Executive MBA for Physicians Blog

Educating physician leaders in the new science of medicine and management

Tag: Women in Medicine

EMBA Alum Starts a Women Surgeons Webinar Series

July 8, 2021 / / 1 Comment

Dr. Palma Shaw, a graduate of the Executive MBA for Physicians class of 2021, is a vascular and endovascular surgeon at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY. She also runs the vascular fellowship and teaches general surgical residents. Outside of her clinical and administrative duties, she participates in several regional, national, and international societies. Below Dr. Shaw shares about the webinars that she runs with the International Society of Endovascular Specialists (ISEVS), her time as a female vascular surgeon, and her experience as an EMBA physician.

Please tell me about the webinar you run. Who is it in collaboration with and how did you become involved?

I am on the Executive Council as Secretary for the International Society of Endovascular Specialists (ISEVS). I was asked to run a live webinar called CV Sisterhood in Surgery, which I co-host with Dr. Linda Le, a Vascular Surgeon at Houston Methodist Hospital. The webinars started in March 2020 on a monthly basis. We discuss a variety of topics, some medical and some practical. The webinars run from the DeBakey Studio, and I “Zoom in” as do most of the guests. I have also co-hosted ISEVS Critical Issues Series webinars, including one with Dr. Rania Preventza, EMBA’17. If an interesting topic comes up, I add a webinar about it. It has given me an opportunity to give a voice to my colleagues, especially women.

In the CV Sisterhood in Surgery Webinar, we have covered a variety of women’s issues, including:

  • COVID Impacts on Career, Pregnancy, and Family
  • Further Advanced Degrees for Female Surgeons
  • Fertility and Female Surgeons
  • Perspective of a Latina Vascular Surgeon
  • Single Motherhood as a Surgeon
  • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Vascular Surgery

Topics I have brought to the Critical Issues webinar include:

  • Limb Salvage During a Pandemic
  • Women in Global Cardiovascular Care
  • Women in Aortic Surgery
  • CEO Perspectives on Healthcare and Industry

Where can we find your webinar?

If you search “CV Sisterhood DeBakey” on Google or another ssearch engine, you will be able to find them. They are also available at https://www.isevs.org.

You have talked about being a female surgeon in a male dominated subspecialty. Tell me more about what that has been like and how you have overcome barriers in your field.

My challenges have served as food for discussion in the webinars. I am not only a female in the field of Vascular Surgery (approximately 14% of board-certified vascular surgeons are women), but also a single mother raising children on my own. Fortunately, I have a supportive family. One of the challenges was the lack of female role models. Often, advantages were given to men over women. We have had to work so much harder to move up the ladder. Even now, we struggle to become investigators on clinical trials and receive invitations as speakers for major vascular meetings. Women often get pushed into the venous and wound care fields, as men covet the aortic field. Things are changing slowly.

How has your time in the EMBA influenced your work on this webinar and as a surgeon?

The EMBA has been amazing for my career and this webinar. As we moved through the courses, I was able to apply the teaching immediately in my daily life. Dr. Jon Chilingerian’s Social Networking Project improved my relationships with my co-workers. Dr. Brad Morrison’s Operations Management Assignment helped me gain a better understanding about how the endovascular suite conducted operations and ordering of product. It helped my relationship with my colleagues at Upstate, as they felt invested in my EMBA and were excited that I would better understand their role. I used Dr. Brenda Anderson’s Capital Budget Project to learn about a hybrid room construction that is underway now at Upstate. It allowed me to connect with the people in charge of this renovation and understand more about what was happening in our practice.

The EMBA gave me the confidence to hold webinars on certain topics. I received limited support from my institution for all that I have done, but I felt very supported by my EMBA learning group and by the other classmates and faculty. For example, I would never have had the confidence to interview a CEO for a webinar without having done the EMBA. My recent webinar on June 21 was inspired by Dr. Chilingerian’s Everest Simulation. I got the CEO speaker for this webinar to agree to participate by using what Dr. Chilingerian taught me—Go to A to get to B. The title is:  “Climbing Mount Everest and Reaching the Peak in Vascular Surgery: One Woman’s Journey.” I also recently gave a talk called “How to Build a TEAM” for the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program for the Eastern Vascular Society. All of the content was derived from my EMBA experience.

