things that you're measuring. For all of us, we're looking at our rating, our Medicare star ratings, and all of those things. We have to have metrics, heated measures that show how we are performing with our patients. We've already ascribed values to those metrics.

What I then say is put a filter on it. Because if you look at the majority, you're not going to see the impact, because if you are looking in a space, I live in Seattle and the African American population is 6%. Well, if the rest of the 94% is doing great, nobody's ever going to see what's happening in 6%. The indigenous population is barely 2%. So, you have to then put a filter on and then see, what do those numbers look like for this subgroup? What do they look like for that subgroup? And now you can see where the opportunities lie.

I tell people, apply the filter of race, ethnicity, and language and see what rises to the top. And you will find that in all those things that you've already ascribed value to, control of high blood pressure, cancer screening, all those sorts of things. Patient experience. Press Ganey Scores. In all of those things that we have already ascribed value to you are finding a difference in the way different subpopulations experience the healthcare that we deliver.

And as physicians, we come to our job and to our careers with one goal, to help people. Nobody leaves home planning to harm anybody. And yet when this data comes to the top, you see that there is opportunity for us to do better. So that's the first thing we do. I'm like, just filter it. And then as we start this conversation, maybe, are there other things we can measure? Are there other ways that we can iterate this so that we can be more refined in our efforts? That continues to evolve as we do the work. But the first thing I do is just go with what you already have and see what it looks like for everybody.

John: One of the things I found was sometimes difficult, as Chief Medical Officer, I was in a relatively small town and we were trying to improve the healthcare and we weren't focused on equity at that time. We are talking a long time ago. But the thing that sometimes was difficult was I had my measurement tools inside my organization. And there were other organizations and I couldn't necessarily measure changes in the public health, or what was reported by the county and state and so forth. So it just was a challenge. It just made it tough. Do you feel like you can see the changes, or expect to see them eventually locally? Are you able to measure them internally with your own population, your own patients?

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: Yeah. What I tell people is that everything we're dealing with today did not come into existence in the last year. As such, it's not going to reverse in a year. But what we want to see is an incremental change. And you can see it once you start to build the muscle of measuring and responding to what you find in the measurement.

An example I'll give you is when we rolled out the COVID vaccine at the end of last year or the beginning. COVID time has completely collapsed, at this point. I don't even know where we are, but at the end of 2020, we got the vaccine and we were now trying to roll it out to our society.The first big mass resource was this website where you could go and click and pick. Okay, well, that sounds great if you have a computer, if you are able to get to the place and all these things. We were as an organization, quite intentional about saying, "No, that's not going to work for everybody. We need to go to the community and find the people that we need to serve." And with our data, we could identify which population was at higher risk. And then we identified which community-based organizations served those populations. And then we partnered with them so that we could come alongside them, and in a local way, in language access the people that they were serving and be more targeted in our delivery of vaccines to those people.

We were able to see early on there was a significant gap. Like I said, the percentage of African Americans in our greatest Seattle area is about 6%. And the first wave of vaccine delivery, we barely got 3% of the African American population. But as we started these targeted efforts, we could see in real-time that gap closing, because we were able to be intentional about the way we deliver with care.

And so, it's a small thing. It's like one and done, you get it or you don't. It's not the same as long-term control of hypertension or diabetes, but it tells you that if you are looking at it and if you are intentionally targeting it, you can make that impact and you can measure it. That's something that we're extremely proud of in our organization. And that's the muscle that we want to get people building in different spaces all across the country.

John: I remember back a long time ago when I was starting out in hospital administration. One of the things people would just say, "Well, I know the care is good, because I give good care", like you mentioned earlier. It's like, no, we have to measure it. We have to find something we can measure and track and create a process or come up with a solution, change something and then see if it gets better. But I think most people are pretty much on board with that. It's just a matter of finding that tool sometimes.

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: Yeah. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement, PDSA model, it's the same everywhere. And so, what do you want to do? Plan it, do it, study, raise and repeat, always doing that and asking, "Am I measuring the right thing? Am I making it worse by this change?" And that's some of the things that we have to think about, especially in this space, because like I said, a lot of this stuff is structural and sometimes you shift this gender piece and the whole thing moves a whole different way. So you have to be intentional about building in benchmarks and ways to assess whether you're actually making an improvement, whether this change is an improvement or whether it's actually a worsening of what you are trying to address. Physicians, literally always are like, "Well, I'm giving good care. I do this." I'm like, "I know you do. I know your intention, but how is it showing up? And you're not going to know unless you look at it." So let's look at it.

