The Boomer docs I know seem to be content to work until they die
My partner is 71 with lymphoma and has stated he will die at work before retiring so I do see that, however it completely baffles me.
Surgeon turning 41 this year and am finding this very strange. I am engaged in several committees with no advancement potential.
I am personally trying to move up in leadership but legit seem railroaded or overtaken by someone 10-15 years above me.
our c suite is all over 70.
is there ever going to be a time we lead? I feel old already.
The Boomer docs I know seem to be content to work until they die
My partner is 71 with lymphoma and has stated he will die at work before retiring so I do see that, however it completely baffles me.
Are you talking about the hospital or the government?
In the hospital. I’m non academic but every “leader” Is well over 55-60. It’s bizarre how long the track to moving up seems. I have lawyer friends who are like full Fucking partners.
We have a millenial CMO and CEO. How to advance? Get an MHA and most "decent" organizations will promote you after. Just being a surgeon and hoping enough committees will catapult you higher is not going to work.
That’s wild, haven’t seen that everywhere.
Yes and no (the "just being a surgeon" part of things may just as well be "just being a doctor"). But if you show yourself trustworthy and of high value on multiple committees and other duties over 10-15 years, it DOES tend to lead somewhere. There is a surgeon at one of my hospitals who puts herself on every single committee she can but then rarely shows up for anything because she also schedules surgery when the meetings are held. She complained to me a few weeks ago that she never gets considered for true leadership positions despite "everything she does". I was honest with her - showing up and contributing is critical. You can't say you served on the MEC for 10 years but only show up to the monthly meetings twice a year. The MEC and physician leaders have pegged you as unreliable.
Other tips include being the son of a hospital CEO. Seen that work.
is there ever going to be a time we lead?
I mean, they can't live forever
yes they can. what do you think the goal of the epstein island really was?
But they sure as hell can try
You can tell the quality of a system based on who's getting promoted. Great institutions promote on merit and the leadership look varied with a good presence of younger physicians. The worst systems promote based on whoever is around the longest.
In academia this will continue to be a real problem, especially for hospitals that insist on chairs being renowned NIH-funded physician-scientists. Funding is drying up left and right, people aren’t even getting their first K or R award until they are in their 40s, and many not at all. That means your chairperson isn’t going to look like chairperson material until they are late 50s or 60s at best.
See that’s the issue I had in academics. I started at 33 with about 20 publications but there was no pathway for me to get more funding without compromising salary which I needed to pay back the massive loans and buy a house. I just ended up leaving academia with a combo practice that pays more but even within this system it’s almost like the only CV they want is from someone with 15 years experience. We just hired a cancer center leader who is 66 years old for gods sake.
I’m 31 with over 20 publications, 12 of which are first author and 2 of which (going on the third) are as senior author. Lot of which in high impact journals (IF >10) and most in decent (IF >5). I have no hope for acquiring grant funding rn.
I’m 31 with over 20 publications, 12 of which are first author and 2 of which (going on the third) are as senior author. Lot of which in high impact journals (IF >10) and most in decent (IF >5). I have no hope for acquiring grant funding rn.
You have to move I think. The young leadership all start at some rural hospital and work their way from town to town
Do you have prior evidence that 41 was the historical timeline to be at the C suite level in healthcare administration ? A partner at a private law firm is not an equivalent
What I’m not even saying myself nor am I saying C suite, we don’t even have any people in their 40s at a level above me even. I’m saying where I don’t even see the opportunities as existing.
exactly. every step up in law comes with pay bumps. most hospital "leadership" is uncompensated or given laughable stipends. Recently heard that attorneys charge $200 to answer and email and $400 to answer a phone call. I wish I could do that for my inbox lol.
art takes time(:
Gen X doc here 16 years your senior. While there were opportunities to do what you are mentioning early (committees, task forces, department chairs, MECs and even sometimes MEC presidents, etc.) in your 40s, most of those positions don't have any true power. The people who participate in those things keep getting asked to do more over time and about age 50 is where those who have excelled and showed proficiency get asked to do true leadership tasks for the next 15 years and then they retire.
Jesus retire at 70, I wanna retire at 55
This is every corporation in America sadly
We all took/founded biotech/pharma/medtech roles 🙃
seems like all the med. exec committee members are retired and completely disconnected from medicine apart from their meetings and photo ops. they're not gonna relinquish power anytime soon.
Yeah, they probably spent their lives getting to that spot and they’re just going to float until they die. The people clawing to that spot are the same that won’t readily give it up. It’s like our senators…
The boomer generation seems intent on working until, very literally, the day they die
I'm your same age, got blocked twice from leadership positions despite showing up and doing the thankless work for years. I asked for feedback both times and got mealy-mouthed non responses. So I left. Now CMO at a disease advocacy org, much better pay and work life balance and international visibility. Don't waste your talent propping up an ossifying house of cards.
