Send new medical staff leaders down the right path

Once leaders assume their roles at the beginning of the year, St. Jude Medical Center, in Fullerton, California, holds a medical staff retreat. For the past 5 years, it has been at Disney Land at the California Grand, which is really popular with the medical staff leaders. They used to have outside speakers come in, but now all of the speakers are from St. Jude, which Cindy Radcliffe, CPMSM, director of medical staff services at St. Jude Medical Center, says has worked really well.

Speakers at the retreat include:

• Director of medical staff services: credentialing and privileging.
• Vice president of clinical quality: quality issues
• CEO: strategic planning.
• Chief operating officer: knowing the difference between being a medical staff leader and medical staff director.
• CMO: utilization management.
• Chief of staff: Whatever is relevant. The current chief of staff uses the book Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan. His focus is on physician engagement to encourage a high level of excellence.

In between the talks there are breakout sessions with team-building games.

“You want to keep their energy level up and this is dry information, so you [want to] make it exciting and interesting,” says Radcliffe.

The retreat starts Friday night and ends Sunday morning. It starts with a cocktail reception Friday night, Saturday consists of the sessions, and then there is a dinner Saturday night. Families are welcome to attend as well. “We include their families because although we give them a stipend, there is a huge commitment of time involved in being a medical staff leader. So it is our way of saying thank you for taking the time away from your family,” says Radcliffe.  

Source: Medical Staff Briefing