What would you want female physicians who are considering an MBA to know?  

The EMBA is an excellent opportunity for women in medicine. It helps give us more credibility and an understanding of how the c-suite works. The exchange of ideas from the other classmates is very eye opening. Having such accomplished colleagues believe in and admire you is important. Many women are working in jobs where they are held back and made to feel like they do not have what it takes, all while their male colleagues get promoted with fewer qualifications.

I would highly recommend the EMBA at Brandeis to any of my colleagues. It is a transformative experience.

EMBA Alum starts mobile breast and cervical cancer screening clinic in Southern New Jersey

April 26, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Headshot of Dr. Rachel KramerDr. Rachel Kramer, a graduate of the Executive MBA for Physicians class of 2020, recently shared about her entrepreneurial start-up within her health system, a van that offers breast and cervical cancer screening to under and uninsured patients, and her recent promotion to Medical Director of Women’s Services at Virtua Medical Group (VMG). Read more about how she got her venture up and running and the details of her promotion below.

How did you come up with the idea for the Mammo Pap Mobile?

I developed the Mammo Pap Mobile project during the Entrepreneurship course in the EMBA Program. I started to think about the high number of CEEDS patients who would “no show” their appointments. CEEDS is the New Jersey Cancer Education and Early Detection Screening Program where underinsured and uninsured women had access to mammograms on a weekend in community locations such as a church and then sign up at the appointment for a Pap in our office for a later date. When I ran the numbers, 52% of these patients never showed up to our offices for their Pap smear.

How did you acquire support within your institution? Did you have this support going into your project or did you secure it later?

I met with the Oncology Nurse Manager in charge of the CEEDS program at Virtua, and we sat down together to brainstorm. My goal was to get a mobile van out with our own mammogram machine and an exam room so both a mammogram and a Pap smear exam could be done at the same time, increasing access to underinsured women. We decided that before we asked for a million-dollar investment, we would put a pilot together to show that women would want to get their Pap smears in the van. We leased a mobile mammo van from another institution and had it come to our offices on the weekend. Women could opt for a mammogram, Pap smear, or both. It was a huge success, with a line around the block. We then figured out how much money it would take to buy our own van, gas, driver, etc. and asked a foundation how to fund it with donors. The Foundation was very interested and took our proposal to senior administration and eventually the Board of the hospital. The Board granted permission to buy a van and start in 2022.

How has the mobile clinic been impacted by COVID-19?

When COVID happened a year ago, the proposal got stalled because senior administrators were busy with the emergency. However, I wrote to the CEO and said that if we had a mobile van, we could have used it to go to underserved communities that were suffering disproportionately from COVID to provide testing and vaccination. I kept pushing – calling the CMO, who is also my mentor, and not letting senior administration forget about this project.

Please tell us about your recent promotion. What are you responsible for? What are the major changes from your previous role?

Last month, I was promoted to Medical Director of Women’s Services for VMG. I am still the lead physician for VMG’s largest OBGYN group. I was promoted because last year I was successful in putting together a new OBGYN group at our flagship hospital, which didn’t previously have its own group. I was able to teach them the Virtua culture and their group is now flourishing. My new responsibilities this year are to bring a group we just acquired into the Virtua culture and to make sure all OBGYN groups are following Virtua guidelines. The leads of each group report to me. My current project is implementing direct patient appointment booking through MyChart for obstetrical appointments and to continue to drive culture development in all of the VMG employed OBGYN groups.

How has the EMBA for Physicians program helped you in your roles?

I used tools I learned in many EMBA classes to start the mobile clinic. Accounting taught me how to put together different financial statements that I needed for approval. I used the quick pitch method I learned from Entrepreneurship. I used the leadership lessons from Leadership and Organizational Behavior. Without the EMBA program, I would never have thought up this project, which saves the lives of so many underserved women. I have never felt a high so great as the first day I saw how many women showed up for Pap screening.

EMBA Alum Discusses Transitioning into the Role of Vaccines Medical Director with Pfizer Vaccines

March 30, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Headshot of Dr. Tracy FooBelow is an interview with Dr. Teresa “Tracy” Foo, a member of the EMBA for Physicians class of 2019 who transitioned into the role of Vaccines Medical Director at Pfizer Vaccines in 2020.

