A Prescription to Lead: How Medical Training Prepares America's Physician Leaders

“The need for capable, empathetic physician leaders of our huge, complex, and expensive healthcare system is acute. Robert Simari, a distinguished clinician, scientist, educator, and now administrator, explains the important roles played by physician leaders, and places this need into a broad context. In this well-written, eminently readable book, he provides useful suggestions on how to meet this important challenge.”

– Eugene Braunwald, MD, Distinguished Hersey Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston

“Brilliant. A thought-provoking and highly readable examination of how the education and training of physicians produces effective leaders, and how it can be done even better. Dr. Rob Simari, an accomplished professional and experienced leader in his own right, captures the challenges of forging the leaders the well-being of our nation, and the world, need.”

– General (Ret.) Stan McChrystal, CEO and Chair of McChrystal Group

“Simari’s prescription is just what the doctor ordered in today’s chaotic world. Doctors need to lead from the front in society, and Simari shows us the path.”

– C. Michael Gibson, MS, MA (Hon.), MD, FRCP, FAHA, FSCAI, FACC, Interventional Cardiologist Beth Israel Lahey, CEO Baim Institute for Clinical Research (FKA Harvard Clinical Research Institute) and PERFUSE, Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School

Modern medical training is lengthy and very costly. Throughout this period, knowledge and skills are being gained, many of which aid in the development of leadership skills and characteristics. This book aims to provide a greater understanding of those skills and characteristics based on the author’s experiences in medical education and as an executive and through interviews with physician leaders of diverse interests, backgrounds, and experiences. While the leadership skills learned and demonstrated by these physician leaders are not all unique to them, the methods of learning these skills are often quite distinct from their non-medical counterparts. The hope is that, taken together, this process will help medical educators provide more direct and effective leadership training while providing insights to those outside of medicine who might benefit from the medical model.

Featuring a preface from David J. Skorton, MD, Association of American Medical Colleges

Published: November 2022

Page Count: 226
Dimension: 6 x 9 perfect bound
ISBN: 978-1-64535-227-3

Table of Contents

Part 1: Medical Training as Leadership Development

Chapter 1: The Medical Student Phenotype

Chapter 2: Becoming Doctors

Chapter 3: Teammates and Team Leaders

Chapter 4: Learning to Serve

Chapter 5: A Culture of Support

Chapter 6: How Doctors Are Trained to Think

Chapter 7: How Doctors Are Trained to Work

Part 2: Physicians as Leaders

Chapter 8: Stepping Up

Chapter 9: The Inherent Shifts of Physician Leaders

Chapter 10: Leadership Formed by Medical Training (n = 1)

Chapter 11: Living Well-Rounded Lives

Chapter 12: Tough Times

Chapter 13: The Diversity Chasm

Chapter 14: The Organizations We Lead

Chapter 15: Role of Supplemental Training

Chapter 16: What Can Be Done Better

Chapter 17: A Model to Improve Development of Physician Leaders

Part 3: External Perspectives of Physician Leaders

Chapter 18: Working With Physician Leaders

Chapter 19: A Prescription for Leadership: Leadership Development Based on the Principles of Medical Education and Training

About the Author

Robert D. Simari, MD

Robert D. Simari, MD, the Franklin E. Murphy Professor in Cardiology, has been the executive vice chancellor for the University of Kansas Medical Center since 2018. A 1986 alumnus, Simari also served as executive dean for the KU School of Medicine from 2014 through August 2019.

Simari earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame. Following medical school, he completed his internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and then served fellowships in cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Following his clinical training, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan.

Prior to joining KU, Simari served as vice chair for the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases and co-principal investigator of the Center for Translational Science Activities at Mayo Clinic, where he also served as a physician-scientist, cardiologist, and professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He continues his cardiology practice at the University of Kansas Health System.

In 2018, he was appointed to the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the accrediting body for MD-granting medical education programs in the United States and served as chair in 2021–2022. Dr. Simari is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the American Clinical and Climatological Association and is a member and served as the president of the Association of University Cardiologists.