Thanks, appreciate this! That may be the case that if I am looking for this just need to move. The organizational structure and decision making is so dated. We are falling behind similar size institutions.
Most of the medical leadership at the hospital I'm at are 45 or younger: ICU (70+ year old just stepped down) Hospitalists ED Anesthesia Surgery Diverse racially as well, but distinct lack of women.
Because management sucks. I have all the education, skills and ability. I moved up in management and hated it. Went back to clinical and am much happier
New England
32 yo PGY-1. I got my mba and have some work experience prior to medical school. Previously I wanted to go into admin but I’ve already abandoned the idea. Now my focus is getting the best contract I can and spending my extra time with family, friends, and enjoying my hobbies. Something’s take an act of God and this is one of them.
My hospital has multiple people in leadership roles that are millennials. Quite a few actually.
The current UTSW peds cards division chief is in his 40s-50s and was hired in his 40s, and the scuttlebut was that the division’s attendings were \*very\* apprehensive about if he’d do a good job solely because the picture we have in our minds is a dude in their 60s-70s being division chief. By all accounts he’s done a great job though, and I’d love to hear how he managed to overcome these perceptions to get the job in the first place
I’m 42, I’m the chief of my service. Most of my peers are in their 40s-50s.
You and I are about the same age. I'm at a medium sized rural hospital that is part of a large regional hospital system. Our committees are all filled with millennials, but committees have no actual power. Our CMO is an elder millennial, but that's it in the c suite. Everyone else is gen x. When you move up to the big hospital, pretty much all of the c-suite is Gen X; there are very few boomers still hanging on at the top in our system.
I dunno everyone talking like it’s because boomers etc won’t retire i feel like most people my gen just aren’t interested. Most of us here to clock in, take care of patients, clock out and go home to family/retire as fast as possible. Have very little interest in leadership corporate cog wheel positions. LOS, 30 day readmissions, CAUTI, CLABSI, HCAP….how about LIGMA while i FIRE my way out of this corporate hellscape 🤣
This is why I left academic medicine. I did all the things they told me to do. I taught and published while maintaining a clinical practice. I held leadership positions, and worked on my “external reputation” to build towards academic promotion. It became abundantly clear that promotion was a carrot they would dangle just out of reach for as long as possible, and that I wouldn’t be advancing any further in leadership roles until the Boomers who have been in those roles for 10-20 years retired or died. Most of them expressed no interest in ever retiring. Mix in a toxic culture along with backstabbing from “friends” and “mentors” and I was done. I noped out to private practice for more money and less overall chicanery and BS.
In medicine, old age and treachery will always try to overcome youth & skill. Sad part is it usually works...
The boomers are holding onto those just like they are all the wealth in this country
I once worked with an elderly chairperson who was undergoing treatment for cancer for a long time. Too weak to walk, came in to the academic office in a wheelchair with RNs, and could only tolerate a few hours twice a week. (No clinical work fortunately). Eventually they literally came to the office on a fancy personal gurney (albeit infrequently) until they passed. This chair wouldn't allow appointment of a vice-chair to take over as interim - facilitated by the faculty because the chair was legendary and they were cult-like in their loyalty. The loyal faculty siloed this behavior and kept it as quiet as possible. I was flabbergasted that the none of the university Deans offices stepped in, but I think those leaders were either under that cult-spell too, or didn't do proper monitoring diligence into the silo. Literally drove the department into ruin: current funding renewals lapsed, missed new funding deadlines, allowed deadwood elderly faculty to remain, no new faculty recruiting, trainee programs closed and funding dropped, etc. Any faculty who tried to get another job had their reputations branded as disrespectful to leadership and not a team player. Fortunately I had a joint appointment with a 2nd department so I easily escaped sideways to that one.
waiting for boomers to die. my dad, a young boomer himself, rage quit/retired from his last job a few years ago, (for sake of not doxing, he was basically 2nd in line at a large academic hospital to run the cancer center. partially because a guy who was at least 80 wouldn't retire, despite having cancer and covid shutdowns starting the same week of his first day. it was pretty sad to see. he was a great fundraiser, great relationship with higher ups at the NCI, multiple p20 grants. chair of multiple cooperative groups. CV was a mile long. but desperately wanted to turn those grants into his ultimate career goal of NCI designation. didn't work at 2 prior places, nor at his final job. red tape at every step of the way. now he lives on the beach and will occasionally help his former students edit research to keep his brain sharp.