Please tell us about your role. What are you responsible for? What projects are you working on?

I am a Vaccines Medical Director with Pfizer Vaccines. I am responsible for providing medical and scientific information about Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended and approved vaccines. I have been working to improve vaccine confidence, knowledge about our vaccines, and internal team processes.

What did you do before working at Pfizer? Why did you want to transition into the pharmaceutical industry? 

Prior to starting at Pfizer in April 2020, I had been working in public health at the state level in both immunizations and acute disease epidemiology. I was attracted to my current role because it allowed me to focus my efforts on increasing vaccination rates and have a broader impact in my work.

What should physicians know about the COVID vaccine? How can physicians better prepare for conversations about vaccines with patients? 

Health care providers need to know that they are often the most trusted source of information about the COVID-19 vaccine for their patients. A strong vaccine recommendation from a health care provider is often the reason a patient gets vaccinated. There are many resources available to health care providers to improve vaccine confidence. One to start with is https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/vaccinate-with-confidence.html

How has the EMBA for Physicians program helped you in your new role?  

The EMBA program helped me determine what type of organization I was looking to join and also better assess the organizations (e.g. culture, leadership) I interviewed with. The leadership courses and my development as a leader through the program helped prepare me to take on this new role and join a new team. The program also helped improve my skills in system thinking and analysis, as well as organizational change management.

 

EMBA Alum Discusses Her Advocacy Work

November 4, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Below is an interview with Dr. Shaneeta Johnson, a member of the EMBA for Physicians Class of 2020 who advocates for many issues both personally and in her role as a senior fellow at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute.

Please tell us about your role. What are you responsible for?

I am an associate professor in surgery and program director for the general surgery residency program at Morehouse School of Medicine. Additionally, I am a senior fellow in the Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI) with a focus on global health equity. SHLI was founded by Dr. David Satcher, the 16th US Surgeon General, to make an impact in the field of healthcare and health equity.  In my roles, I am responsible for training surgeons and preparing them for delivering surgical care to the community.  Also, I work along with SHLI to improve health equity for the community.

Please tell us about your advocacy. 

There are several areas in which I have been focused on advocating for the rights of the underserved. These include advocating for Georgians to have access to obesity treatment, working to illuminate health disparities, and elucidating the causes and possible ways to correct the disparate effects of COVID-19 on the underrepresented and underserved communities.

Through work with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute, I have addressed the Pennsylvania Senate on the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on African-Americans and work towards implementing an action protocol to impact this community and eliminate these disparities. I’ve also had the opportunity to address the CMS Administrator and State Senatorial leadership along with other healthcare leaders regarding the impact of COVID-19 on our communities and healthcare systems.  Additionally, with a few colleagues, I published a call to action and opinion editorial in The Lancet regarding the impact of race and obesity on the mobility and mortality of COVID-19. It is a call to action for our community to save lives.

Regarding obesity healthcare coverage, I have testified to the Georgia House of Representatives on the impact of obesity on our community and the need for state coverage of bariatric surgery and obesity care. To that end, through work with the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgeons, Georgia Chapter, February 4 was declared Obesity Care Day in Georgia!

What would you want physicians to know who may be interested in getting involved politically?

Many of the policies that will affect our healthcare for generations to come need the voice of physicians who are practicing on the front lines. It is imperative that we are involved with policymaking and advising those who are seeking to implement policies that will impact the communities we serve. I encourage you to speak with your government leaders and advocate ardently for your patients and community.

How has the EMBA for Physicians program (and any specific skills and tools you learned) helped you at work or in your legislative work?

I have learned immensely from the EMBA for Physicians program. The greater understanding of national and state health policy, organizational management, strategic management, and all of the other classes have strengthened my drive to make a difference in the community but also improved my skills so that I may be more effective in my professional roles. I continue to work with my professors for advice and collaboration.

Is there anything else you would like to add that we have not covered here?

I am thankful to the EMBA program for the skills that it has imparted to me and look forward to further developing the skills to make a greater i

EMBA Alum Reflects on Her Associate CMO Role in a Psychiatric Hospital during COVID-19

July 31, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Headshot of Dr. SzulewskiDr. Susan Szulewski, member of the Class of 2020, recently transitioned into a brand new Associate Chief Medical Officer role at McLean Hospital. She has also kept her previous role as Medical Director of the Clinical Evaluation Center. She is an instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and trains psychiatry residents, psychology interns, and medical students. Below, she discusses her new role, how the EMBA has helped her, and the implications of COVID-19 both in psychiatric hospitals and on provider mental health.