John: Yeah. And a lot of the things that impact the outcomes really don't have to do with whether they pick the right medicine or has to do, like you were mentioning earlier, transportation, income, language barriers, all these other things that once a person walks into your office, if you don't have a way to deal with that, it's just not going to happen. Or even before they often leave the office, obviously, how do they get to the office? Or do you go out with them? Like you said.

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: And sometimes the answer is all of the above. Different organizations across the country are solving for this in different ways because the impact is different. The reasons are different. Some organizations partner with the apps that drive people and they have a contract by which they bring people to the hospital. Some organizations partner with community-based organizations. It's really looking in your local space and identifying what are the particular issues that your community is facing and how can you make it better? The other thing that I'd like to talk about, because it's something that doesn't show up a lot, is thinking about how you increase the diversity of your workforce. Because one thing we know from all kinds of organizations is that having diversity of thought, diversity of lived experience makes your product better.

And so, if you are in an organization that doesn't have a diverse physician body, nursing body, then your lens of how you treat patients is going to be somewhat narrow. One of the best ways that you can improve health equity is to diversify your provider, your physician, APC, and clinical staff body and just the rest of the hospital. Because what it does is that as people get to know people who are not like them, they start to be comfortable with different perspectives, with different ways of looking at things, and different partnerships. And so, we're never going to get to the point where you will have every minority patient will have a minority physician to match, but if you have the pool mixed up, you will start to see that impact on the patient population.

But as a physician of color trying to navigate the healthcare system, it can be particularly challenging. And I'm sure that as you've done these interviews, you've met some people who would tell you just how difficult it was for them going through residency, through practice. Last week, there was a young lady on Twitter that talked about being the first black fellow at her institution. That story is so common and so repeated. And what it does is that you first struggle to create that pipeline. And then the pipeline gets shut off because people are not able to survive.

So, what I've done for many years is try to be a coaching resource for physicians, especially physicians of color who are trying to navigate the healthcare system. How do you survive? How do you thrive? How do you bring your gift of service to your population in a way that makes an impact without you being burnt out or being crushed by the system? So, it's work that, I think is really important and key. And I always want to call it out because it's a big burden that we face, but it's one way that we can be intentional about impacting our patients' lives.

John: That's such good advice and people need to keep their eyes open and encourage those things. I have a couple more questions I want to ask you quickly. One is, you're in that position and you mentioned what other organizations may be doing so you have a feel. What do you see in terms of this position or one like it, do you see a lot of growth? Do you see most large organizations doing this when you go to the meetings or Zoom calls or whatever you're looking for and talking to your peers?

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: I went to a CME conference in Boston in the fall, and I was absolutely blown away by the absolute number of Chief Health Equity Officers.

John: Really?

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: I will say that there were not a lot of us from health systems. There were a lot of Chief Health Equity Officers from payers, they're from tech companies. Then large health systems like mine are beginning to create that. A lot of organizations recognized the value of a DEI officer. So they've had a DEI officer, and my organization has one too. But the way that we look at our work is a two-sided coin. And my chief health equity work is focused on more clinical and patient facing. It's talking about culturally competent care, looking at health outcomes metrics.

My DEI partner looks at the workforce. How diverse is the workforce? How are we creating an inclusive culture? And when we're talking about diversity and equity, we're not just talking about race. We're talking about language, ageism, ability, sexual orientation, all of those things that make people find themselves othered in an organization is what we look at. And so, we work very close hand in hand, because like I said, if you have a clinician who comes in and finds themselves the only one. Initially they're hired, everybody's like, "Yay, we got a diverse candidate." And then very shortly thereafter, their very diversity begins to be weaponized against them. Because you're not conforming, you're different, which is the reason why you got me in here by the way. But now, because I'm different, I'm experiencing microaggressions and all those challenges.

