The Time for Leadership Is Now, Says Past ACS President

The reality is: They make it, we buy it, whatever it costs, Dr. Healy said. Especially if the hospital down the street has one and we don’t. We’d better get it quick because we’ll lose the business to them. The question is: Do we stop and evaluate how useful is all this to the real outcomes of our patients?

He urged the audience to take on leadership roles in organizations, their communities, and their own hospitals. Every person in this room can leave here and be a leader, he said. You don’t have to have the word ‘president’ after your name to be a leader. You just have to be someone who’s about excellence-not commanding, but building it.

AHNS President Wayne M. Koch, MD, said the address was fabulous.

You gave us a lot to think about, a lot to talk about, he told Dr. Healy.

Jatin Shah, MD, Chief of the Head and Neck Service in the Department of Surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said, The issues that he rose were truly real-time issues.

He said that Dr. Healy touched on a problem that is unfortunate but true.

Surgeons are very self-centered, Dr. Shah said. We live in a cocoon. He added, Leadership from within the surgical group would be the right way to identify the problems, look at the solutions, and bring it up to the government.

©2009 The Triological Society