Please tell us about your new role. What are you responsible for?

Since my Associate CMO position at McLean Hospital is the first of its kind there, I had a unique and exciting opportunity to help shape some of the responsibilities. The highlight of my role is being able to partner with the 500+ credentialed medical staff to ensure high quality, evidence-based care. When I thought about the vision for this role, I wanted to keep the focus on enhancing our unique diagnosis-based care models in behavioral health and fostering that further by providing strategic direction to the physician functions. It is exciting to think of the possibilities!

Some of the routine responsibilities include working closely with the Chief Medical Officer, oversight of the hospital’s clinical service budgets, recruiting and training physicians, provider performance evaluations and metrics, clinical process improvement, physician wellbeing initiatives, as well as ensuring that all staff adhere to safety standards while delivering the highest quality of medical care. The work often involves a mixture of tasks ensuring compliance with state health policy guidelines, regulatory requirements, and utilization management. As Medical Director of the Clinical Evaluation Center, I oversee psychiatric admissions for our nine inpatient units by collaborating broadly with the Mass General Brigham (MGB) network and community emergency departments.

How has the EMBA for Physicians program helped you in your new role?

The Brandeis program provided me with the tools I need to be nimble at my job each day. My role has a daily intersection of business, strategy, quality efforts, and clinical care. The curriculum exposed me to a wide range of these topics, and I am often referencing back to things I learned during classes or pulling out notes that I had taken during lectures. Despite beginning my new role during a time of crisis, I felt confident and prepared to take on challenges. I attribute this ability to the real-world applicability of the physician-focused EMBA where core concepts are taught with instruction on implementation and execution.

Has your work changed during the response to COVID-19? If so, how?

I was involved with and led a wide range of urgent change initiatives across the institution that were brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to maintain continuity of care, we had to adopt numerous changes in a very short amount of time. Our outpatient and partial hospital levels of care transitioned to a virtual care model at a record-breaking speed. These changes required training staff to perform work in an unprecedented way for behavioral health, while ensuring all proper regulatory and privacy requirements were met. In parallel, our inpatient services learned and adopted increased infection control abilities, such as the creation of isolation rooms, proper instruction on personal protective equipment use, pre-admission testing, and protocols of how to safely maintain a COVID-19 positive patient in a freestanding psychiatric facility.

How has the program influenced the way you have responded to COVID-19?

A theme that ran through much of the EMBA course study was the importance of being a present leader. Effective, transparent communication is essential in managing a crisis. Early in the pandemic things changed on a daily basis, so it was especially important for providers to be made aware of steps and actions being taken by their leadership team to remedy issues and maintain safety.

What trends have you seen at McLean Hospital during the pandemic?

In behavioral health, we initially experienced a drastic decrease in patients seeking treatment but this started to change approximately two weeks after the peak surge in Massachusetts, resulting in a secondary mental health surge. Our inpatient psychiatric beds across the MGB system have been filled at a 99% capacity. One benefit is that the surge forced us to work in close collaboration with internal and external facilities on daily capacity and to look at all patients waiting in emergency departments and match them to appropriate open beds across the state. This need for system integration has markedly reduced the wait times for patients seeking psychiatric treatment as well as ensuring appropriate placement based on medical needs.

Many people are aware of the pandemic’s impact on mental health in the general public. What do you think the on-going mental health ramifications will be for healthcare providers?

Healthcare provider wellness and resiliency needs to be a top priority. We know that frontline providers are experiencing higher rates of depression, anxiety, and substance use but often with a higher reluctance to seek care versus the general population. This has an even larger impact when combined with the increase in home stressors of schools closing, fear of contaminating loved ones, and guilt associated with greater patient deaths. This highlights the need for mental health programs that are specifically focused on healthcare provider burnout and proactive plans for wellness beyond traditional programs. There is a lot of opportunity to provide a stronger safety net to support that culture for caregivers. This difficult moment in time offers the opportunity to advance our understanding of how to provide prevention-focused, population-level psychological first aid and mental health care and to emerge from this experience with new ways of doing so.