And so, what we try to do, we try to create that culture that is welcoming, that allows people to bring their whole selves to work so that they can be available for their patients in the way that the patients need. Because that patient sees, I walk through my clinic and I would have patients who are seeing other doctors come out of the room and be like, "Is she a doctor? Can I switch to her?" Because they have never seen a doctor that looks like them. They want that comfort.

Like I said, we're not going to get to the point where everybody has that congruency in the match, but as we build a workforce that is more diverse, we make it more welcoming for everybody. That's the way that we look at the work right now in my space. The American Medical Association has a similar structure. They have a Chief Health Equity Officers and a Chief Diversity Equity and Inclusion Officer. And that's the model that is beginning to grow. There's so much work to be done in this space that I think we will be around for a while.

John: Yeah. I think it's going to be quite a while before there's anything near saturation of that. A couple more things. I've got to get going here, but I do want to first say, where do we track you down? I know listeners are going to want to follow you. They're going to want to possibly contact you. So I know we could probably find you on LinkedIn.

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: Yes. You can find me on LinkedIn and you can find me on my website, which is my first name and last name dot-com, nwandoanyaoku.com. Really easy. You can send me an email through either of those two channels. I would love to talk to you and see how I can help.

John: Awesome too, and I'll put that in the show notes. They'll definitely be able to contact you if they want to do that. And so, the last thing is, you've told us how you've come up and what you've done and the masters and so on and so forth. My listeners are looking for different things to do. Maybe they transition out of clinical to something like you're doing. Anything else you would do differently or recommend to them if they are looking to move into something like you described?

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: Well, the first thing I'll say is I have an MD, I have an MPH, and an MBA. They all showed up at different times. You don't need all of those to do this work I'm doing. You don't need any of, well, you need the MD, but you don't need to have an MPH or an MBA. There are many ways that you can build muscle. And I've done that for many, many years. I did my MPH before I did my residency, as I told you, because that's the lens that I came to healthcare with. And it helped me to refine my skillset in that arena. And what I've always done is I always tried to see "What toolbox do I need for this task?"

Nobody taught us how to be leaders. You're the busiest doctor, you have the biggest panel of patients, ergo, you're the medical director. Well, the skillset you need to build the biggest panel is not the skill set you need to manage physicians and host meetings and things like that. They're two different skill sets. And yet that's the criteria historically that people have used to get promotions.

When you find yourself there, either because you raised your hand, you were nominated or you got dropped into it and you feel you can do it, then there are lots of resources out that you can start to find, to just build the muscle that you need to learn to be a leader. I advocate that every physician leader gets a coach, gets somebody who is going to help you on your journey, who can stand outside and be a safe space to help you navigate, to do the best work that you want to do.

But the other thing that helps is having a mentor. If you look around your organization and see somebody who's doing work that you like. And these days LinkedIn has made it easy. When I started, there wasn't LinkedIn, but now you can basically scroll through LinkedIn pages, follow the tracks of people that you already follow and see other people who are doing exciting things, and look at what their journey looks like. And I send them an email, "Hey, can I have a conversation, a 20-minute call? How did you get to what you're doing? What do you do every day? What are the things that keep you?" I just have those conversations. And have a conversation, not an interrogation, or quizzing somebody to make them give you a job, but just so that you understand what the possibilities are.

I imagine that in your podcast, you've seen so many possibilities of what physicians can do. I tell people, we've learned so much that our skills can be deployed in so many ways because health is life. From pharma to payer, to community, to advocacy, to government, to everywhere, the skillset that we've built becoming physicians is extremely valuable.

But as a person, how do you figure out which path to take? First, figure out what's there, but also figure out what's important to you. What is your passion? What is your unique gift and what do you feel that you are brought here to leave? And as you put those two together, the path becomes clear over time. I hate to sound cocky, but it really does. And as you get to understand how you serve and how your service makes an impact, it really becomes clearer and clearer. And then you're like, wow.

When my CEO called me and offered me this position, I was like, I have done this out of my passion for years. In every position I've found myself, I'll find who I can advocate for? How are you dealing with these people? How can I make it? And all of a sudden this thing that I've done after hours on weekends and in my lunch break becomes my job. And it's just absolutely amazing. Being able to understand what you bring to the table, what is your unique gift. All of us are doctors, but not in the same way. And we are not all called to be doctors the same way. So, figure out what you want to do and what else is out there and marry the two and have lots of conversations.

