Mentorship During The Physician Leader’s Work Lifecycle

Many physician leaders wake up one day and realize that they are in a leadership position and are not quite sure how that came to be. The opportunity to lead may have started with a voluntary role on a medical staff committee or an appointed position as a medical director. The entry point is not as important as how the work whets the appetite for those of us called to serve in leadership.

For me, the journey began in research. As a fellow, I had the opportunity to study healthcare quality and outcomes using large administrative datasets. After fellowship, my chief medical officer suggested that in addition to writing papers on patient safety, quality, and mortality, I might work on improving those outcomes at the hospital as a medical director. The rest of my leadership “lifecycle” followed.

Among the most important aspects of my development was the opportunity to be mentored by many seasoned physician leaders. They helped me identify the next steps in my career and determine the independent contributions that only physician leaders can make to the delivery and outcomes of healthcare. Now, as a health system CEO who was privileged to receive such fine mentorship, I find myself actively working to pay it forward so that other physician leaders might benefit from experiences that I have had in my career.

Several articles in this issue of Physician Leadership Journal demonstrate the importance of mentorship during the lifecycle of the physician leader.

First, a field report marks that first step in the leadership lifecycle: the transition from physician to hospital leader. This paper describes the importance of encouraging aspiring physician leaders to participate in development programs that are tailored specifically for the nuances of physician leadership and that provide individuals with demonstrable skills to lead effectively and that provide organizations with leaders who are competent and appropriately equipped for their roles.

Next, a research article addresses the issue of physician burnout and demonstrates the implementation of individual mentorship in burnout identification and reduction using the newly developed BETER (Burnout Elimination Through Education and Reflection) tool. Equipped with this information, you may be able to identify early the signs of burnout in yourself or in those whom you lead.

Finally, you will find a discussion article that includes a frank discussion about managing your unemployment as a physician leader. The author provides sound advice on how physician executives may achieve success from failure.

As you read through this collection of articles, I encourage you to consider their relevance to the work you are doing with your teams every day — not just for the purposes of informing your own leadership strategies, but also in terms of the ways you can inform your colleagues, staff, and others.

Send me your thoughts at editor@physicianleaders​.org. We would enjoy hearing stories about relevance of mentorship and the methods you use to ensure that you and your team members are well cared for in our demanding careers.