EMBA Alum Transitions into Insurance Industry

March 4, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Head shot of Dr. Kate McIntoshDr. Kate McIntosh was a member of the class of 2019 and is the Senior Medical Director and the Director of Quality for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont (BCBSVT). She transitioned from private practice as a pediatrician and Chief of Pediatrics at her local hospital to this role during the last semester of the Executive MBA for Physicians program. Below, Dr. McIntosh tells us more about her new role, moving into the insurance industry, and how her MBA degree has helped her in this journey.

Please tell us about your new roll. What are you responsible for?

I am the Senior Medical Director and the Director of Quality for BCBSVT. BCBSVT is one of the smallest of the independent health plans of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Working for a health plan as a physician can take many forms, and one of the advantages of working for a small health plan is that I get to do a large variety of things which might be done by separate people at a larger plan.

I am one of only two physicians employed by the plan. Dr. Joshua Plavin, the CMO, is also an alumnus from the Brandeis Executive MBA program; he graduated in 2017. The two of us are the voice of the physician within the organization. Whereas Dr. Plavin’s role is more external and strategic, mine is more internal and operational.

As Senior Medical Director, I am responsible for medical policy, coding, and supporting all of the internal departments of BCBSVT by lending a physician perspective. As part of this, I support the utilization management nurses and the appeals team and coordinate a team of contracted physicians who do medical reviews. The speed at which medicine is changing seems to be ever-accelerating, and it’s an ongoing challenge to keep up with the latest changes in technology and pharmacology.

As part of my work as the Director of Quality, I oversee our HEDIS measures, our NCQA reporting, our internal quality initiatives, and the metrics and reporting for the quality and value-based projects with our local ACO, regional hospital networks, and other provider groups. I also work closely with the quality nurse and provider contracting to review patient complaints and to provide feedback to hospitals and providers throughout Vermont. I also work with the Fraud, Waste, and Abuse department to look for red flags or concerning behaviors. Fraud is a growing area of concern in health care, estimated to cost the United States up to $68 billion annually.

What did you do before this new role?

Before I started at BCBSVT, I ran my own practice for 16 years and was the medical director for the Vermont Health Information Exchange. I was also Chief of Pediatrics at my hospital and sat on its board of directors. Coming to a health plan from owning and running a practice has allowed me to bring a useful and less common perspective about the business of medicine to the organization and to the conversation about health care in Vermont as a whole.

Why did you want to transition into the insurance industry?

I never thought that I would work for a health plan. After 22 years of practice, I wanted to do something different. Running a practice had shown me that I really liked administrative work, and I wanted to do something that let me use my administrative skills. I would not have come to BCBSVT if it hadn’t been for Dr. Plavin, who was instrumental in encouraging me to enter the Brandeis program and also in bringing me to BCBSVT. I started at BCBSVT as a contractor doing medical reviews, but quickly found that the type of systems thinking required was a good fit for me. When the Senior Medical Director position opened, I knew that I wanted to apply for it. The Director of Quality was added later as part of a divisional reorganization but has made tremendous sense for the organization as a whole and has made my position even more interesting and rewarding.

Did pursuing the EMBA for Physicians impact your ability to get this new role? If so, how?  

I think that it is fair to say that I would never have gotten this position without the EMBA program at Brandeis. Dr. Chilingerian’s teaching especially was instrumental in allowing me to enter the company as a contractor and quickly to be able to understand the needs of the organization and how best to meet them. This was a significant culture shift from where I had been before and a completely different type of organization. I think that the EMBA program helped me make the rapid pivot that was necessary to get this new role.

How has the EMBA for Physicians program helped you in your new role and which skills and tools from the EMBA program have you been using the most?

Every class that I took in the EMBA program has helped me in my new role. This new position sits at the intersection of business, health care, health reform, and politics. In addition, I use the tools we learned for strategy, finance, quality, ethics, and operations management on a daily basis. The courses have been critical to navigating the complex world of value, where quality and cost intersect. Dr. Plavin and I are both interested in encouraging providers to push forward innovative value-based projects and health reform initiatives, and we have to sell these both internally and externally, not only to health care leaders, but also to multiple stakeholders, including politicians, actuaries, and executives. In addition, I am working to optimize many of our internal processes which often involves all the diverse change management and communication tools that we learned or touched on in school, especially when working with teams from multiple departments and with multiple skill sets and priorities. The white board in my office is often a mess of flow charts and operational diagrams. Dr. Morrison would be amused!