John: That sounds like great advice. We've heard bits and pieces of that in the past. So those are really core things. And the mentors. Yeah, I tell people, don't make your mentor own your career. That's not what your mentor is for. You just ask a few questions, get a little push, get a little advice, avoid the landmines and just keep moving forward. That's great advice.Well, I want to thank you for being here today. It's been a lot that we've learned, so I really appreciate it. Yeah, I want to see how things go over the next year or two. Maybe we'll follow up in the future. Dr. Anyaoku, thank you so much for being here today. And with that, I'll have to say goodbye.

Dr. Nwando Anyaoku: Thank you for having me.

John: You're welcome. It's my pleasure. Bye-bye.

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The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career. 

The post How to Go from Population Health Strategy to Chief Health Equity Officer – 235 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

This week, I spend a few minutes discussing which advanced degree to pursue. This issue was triggered by a listener’s question. And it truly made me think more deeply about the issue.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

The Question.

The listener had decided to obtain an advanced degree to help advance his career. But he wanted a degree with practical short-term applications. And rather than the fairly popular executive MBA, such as the degree that my sponsor, the University of Tennessee Haslam College of Business provides, he had narrowed his search to the following:

• Master of Applied Science in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety;
• Master of Science in Quantitative Management and Healthcare Analytics; and,
• Master of Science in Clinical Informatics Management.

Each was taught at a different graduate school. And all of them were well-known organizations with good reputations. And they varied from one year to two years in duration. We did not discuss the cost of each.

Deciding to Pursue an Advanced Degree

Here are the most important considerations I would keep in mind when thinking about this major decision:

• Many current physician executives, including CMOs and CEOs, have NO business degree.
• Many CMOs started with NO business degree and completed one AFTER getting their first CMO position.
• There are 3 primary benefits to obtaining an advanced degree:

1. 1. You learn useful skills, techniques, concepts, tools, etc. Note, however, that most, if not all, can be learned through reading, online courses, and courses through organizations such as the American Association for Physician Leadership.
   2. You demonstrate your commitment and provide evidence of knowledge of business, management, finances, etc. that you might NOT be able to demonstrate otherwise.
   3. You develop a network of colleagues working in teams while completing your degree. Be sure to ask about this aspect – the vitality of the alumni group and connections developed – do they persist beyond the formal education?

Which Advanced Degree?

These decisions do not exist in a vacuum, and the most important issues to consider are:

1. 1. Does the program deliver all of the above benefits?
   2. What are the total costs of each program?
   3. How much time will you need to devote on a weekly or monthly basis (5 hours, 20 hours, full time)?
   4. The total time needed to complete the degree (as little as a year, even while working your regular job, or as long as 3 or 4 years completing one course per semester or less); and,
   5. Whether to attend a big name school to further enhance your prospects of landing the most competitive positions.

Summary

It is human nature to want to select the “perfect” option for your career when choosing the degree and the institution to attend. Remember, however, that the most important aspect may be the effect the decision will have on your finances, time demands, and family life. 

If you have a question about anything we talk about on the podcast, please contact me at nonclinicalphysicians.com/voicemessage and leave me a message. I always respond. And while I may discuss it on the podcast, I will NOT share your name without your permission.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode that you can download or read.

Links for Today's Episode:

• 7 Top Reasons to Complete Your Business Degree – 137
• First Gain Know-How Then Secure an MBA – 099
• Boost Your Career Trajectory by Completing an Executive MBA with Dr. Kate Atchley – 025
• Seeking an MBA – Interview with Atish Jaiswal – 003
• Leave me a voice message here: nonclinicalphysicians.com/voicemessage

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Transcription - PNC Episode 191

Which Advanced Degree Will Be Right for a Nonclinical Career? - John Responds to a Listener's Question

All right for this week, it is just me. And I'm going to be talking about an issue that I've mentioned before. And that is whether an advanced degree is necessary for transitioning to a new career. Now, usually this comes up with respect to moving into a leadership position in a hospital or health system, or maybe an insurance company or something like that. But I had a question the other day from one of my listeners.

