One of the most satisfying parts about my profession is the opportunity to help lead a practice and take on leadership roles in industry bodies. Leadership roles allow a clinician to develop business and management skills that they usually do not learn in med school. They get a 30,000-foot view of their practice and their industry. They come into contact with payers, teaching valuable and sometimes tough lessons. And they get a chance to mentor younger clinicians.
Of course, leadership comes with additional work, responsibilities and time commitments. And, when clinicians take on their added burdens early in their careers, they can have unintended deleterious effects on their personal and family lives. This, in turn, can lead to clinician burnout; a 2023 study showed that two-thirds of anesthesiologists surveyed were at high risk for burnout. Given the nationwide shortage of anesthesiologists, retention of happy and healthy clinicians is a top priority for our industry.
Anyone who has spent their years in college, medical school, residency and fellowship grinding and sacrificing, understands the need to invest in their well-being and mental health upon completion. Gaining leadership experience during work hours while preserving personal time is so critical in those first few years for an individual to improve their clinical skills and concentrate on becoming their best self, partner and parent.
I entered leadership in my early 30s. It was a terrific opportunity and I learned a great deal. However, at that point in my life, my wife and I had two young children. Anesthesiologists know they don’t have a Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 career. We work long hours, have irregular shifts, are on-call for transplants. It is challenging enough to be present at home for family under those circumstances. Adding the additional time and management responsibilities associated with leadership was, at least for me, more than I expected. I suspect it is the same for many others.
This is not to say that all clinicians should be prohibited from entering practice leadership at a young age. There are of course doctors who, early in their careers, want to enter leadership, even senior leadership. Many are gifted with leadership skills and should embrace opportunities if they arise.
But entering leadership should be a choice, not something thrust upon doctors before they are ready. Owing to retirements, doctor shortages or other circumstances, young clinicians are sometimes pressed into leadership without sufficient training or support. Too often, the assumption is that if they are a great doctor, they will be a great leader. This is usually a fallacy.
If young clinicians choose to enter leadership, they should avail themselves of resources that will help prepare them for the tasks ahead. At U.S. Anesthesia Partners (USAP), where I work, we have a New and Future Leaders program and Clinical Governance Board Chair Mentors.
It’s hard to overstate the value of mentors. There is no teacher like experience, and these cross-generational relationships are a win-win: the young clinician gains the wisdom and practical lessons of their mentor, and the mentor gains insights into how a younger generation thinks about leadership and being led.
For other clinicians thinking about entering practice or industry leadership, I advocate a smarter way to grow into leadership: a stair-stepped pathway that eases clinicians into leadership roles, combined with training along the way, that grows their managerial expertise and responsibilities at a pace that aligns with their personal lives.
Each practice, facility, and system will have different options for an individual to participate in leadership. Local practices often have committee structures with more senior members serving as chairs of the committees affording the newer members of the group opportunities to participate, learn from their more experienced partners and develop their own leadership and communication style.
Within my facility in Seattle, we also have clinical opportunities for teaching (medical students, residents, fellows, and student registered nurse anesthetists) and leadership roles as chiefs and assistant chiefs of each of our sub-specialties. These roles often don't require significant time and energy outside normal working hours. They represent a workable and rewarding first step onto the stair-stepped pathway to lifelong leadership.
The benefits to this approach are manifold. Clinicians will enjoy more quality family time early on in their career, which helps to battle burnout. Too quickly, parents realize, children become teens, and their activities outside the home, with friends, sports and academics, take away time with parents.
And it’s a great way to keep senior clinicians relevant and engaged. It makes sense for senior, seasoned clinicians to occupy top leadership positions as the capstone to their careers. For others, they can become the much-needed mentors of the up-and-coming clinicians.
This sort of approach will better equip clinicians for the more senior levels of leadership in their careers in a way that aligns with their personal lives. And that will inevitably lead to improved patient care.
Dr. Doug Morgan is a Partner with U.S. Anesthesia Partners’ Washington practice and has been involved in leadership for nearly a decade.