EMBA Student gains new promotion in major merger

January 8, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Head shot of Dr. Kim Ariyabuddhiphongs Dr. Kim Ariyabuddhiphongs, a member of the EMBA class of 2020 and a Massachusetts internist, was promoted to Associate Chief Medical Officer for the Beth Israel Lahey Health Performance Network during the recent merger between Beth Israel Deaconess and Lahey Health systems. Below, Dr. Ariyabuddhiphongs talks more about her new role, the promotion process, what it is like to work at an organization during a merger, and how pursuing an EMBA has helped her along the way.

Please tell us about your new role. What are you responsible for? I recently transitioned into being the Associate Chief Medical Officer for the Beth Israel Lahey Health Performance Network. In my role, I work with key stakeholder groups in advancing our goals to improve quality and increase efficiency. Our priorities in 2020 are to improve quality measure performance in cancer screening and diabetes process and outcomes in the ambulatory setting. In the hospital setting, we are working with our network hospitals to improve Hospital Quality Measure performance. We are also looking closely at improving efficiency for our Medicare ACO and have identified targets and programs we will launch in early 2020. I lead focused programs and initiatives and also act as a coach to facilitate success in Population Health.

What role were you promoted from? What are the differences in responsibilities? I was previously Medical Director of BIDCO, the ACO of the legacy Beth Israel Deaconess system. My prior role had a broad range but not as much depth. My new role, to a certain extent, is narrower and more focused as I’m working with fewer groups. I’m relishing the opportunity to work more closely with key leadership at the organizations within the larger system.

Tell us about the process you went through to get the promotion.  I had already been doing a very similar role previously for 1.5 years and had worked at Beth Israel Deaconess for more than 12 years. I have the advantage of having worked in this system, knowing the culture, knowing how to execute within our system, and having worked with leadership from my previous role as medical director at one of the large primary care practices. It was a natural move for me to now work closely with the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Clinical Officer.

I know your organization has been undergoing a major merger. What has it been like to be in a position of leadership while significant changes have been happening?  I think you can’t know what it’s like to go through a merger without having experienced one yourself.  There has been a lot of transformation in our Population Health team. While there can be uncertainty, I try to maintain calm and optimism for what is ahead. Working with a larger health system gives us opportunities to question the status quo, transform and land on a new way of operating. While change can be hard, we can take a fresh look at challenges and develop a new path.

Did pursuing the EMBA for Physicians impact your ability to achieve this promotion? If so, how?  The EMBA has stimulated my growth in many ways. It’s fantastic to study amongst colleagues who also want to contribute in a different way beyond direct clinical care and are interested in leadership, health care policy, strategy, and health care finance.  That in and of itself is an inspiration.  I have learned so much about leadership styles from the professors and my classmates. The EMBA has been so valuable not only in gaining concrete knowledge but also in giving me confidence.

How has the EMBA for Physicians program helped you in your new role?  I love reading the leadership and strategy articles and cases, amongst others, and almost all of them have given me a pearl I can apply the very next day in interacting with others in my new role.

Entrepreneurial EMBA Physician Brings Quality Medical Care to Campers

November 7, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Dr. Jill Baren is a member of the Executive MBA for Physicians class of 2019 and an emergency physician who has been practicing for 25 years. She was also one of the first physicians to subspecialize in pediatric emergency medicine. She has practiced in both urban academic hospitals and freestanding children’s hospital emergency departments. Currently, she is Professor of Emergency Medicine, Pediatrics, and Medical Ethics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also President-Elect of the American Board of Emergency Medicine. Below, we discussed Dr. Baren’s new venture, Camp Health Consulting, which helps camps achieve exceptional standards of healthcare by providing education, operational advice, and recruitment of qualified nurses and doctors to work in the unique setting of a camp . We discussed the venture, how it came to be, and how the EMBA for Physicians program has been helpful so far.

Can you tell us about your venture?