And actually, this is a good point to remind you that I do take questions. So, you can contact me in any number of ways, but I love to get those questions. I respond usually within a day or two at the most. And if it's a topic that might be of interest to others, I will certainly consider putting it here on the podcast.

But there are many ways you can reach me. You can ask me a question on the Facebook group, of course, the Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters Facebook group, but that is assuming I'm going to catch it, which I don't always do. And the best way would either to do a verbal or an audio type of question or email me. You can email me at john.jurica.md@gmail.com. You can find that all over the website. I post it everywhere.

And if you're in one of my courses on Teachable, one of the free ones, I think I have that in there. And it goes to that email address, even if you just respond generically to something in The Nonclinical Career Academy, which is at nonclinicalcareeracademy.com. Anyway, the email is fine.

And then if you want to do audio, because sometimes that's fun, you can use my Speak Pipe. I've had this for a long time. I don't get too many questions in that way, but I'm going to start promoting that because I think it's fun to listen to the audio. And sometimes I'll actually respond in audio. And if you've never used Speak Pipe, I think the current version of that, that I have or the plan, would allow up to a five-minute audio file. So, most questions are going to take less than one or two minutes, honestly.

But anyway, to find the Speak Pipe, the easiest way is just to go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/voicemessage. And that should bring up my Speak Pipe. And then you can draft your question and record your question, and then you can listen to it. If you don't like the way it sounds, you can just erase it and start over. So, it does give you that opportunity. You don't have to send in your first draft if it's something that's funny, because when I send audio questions to others or respond to them, I usually have to do several drafts because I don't know. Even right now, I'm trying to do this episode extemporaneously. And I usually have to plan my question and answers out quite a bit.

Even some of the coaching. They'll respond to me. I'm talking about my marketing coach. They'll look at something I've sent in and then rather than send a written answer, they actually send a video answer, but then I have the opportunity to respond. And it usually takes me several takes. It doesn't have to be perfect obviously, but at least I feel like I'm just pausing too much and so on and so forth.

So anyway, those are two ways you can ask me a question and feel free to send me any question. I'm not saying it will always be featured on the podcast. If I'm going to put it on the podcast is sort of the neatest for an episode then I'll probably ask your permission to include your name in it, but you don't have to.

These are some of the best kinds of podcasts, I think. I have several colleagues that use this method. They're answering a question and it really gets to the nitty-gritty of an issue that can be quite interesting and useful.

Now I'm not going to read this question in its entirety, but I will say that the person asking the question has a plan to eventually have the ultimate goal of reaching CMOs status. Now, again, I believe this is a health care system or hospital. Although, like I say, there are a lot of jobs that this question may come up in. Really anything with leadership.

So, let's just get this out of the way. If you're going to get a job as a physician advisor in a hospital or a medical director in an insurance company, or a third party, the utilization management or benefits management company, for those entry-level jobs, you definitely do not need an advanced degree. And I'm using this term advanced degree instead of advanced business degree because the question that was sent to me is quite interesting because it references several types of degrees, which I don't consider to be business degrees, although in a way they are. And I'll explain because I'll explain what the program is that is being mentioned.

But I do want to make the point that having an advanced degree of some sort can definitely help with career transition, but again, it's not always needed. And in fact, I'm getting ahead of myself in a way, because I do answer that particular question. But I want to give examples where it would be helpful. Obviously, any leadership or executive position. So that would apply in the hospital and health system arena, CMO, CMIO, of course beyond that. Some of those CMOs become COOs or CEOs.

You wouldn't generally need an advanced degree to become a medical director. A lot of medical directorships are related to a very clinical department or service line. And even though you're doing management, you're still doing a lot of clinical in those jobs. And it definitely would not be a prerequisite for most medical director jobs in the healthcare arena involving a hospital or a multi-hospital system. But it would, as you went into the COO, the CMIO, the Chief Quality Officer. The CMIO, by the way, is the Chief Medical Information Officer. Other similar jobs like chief patient safety officer, if it exists or chief integration officer.

But there are other jobs where this would also apply, for example, in pharma. Something like an MSL or medical monitor, of course, you would not need any kind of an advanced degree. Although master’s in public health wouldn't hurt in some of those areas because of the extra epidemiology and statistics you would have learned. And there are other types of degrees that would be applicable to some of these other jobs that again, aren't exactly management degrees.

