Another subset of communication is skill at public speaking, which may lead to being invited to give lectures.
Dr. Khan believes shy, less-articulate clinicians can begin to improve their public speaking by serving on committees. “Unless the committee is a committee of two, that is the appropriate forum to begin voicing your opinions and expertise on a particular matter,” he says. “There’s a certain comfort level built into that because you’re not necessarily speaking on a topic you are unfamiliar with.”
Another intangible administrative skill, he says, is the ability to deal with people from different walks of life. Some highly placed hospital administrators don’t have clinical backgrounds and will require explanations of clinical situations that mesh with their business understanding.
Time Management
Organization is a critical administrative skill no matter what career path a hospitalist follows.
“As hospitalists we are typically juggling more than one thing at one time,” Dr. Khan says. “As a hospitalist who is involved in administrative tasks, if you’re not organized, that is a path to failure.”
Strive to hire the right people for clerical and administrative staff positions. They will fill in the weak spots to keep you on track and present a good image as your front person. But having a good clerical or administrative assistant doesn’t let you off the hook; you, too, must demonstrate solid time management. Make sure you take good notes at committees, quickly access data or documentation, and research and report back well.
The Interpersonal
Robert L. Benak, MD, a hospitalist and medical director of Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (CVPH) Medical Center, a 341-bed acute care hospital and 54-bed skilled nursing facility in Plattsburgh, N.Y., thinks the most important intangible skills involve managing relationships.
Again, self-reflection helps. “Understand what your personality is like on a calm day and what it is like on a stressful day,” he says.
He says it’s critical to be able to negotiate with others. “Understanding what lies underneath, what common and different interests the two negotiating partners have helps you focus on getting the best compromise of conflicting interests to resolve a disagreement in an amicable and effective way,” he says.
Dr. Benak, who joined SHM around the time his group started in October 2006, thanks the SHM Leadership Academy for strengthening his interpersonal skills. He has tried to bring home what he learned to his group of five hospitalists.
Recently, he had to determine whether to designate a patient with abdominal pain as a surgical or medical patient. Dr. Benak invoked his “ability to sit down with the orthopedic surgeon and general surgeon, recognizing that they’ve got legitimate interests and concerns, as do I, and figuring out what works well for us, and more importantly, what works best for the patient.”
That ability to compromise is indispensable to growth as a hospitalist, he says.
“I was a chemistry major in college and loved working with concrete, though sometimes complicated, problems where you’re either right or you’re wrong,” he says. “I’ve come to see that giving up being right, and giving up any sense of entitlement I may feel in having the principal position, are skills. Even if you think the other person is being unreasonable, you have to accept that as a fact and figure out how to cope with that in a way that is a credit to yourself and your program.” TH
Andrea Sattinger is a medical writer based in North Carolina.