I founded Camp Health Consulting with my business partner who is also an emergency physician. Both of us are passionate about working as physicians in residential camp settings, or “sleepaway camps”, as some people call them. Camps provide a great atmosphere for kids and offer various activities such as sports, science, outdoor adventure, and plenty of social interaction away from the internet! Camps are often located in more remote environments, in mountainous or lake areas, so the proximity to medical care can be relatively limited. My partner and I have a very long tenure as camp physicians (over 25 years between us) and both of us attended summer camps when we were growing up. We noticed that there were gaps in the standard of care that’s delivered at camp and in the skills of the providers that are typically recruited to work in camp settings. Many camps use nurses, not doctors. Nurses are trained on a treatment rather than a diagnostic paradigm so it’s harder for them to figure out undifferentiated complaints or perplexing problems without physician backup. Sometimes that can result in unnecessary trips to a hospital. In a typical camp health center you will see a combination of infectious diseases, dermatology, orthopedic, and mental health complaints, among other things. We think the best skillset for camp doctoring is emergency medicine, but other physicians with proper training and experience can be taught to fill in the gaps. We work with camp directors and owners to address deficiencies. Some camp health centers are starting from ground zero. They have no idea how to set up a health center and want advice about how many people should staff it, what their qualifications should be, and how they should deal with parent communication issues. We’re actively building our recruitment arm of the company. As clinicians, we have greater accessibility to clinicians and knowledge of the industry. Camp directors are busy recruiting everyone else needed to run a camp and find it difficult to recruit their health center staff each summer. When a camp decides to hire us to assist with recruitment, we will deliver an educated nurse or doctor – one that meets our standards and has gone through a series of educational modules that focus on the unique healthcare needs of kids at camp.

What sparked this idea?

It was nothing more than my own clinical experience working as a camp doctor at a summer camp that my sons attended many years ago. The director of this camp was invested in providing an injury free, healthy camp environment for nearly 300 campers and 100 staff, but didn’t always have the optimal tools to do so. For example, we had a medication distribution system that needed to be improved from a safety and efficiency standpoint and we worked together to accomplish that. There were other challenges I observed that made me think, “Wow, this is a business waiting to happen.” A few years ago, I met my business partner. A colleague connected us, and we instantly clicked as we had noticed the same exact issues at our respective camps and both had a love of camping. We agreed to build a business to improve healthcare at camps.  We spent another year ironing out the business concept and then established the company. Now we’ve got a number of people involved. We have independent contractors, equity partners, and advisory board members, and we’re pretty excited about how quickly it has developed. We will be launching our products and services in the summer of 2019.

How has the EMBA for Physicians been helpful in growing your venture?

The EMBA program has been incredibly helpful. Most importantly, my classmates are so excited for me. They are interested in my business and have supported me, reaffirming my ideas. It’s like having a bunch of cheerleaders. There have been a number of classes that have been directly related to my work. Just this week, I went over my monthly financial statements with my bookkeeper and knew how to ask the right questions and easily follow the balance sheet. I learned how to do cash flow projections for the business. The program has provided me with real world knowledge that I can apply right away. The entrepreneurship course has also been a great help. I pitched my business in a slide deck for the class project and got pages of comments back from the professor. I’ve never had a professor take that much time to give such detailed feedback and I was really appreciative. Having the EMBA side by side, paralleling the development of the company, has been fantastic for me.

What advice would you give to a physician who is thinking about pursuing an entrepreneurial venture?

There are so many things you can do as a physician. The jobs are limitless. You just have to think outside of the box. I created this company but have no immediate plans to leave my position as a leader in academic medicine and a leader in my specialty nationally. Physicians should be empowered to believe that there are lots of jobs accessible to them and that many doors can be opened with additional skill sets. If you have an idea or if you are willing to partner with non-physicians or with other physicians who are interested in expanding their own skill sets, it’s totally doable. Physicians are lifelong learners. If you are a person with passion, who cares about improving health, there are plenty of areas that need work. You can do it.

What advice would you give to a physician who is starting our program?

People come into the program with lots of different goals. Whatever your goal is upon entering, don’t be rigid. Allow yourself to see what your classmates are doing and feel your way through the program. The connections you make as a part of the program with colleagues and faculty are invaluable.  In our class, people are starting to grow into and envision themselves as productive in different roles than their current ones. Don’t box yourself in. Go with an open attitude because you never know what could happen.

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