So, there is overlap between some of these and these are mostly master's degrees basically. And I'll get into that in a minute. But again, if you're in pharma, but now you're moving up to, I've heard some people say that in pharma, you can have assistant medical director, associate medical director, medical director, senior medical director, executive medical director. There are a lot more layers. And eventually, though that is moving up into the director role or the chief medical officer role. And definitely, as you start to get into those positions, the advanced degree will be very helpful.

Well, I think we'll cover some of these things as we get into answering this question. So, let me go ahead and read off some of the rest of the questions. So, this listener said that the three master’s programs that I'm looking at are master of applied science and quality improvement and patient safety at Johns Hopkins. Master of science and quantitative management and healthcare analytics. And that would be at NYU business school. And a master of science and clinical informatics management through Stanford.

Notice that the name of these degrees, I mean, definitely it's a master's degree. One is strictly the quality and patient safety. So, there's no mention of management or of analytics. The second has quantitative management in healthcare analytics. Again, I'd have to look at the curriculum to know exactly what that would be. And then the third has clinical informatics management. And so, it has the word management in it as well. So, I'm assuming if they're using the term management in the description of the degree that it does have some of the content that let's say an MHA (masters of health administration) or an MBA would have.

So, this is something I haven't considered in the past because when I've talked about this, I've talked mainly about an MBA and MHA and MMM - Masters of Medical Management, which is strictly provided through an organization, the school that's working with the American Association for physician leadership, the AAPL.

And also, a lot of the people that apply for management jobs, sometimes have the MPH that I mentioned earlier, which has a little bit in there about management, a little bit about leadership, but it has definitely a lot of attention to quality and the measurement in epidemiology and statistics.

Okay. So, with that as a backdrop, let me try and go through the way that I would think about this. There are many physician executives, including CMOs, CEOs, and CEOs who do not have any business degree. Definitely in the hospital setting. And I'm assuming other settings as well.

But a lot of those individuals have been in leadership for a long time. So I would definitely say that in recent years, as applications for these positions become more competitive that seeing that advanced degree of some sort has become much more common. One of the things I've mentioned in the past is that you might go into the management track without the advanced degree, but you might acquire it while you're in the process of working part-time and working your way up to the upper echelon so to speak of whatever company you're working for.

So, one of the strategies is don't just get the advanced degree early on because you don't know where you're going to end up, and it may not use all of the content that you're learning if you go off on some tangent. So, for example, in today's question, one of the degrees is focused on informatics and informatics management. Well, if you have no intention of being an informaticist or potentially the CMIO, then that might not be the optimal degree to obtain and spend those years obtaining that degree when it would have been better spent obtaining a degree that's a little broader, whether it's an MBA or an MMM or something like that.

I just wanted to get that out of the way though, that you should consider moving forward as quickly as you can towards your ultimate goal by applying for these positions, even if you don't have the advanced degree. I would not put that off by several years while you're trying to get that degree. There might be some benefit to enrolling for one of these degrees, either the ones I mentioned, others like them, or the more generic degrees, and then apply for these jobs. Because even if you're early in the process, in your first or second course for this degree, you're demonstrating your commitment. You clearly aren't going to do that if you're an employed physician in a hospital and you're not seeking a management or leadership position.

So, in that case, it's more of a hobby that you're not doing for your career. But if you definitely are focused on moving up in an organization, whether it's in your current or in some future organization, then having started the process definitely has a positive, which I'll probably mention again in a minute, as I talk about why we should pursue one of these degrees.

Just to wrap up this first point, you don't need a degree to advance to some of these positions. And certainly, though, it is getting more and more competitive out there. And so, you should strongly consider getting one of these business or non-business degrees and try to decide which one will provide the most bang for the buck in terms of useful learning and skills that you can apply now and in the future.

Now, when I talk about advanced business degrees or advanced degrees in general, I always think about the three primary reasons why it is useful to obtain one of these degrees. And there are maybe other reasons, I'm not going to dwell on. Of course, the most obvious is that you're going to learn new skills and techniques that you don't already know. Even if you've taken some courses and read a lot of books, you're probably going to get a more in-depth knowledge of some of these concepts during a degree program than you will by going to a weekend lecture series or something like that.

