What does it take to be a successful clinical department chair? Also, do teaching hospital CEOs and medical school deans agree on attributes for clinical department chair success?
One would hope that the agendas of CEOs and Deans would always align, but, with clinical, educational, financial and research goals at play, this may not always be the case.
An article published in Academic Medicine offers some insight into this question.
The authors surveyed the deans of 126 U.S. medical schools and the CEOs of the primary teaching hospitals in the schools' academic health centers. All were queried on 34 items about clinical department chair performance in six categories -mission prioritization, leadership responsibilities, leadership values, skill sets, barriers to success, and competitive differentiators.
Eighty-four deans (67%) and 57 CEOs (45%) responded. Both deans and CEOs ranked good patient care as the chair's primary responsibility; agreement between CEOs on that responsibility was much stronger than among deans. CEOs placed greater emphasis on getting results whereas mentoring was a higher priority for deans.
CEOs identified the inability to work within budgeted resources as a barrier to success more than did deans. CEOs reported that high-quality care and cutting-edge technologies gave hospitals a competitive edge, whereas deans put more emphasis on clinical and translational research and educating future physicians.
Fortunately, for the sake of a pleasant working environment, the majority of deans and CEOs rated the alignment and relationship between themselves and their counterpart as "excellent" or "good".
So, CEOs favor a Clinical Department Chair focused on patient care, clinical quality, and results, whereas deans prefer the Department Chair to focus on research, education, and mentoring.
The findings are less than surprising.
An article published in Academic Medicine offers some insight into this question.
The authors surveyed the deans of 126 U.S. medical schools and the CEOs of the primary teaching hospitals in the schools' academic health centers. All were queried on 34 items about clinical department chair performance in six categories -mission prioritization, leadership responsibilities, leadership values, skill sets, barriers to success, and competitive differentiators.
Eighty-four deans (67%) and 57 CEOs (45%) responded. Both deans and CEOs ranked good patient care as the chair's primary responsibility; agreement between CEOs on that responsibility was much stronger than among deans. CEOs placed greater emphasis on getting results whereas mentoring was a higher priority for deans.
CEOs identified the inability to work within budgeted resources as a barrier to success more than did deans. CEOs reported that high-quality care and cutting-edge technologies gave hospitals a competitive edge, whereas deans put more emphasis on clinical and translational research and educating future physicians.
Fortunately, for the sake of a pleasant working environment, the majority of deans and CEOs rated the alignment and relationship between themselves and their counterpart as "excellent" or "good".
So, CEOs favor a Clinical Department Chair focused on patient care, clinical quality, and results, whereas deans prefer the Department Chair to focus on research, education, and mentoring.
The findings are less than surprising.
