AAPL, MD Anderson Enter Training Certification Deal

It's the first of what the association intends to be multiple similar relationships with leading health care organizations around the world.

The American Association for Physician Leadership has entered into a partnership with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, one of the world's foremost facilities for the research and treatment of the disorder, to certify its leadership development program.

The partnership puts the imprimatur of the 44-year-old learning association on the educational initiatives of the global cancer center. It's the first of what the association intends to be multiple similar relationships with leading health care organizations around the world

The three-year arrangement calls for AAPL to certify MD Anderson’s programming and methodology within its already robust training program, provide support materials and consulting services, and be a part of the educational process.

AAPL has worked with many major health care organizations on a variety of physician leadership training initiatives, but this is the first formal connection between the association and an organization’s entire educational program.

The partnership is the product of work between leaders from both organizations, but one of the strongest voices in creating the arrangement was that of MD Anderson President Peter W.T. Pisters, MD, MS, CPE.

Pisters, who has a longstanding relationship with AAPL as a member since 2011 and a recipient of its Certified Physician Executive credential in 2014, has been a vocal advocate of the value of continuing professional education.

“There is tremendous value in continuing education,” he says. “Even after my master’s degree, CPE certification and [professional] fellowship, I still immerse myself in learning opportunities for professional and personal development,” Pisters said for an article about leadership education that appeared in the March-April 2019 issue of the Physician Leadership Journal.

Pisters is such a believer in continuing education that, before he was promoted to the top position at MD Anderson, he’d bring his team of medical directors to AAPL institutes twice a year. “We would all take courses, get together in the evening and share insights about what we learned,” he said.

“That was a tremendous shared learning experience as well as a team-building experience. I was really involved in the educational programming of AAPL and using that knowledge to help physician leaders that reported to me. … I’m so indebted to AAPL for helping me to see the opportunities and to close so many [educational] gaps that I know that I had,” he says. “I’m still planning to go back to AAPL because I want to model the way for the leaders in our own organization now.”

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That energy helped seal the deal with AAPL, says Larry D. Perkins, MD Anderson’s associate vice president for human resources talent and diversity, who helped broker the partnership. “It was the right fit for us,” Perkins said. “AAPL is very similar to what we want to do, in terms of our abilities to form a strategy for our education. We want to produce a lifelong learning cycle, because our people know leadership is a changing environment.”

MD Anderson Cancer Center is one of the world’s most respected centers devoted to cancer patient care, research, education and prevention. Its mission is to eliminate cancer through programs that integrate patient care, research and prevention, and through education for undergraduate and graduate students, trainees, professionals, employees and the public. Its vision is to be the world’s premier cancer center, based on its people, its research-driven care, and its science. MD Anderson (mdanderson.org ) is based in Houston, Texas.

Click here to learn more about AAPL’s educational initiatives.