But that's only a part of the issue. The second big reason is that again, I mentioned this earlier, is you've demonstrated your commitment and that's pretty important. Even if you already know everything that you're going to learn or 90% of it, and you are already fully capable of understanding health, finances, and healthcare law, leadership and management principles, things that you didn't learn in med school and residency.

Having the degree at least demonstrates that you definitely have those skills, which wouldn't necessarily be accepted if I was reviewing your resume for a position with my hospital when I was there and I saw a bunch of courses that you had taken. Some of which seemed to address those topics, as opposed to, if you had just completed an MHA or MBA, then I would just assume you know finance, you know what a P&L is. You probably know healthcare finance depending on the program.

And the third thing that I like to include, and I don't think this can be minimized, and I'll tell you why in a minute, but as part of your program, you're most likely going to develop a new network of colleagues who you will keep in touch with even after the program is done and who will be a resource for you in the future. In some programs, the alumni all keep in touch through whether a formal or informal process and they help each other move up the chain as they're looking for new jobs because they're a resource and you can think of these resources across the country.

You might all of a sudden decide you are in the city of Chicago, working at a job that is really not fully utilizing your skills and you reach out to your network and you find that there's a job in Arizona that will pay you 50% more and put you in a position to fully utilize your business and management skills. You might not have found that job without having that connection.

So, it's clearly something to look at when you are comparing and contrasting different degrees at different locations. So really that's something you should ask about from former students and current students, but really former students, if you can to say,” Okay, is there a network, did you have a team, a cohort you were working with for your projects? Do you stay in touch with those people? How about the rest of the alumni?”

My sponsor, the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA program now has over 700 graduates, as I mentioned every week. And you can imagine what kind of network that might be. Maybe not all 700 are easily accessible, but certainly, the class that you might graduate with and the team that you work with while you're in that class, doing the work for that, will certainly be a resource that should go on for quite a while.

And I also like to mention that there are certainly other considerations that I think they're pretty obvious, and you may want to create a grid when comparing different programs. You should definitely look around, but you need at least two or three other items. One is the cost. You can get an MBA at a community college. Well, I wouldn't call it a community college, but you can get an MBA from a local private college or state college for a really reasonable price. It might be $20,000 to $30,000 for a decent degree, decent program. But it can range in excess of $65,000, which I think is like an average across the country for the bigger name schools to closer to $100,000 where you can go into a formal traditional MBA at Kellogg or something like that. So, obviously cost is a factor.

And the second thing is the time. And there are two factors related to time. One is the amount of time you have to commit to it on a day-to-day basis. And so, what are the programs offering in terms of the day-to-day responsibilities in your situation? In terms of responsibilities at home and family life.

But the other time factor is how long it takes to get through the program. And those are kind of inversely related. If you are doing a program that runs for two and a half years, it's an online program with maybe some in-person meetings or Zoom meetings and projects that you're working on, but you're only doing one course per semester or one course per quarter. Yes, it's definitely going to take two and a half or three years to complete.

If so, the day-to-day time commitment will be less. There may be some weeks where you don't work on it at all. And then other weeks where you're really spending 5, 10, 15 hours on it. But if you're doing a program like the UT PEMBA one-year program, you are making a commitment to spend 15 or 20 hours a week, I'm thinking. And again, I don't represent the organization.

So, I'm just saying that if you're doing a program that will be done in one to one and a half years, you're going to have to spend time on that program every week. And again, depending on your circumstances, whether you're working a full-time job and how full-time that full-time job is, and what responsibilities you have at home, that may not even be a possibility.

The other thing that I responded to this listener with was this issue of looking at the actual programs that he was thinking about because none of them were classical management. They were a combination of a practical degree that would help with quality improvement, patient safety, healthcare analytics, clinical informatics. And so, they definitely would be very beneficial if you were going into even to be a medical director for quality improvement and patient safety, which would then lead into a chief quality officer job. Or becoming a medical or clinical informaticist, and then becoming the manager of that department and then eventually becoming the CMIO.

But I think if you want to get into that CMO position, you definitely have to make sure that some of the coursework and the curriculum includes the management leadership, healthcare finances, and as many of those topics as you can get so that you don't get pigeonholed in forever into a quality improvement job, or a patient safety job, or informatics job, if you want eventually to get into that executive position.

