12% of anesthesiologists want executive positions — 3 leaders on taking the leap

Twelve percent of participants in the American Society of Anesthesiologists' biannual survey indicated they're interested in assuming an executive role within the next five years, ASA CEO Paul Pomerantz said during a panel at Anesthesiology 2018, Oct. 13-17 in San Francisco.

Here are three quotes from panelists on taking on new leadership roles, as reported by Anesthesia Business Consultants:

1. William (Pepper) Denman, MD, principal, Denman Associates; pediatric anesthesiologist, Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital: "I began to see my role as trying to practice medicine on a larger scale. I wanted to see good practice and good ideas and good solutions to unmet needs become operationalized. That requires you to try to push behavior change and push things into the market.

2. Sam L. Page, MD, chair, St. Louis County Council: "If you can get past the negatives [of running for office], and you've got a thick enough skin to let it all roll off of you, you get to change the decisions governments make, you get to change the environment that you're practicing in and you get to advocate for your patients outside of the operating room. It’s your duty to speak up for your patients, not just in the operating room, but also outside, interacting with hospitals, health plans, third-party payers and elected officials."

3. Mary Dale Peterson, MD, chief operating officer, Corpus Christi, Texas-based Driscoll Children's Hospital; first vice president, ASA: "People ask me, 'Wouldn't that be boring, getting into administration?' In a children's hospital, you see a lot of sad things, but what was saddest was seeing children with a lot of preventable conditions. The reason I went into medicine to begin with was to advocate for our patients. When you see things that are wrong you keep working on fixing them. But none of these things were planned in my life. Sometimes the best things are unplanned."

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