AAPL Summit, Day 4: Women's Leadership Forum, Opioid Panel

Also set for Sunday at the AAPL 2018 Physician Leadership Summit: an opioid discussion, association award winners and board of director announcements.

BOSTON, Mass. — The divide between the number of women graduating from medical school today (about 50 percent) and those reaching hospital leadership positions (about 20 percent) is decidedly vast but not impossible to close. Why the inequity?

“Mostly, it’s because women are coming to the table unprepared or else are afraid to toss their hat in the ring because they don’t feel like they have the right skill sets,” says Margaret McKenzie, MD, president of the Cleveland Clinic’s South Pointe Hospital in Warrensville, Ohio.

McKenzie will explore that topic — and the matter of physician engagement — during two discussions today at the 2018 AAPL Physician Leadership Summit.

McKenzie, who grew up in Georgetown, Guyana, and immigrated to the United States at 18, began her ascension through the leadership ranks with the help of mentors and supervisors who recognized her passion and potential, then positioned her with opportunities to develop leadership skills. She answered by “demanding excellence in everything I did and being authentic about my mission no matter what.”

She’ll speak about how physician engagement (8 a.m., Constitution Ballroom) produces results that influence the bottom line for organizations and their CEOs. Later in the day, she’ll address the Women’s Leadership Forum, where the subject will be “Assessing Your Value Proposition as a Leader” (2 p.m., Constitution Ballroom).

“One of my passions is developing physician leaders — developing leaders, period, but specifically physician leaders,” says McKenzie, whose aims to help women build confidence by helping them to identify and maximize their strengths. “Part of our issue as women is that we have a lot of difficulty in viewing ourselves as we are being viewed by others. As women, we are great at finding other people’s strengths, [but] we tend to view all of our strengths as weaknesses — or not good enough.”

Other highlights of today’s schedule include:

• Opioid epidemic panel, discussing how physician leadership has galvanized efforts to stem the problem and presenting insight into how to build a peer coalition. Panelists include physicians, hospital administrators, pharmacists, survivors and others (10 a.m., Constitution Ballroom).

• Presentation of the 2018 Leape Ahead and Schenke awards during the 20th Convocation luncheon (noon, Grand Ballroom). The awards recognize institutions that develop future leaders and individuals who creatively advance physician leadership, respectively.

• Final day of peer presentations, on such topics as acquisitions, managing conflict, value-based pay and more (9 a.m., multiple locations).

• Announcement of new members and officers of the American Association for Physician Leadership board of directors.

For information about events, visit physicianleaders.org/summit or visit the association service center on the second floor of the hotel. To claim CME or register for bonus activities, visit your membership dashboard at app.physicianleaders.org. And check out our live blog, at physicianleaders.org/spring18.