The Path to Department Chair: Arriving and Thriving

Becoming a department chair in otolaryngology represents a significant leadership milestone. The rise to this key role, as well as the role itself, requires a unique blend of clinical excellence, academic achievement, and administrative skill. Otolaryngologists who have traveled the path to department chair acknowledge that the learning curve in preparing for this level of leadership can be steep and the challenges formidable. Those who are currently thriving at the helm, though, say they would do it again in a heartbeat.

The Holes in the Swiss Cheese Lined Up

In July of 2025, after serving as chief and fellowship director of rhinology and skull base surgery, as well as vice chair for faculty affairs, during his 11 years at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Rick (Rakesh) K. Chandra, MD, MMHC, was well prepared to take over as chair of the department of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at the University of Mississippi (UM) Medical Center in Jackson.

It was a position he had thought about back in 2018. Circumstances for such a move were not ideal at the time. however. “I couldn’t really pursue it at that point because I had kids still going through high school,” Dr. Chandra said. “I did get some calls from search firms, but between the timing for my family and the fact that the positions I thought I would have fit with best weren’t the ones I was getting recruited to, it went nowhere.” Years later, just as the timing improved, direct contact from institutions and recruiters started coming in, including the one from UM. “It’s like the holes in the Swiss cheese lined up just right,” he said.

Also instrumental in making the leap to chair was the business degree Dr. Chandra earned after he first got to Vanderbilt. “There were others who had done it, and I knew it had helped them, but it wasn’t until my late 40s that I had the bandwidth to take it on,” he said, emphasizing that the additional education has been invaluable in his new role. “It takes a lot of time just learning to speak the language of administrators,” he said, noting that doctors are “woefully undertrained in business.” The position at UM felt like a good fit. “I just knew it was suited to me and that I could make a meaningful contribution,” he said.

I Had to Be ‘Bootstraps’ Lady