“Leadership is a lifelong journey. Just the way medicine is, just the way science is.” says Dr. Carolyn Meltzer describing her leadership journey. Dr. Meltzer is a radiologist and nuclear medicine expert and serves as the Dean of the USC Keck School of Medicine. The positive impact of mentors and mentoring is well known. In this podcast, Dr. Meltzer describes the concept of ‘anti-mentors’ and how they helped her in becoming a better leader.
Dr. Kim Curseen is an empowering and inspirational leader in geriatrics and palliative care. Dr. Curseen feels that people, especially women, can be steered down that path that they are asked to do things. As they want to be helpful, they may just step in to fill an organizational need without ever really stopping back and just consider, “Is this the way I really want my career to go?” Sadly, they may wake up many years later filled with regret at their career trajectory and unable to take corrective action.
Vulnerability is a measure of courage and a primary leadership quality. Dr. Jane deLima Thomas describes her journey and struggles and how she overcame them.
“I don’t think it’s useful to have one identity for yourself. I think it’s important to realize we all as human beings have multiple parts of us, and we’re going to try and utilize those different parts of us in different ways, at different stages in our career,” explains Dr. Ross McKinney Jr., MD, Chief Scientific Officer the Association of American Medical Colleges in this episode of our healthcare leadership podcast. When he faced rejections and failures, his strategy was to be very practical and say “Hey, okay, I guess the thing I should do is figure out what I was good at in that, and find some way to carry it forward.” Through his very open disclosures, Ross traces his extraordinary career and his successful leadership strategies.
“I learned over the years to be patient. My strength comes from a quote that I really think reflects my inner being to the core. And that’s a quote from Marian Wright, Edelman, child advocacy attorney, and her quote is that “Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.”