I don't think I'm going to tell you exactly the recommendations I gave to this listener, except that I was taking it at face value what the content of the curriculum would be based on the name of the program. I thought that number one, and we didn't discuss this but it is another consideration I guess I should have added this in the beginning. And that is whether the program is a recognized high-profile program.

Now people may argue with me, but when I hear Johns Hopkins NYU business school or Stanford, to me, those are very high tier very quality programs. Now you might rank others higher or that you may say, “Well, no, this one doesn't compare”. But we were talking that compared to the university of XYZ or some small private school that has really no reputation, any of the three that I mentioned earlier for this person, was a high-quality organization that would stand out on a resume, let's say.

But again, not absolutely necessary by any means, particularly as you consider the expense for some of these schools. And for me, the question really boils down more to whether you're going to get the advanced business learning as well as the analytics or the quality improvement or informatics knowledge. Then the name of the school, I would say it would be a secondary consideration in this case.

So basically, that's it. I would look at those things. I would definitely consider an advanced degree if you're looking to eventually get out of clinical, maybe continue to do one day a week, one day every two weeks, that sort of thing. And as I've mentioned before, I've known CMOs or rather CEOs of large academic centers who continue to do some clinical and they clearly were very busy running a multi-billion dollar organization.

But if you're going to be doing primarily nonclinical, you should consider getting one of these degrees. You could consider a degree like I've mentioned that this listener mentioned, which is a little bit different from the usual business degrees. There is also the MPH, which usually will be almost as good. And then you also have an MPA, which is master of public administration, which I think at least one or two of my guests have had. My impression is that with that degree, you tend to go into more of a governmental job, like a state-level or federal government job with the public administration.

All right. Well, that's all I wanted to say today. I thought it was a very interesting question, a very interesting concept, and consideration when you're thinking about getting an advanced degree.

If you have any questions like this that you'd like me to answer on the air, or just by email or by audio, then definitely go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/voicemessage, or send me an email at john.jurica.md@gmail.com.

All right. Thanks a lot for listening and I'll see you next week.

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The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career. 

The post Which Advanced Degree Will Be Right for a Nonclinical Career? – 191 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In this week's show, I explain the 5 steps I took to go from family physician to hospital Chief Medical Officer.

I start by explaining why I believe hospital leadership is an excellent career. Then I set the stage for the rest of the discussion.

Our Sponsor

Today's sponsor is a new one: Vohra Wound Physicians. This is a great physician-led company, that is looking for additional physicians to join its team. Wound care is in great demand, and Vohra enables physicians to focus on taking care of patients without administrative burdens.

And working for Vohra means no weekends and no call. Vohra will support you with its excellent in-house training. And Vohra embraces technology, integrating telemedicine so that you have more flexibility in your schedule while reducing travel demands.

If you have an unrestricted license to practice, have been actively practicing for the past 12 months, and are able to commit to at least three 8-hour days of work each week, you should contact Vohra Wound Physicians here: nonclinicalphysicians.com/woundcare. 

5 Steps to a Leadership Position

Here are the five steps I describe in today's monologue:

1. Be curious and volunteer for committees and special projects;
2. Engage one or more mentors;
3. Try different part-time paid positions as pilots to see what interests you while gaining new skills;
4. Get additional education and certification or a new degree;
5. Go for it, and ask for the job.

My path spanned about 20 years. But you can compress what I did into a much shorter time frame. In the end, you will find a well-compensated position that enables you to have a meaningful impact on healthcare in your community. 

And if you're like me, you'll have fun doing it.

Summary

This is an excellent career open to any physician who regularly works in the hospital setting. By demonstrating interest, learning on the job, obtaining the help of a mentor, and furthering your education, you will be able to find a career as a hospital executive.

Links for Today's Episode:

• American Association for Physician Leadership
• Follow Six Essential Rules to Engage a Mentor
• Vohra Wound Care Jobs

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Many of the links that I refer you to, and that you’ll find in the show notes, are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so has no effect on the price you are charged. And I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you, that I have personally used or am very familiar with.

The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. It should not be construed as medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career. 

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