October 7, 2026 Salus Forum

Howard

I had the opportunity over the last 40 years to work with an organization that started as the American College of Physician Executives, I think that’s the American Association of Physician Leaders. It’s a very codified kind of approach to physician leadership. It’s a track for certified physician executives, which really does focus a lot on the tenets that you talked about in terms of visioning, self-awareness and related things. And it’s exclusively for physicians, but it’s specialty agnostic. It includes surgeons and OBGYNs, family practice, internal medicine and a whole host of specializations.

And it does have a lot of pieces in it that are very structured, that talk about all the basic nuts and bolts of where we are in population health, quality management and those things. It also has a pretty strong career ladder focus for those who are oriented toward a progressive leadership development program. But they also have a soundbite or an anthem that says all physicians are leaders. And I really do adhere to that. In some way, shape or form, everyone who has become a professional and donned that mantle is a leader, whether they’re a leader to their patients or they’re a leader to their individual practice.

Wherever they are, they do assume some degree of leadership role. How much or little that leadership role expands really depends on their vision of who they are and where they want to go in their careers. But I think what you’re doing is extremely important in bringing light to the matter of leadership development, however it’s done to be able to cultivate leadership. I think particularly in the modern context we are now in, where professionalism is being embattled a bit, it’s really important to bring that leadership forward as part of that professional responsibility to continue to lead.

Warren

Obviously, professionalism is a related issue. I think I knew it as ACP when I was taking those courses.  I think the key thing that the Halm Certificate acknowledges is that you have to have leadership experience in addition to clinical education and experience. You must be making decisions and making mistakes, in addition to learning about leadership. I think it was Perry who put in the chat that it’s an 80-20 experience of firsthand experience to education. I think some formal coursework is useful. It’s why didactics are useful clinically. It’s not very much time, but it allows people to consolidate and think over time. I think some didactics, particularly hands-on, with projects that relate to your current practice, are particularly important so you can think about your current practice.

Jenny

I have a lot of thoughts and I’m trying to figure out a way to say it coherently. The first thing that I keep hearing is what Bill B was sharing about the experience piece and then the training piece. I feel like Jeremy can say a lot about my experiences, because he’s seen me during the intern year and now as an attending.

As someone who wants to be a budding leader, who wants to grow and learn more in this space. It’s interesting to say that in palliative care specifically, you are often thrown into the leadership roles right after training. This was the case for me. When I graduated fellowship or even when I was looking at jobs, I could easily find a place that wanted me to be the hospice director or the inpatient lead of the service.

And that’s what I did at Kaiser San Jose. I was the inpatient lead. I was kind of baffled by this because I didn’t have the experience. I had a little bit of the training. Jeremy’s mentoring was really great. Throughout the last six years, he has been teaching me all these leadership themes and topics. I was then putting it into practice. Even in fellowship, there was conflict where I had to step in as a leader amidst my fellow classmates. And then as a physician leader, with my interdisciplinary team.