GRAPEVINE, Texas—Femi Adewunmi, MD, MBA, SFHM, might land a new job as a multisite medical director because of it. Amaka Nweke, MD, might have gained an idea for a new committee for her hospital from it. And Randa Perkins, MD, is going to lead one long brown-bag lunch thanks to it.
Everyone gets something different out of SHM’s annual meeting, a four-day bazaar of CME, plenary sessions, and breakout sessions akin to one-hour crash courses that follow clinical, academic, practice management, pediatric, and quality tracks.
The Hospitalist sat down with three attendees to break down what each took home from HM11.
New Year, New Job?
A veteran of multiple annual meetings, Dr. Adewunmi usually splits his time between breakout sessions and networking. But this year, the former medical director of the hospitalist service at Johnston Medical Center in Smithfield, N.C., says he’s looking to step up from a single-site leadership position to a regional head. So the mission was more about networking than note-taking.
“It’s been invaluable for me at this point,” Dr. Adewunmi says, “as I navigate and decide what the next steps should be in terms of my career progression.”
Of course, that progression meant using his time-management skills to hold discussions with potential employers.
“I was in and out,” he says, noting he’s been doing locum tenens work for several months as he weighs his next move. “Sometimes, if you want to have the time to meet one-on-one [at the exhibitor hall]without the crowd and the distractions, it’s probably easier and better to go in between sessions.”
Dr. Adewunmi, a newly seated member of Team Hospitalist, says he met with eight to 10 of the largest HM firms during the meeting. He leveraged contacts he’s built over the years, and also used relationships with SHM staff to make introductions. He thinks employers appreciate the annual meeting for the same reason.
“It’s one spot where rather than trying to fly in 10 or 20 candidates every month or every few weeks, you can just come in one spot and interview several people … or put your feelers out,” he says. “It works both ways.”
Dr. Adewunmi can’t be sure his networking will be successful. He plans to keep working locums with one potential employer so both sides can get to know each other. But even if nothing pans out, between the clinical sessions he attended and the relationships he either built or strengthened, he says he’s glad he came again to the annual meeting.
“This, for me, has always been the best resource in terms of place you could come to one stop and get a little bit of everything,” he adds. “It’s like a buffet.”
Meet and Greet, Over and Over
Dr. Nweke, assistant site director for Hospitalists Management Group at Kenosha Medical Center in Wisconsin, wasn’t going to let her first meeting overwhelm her. She laid out her agenda early, planning to attend as many practice management and leadership classes as she could. When she arrived, she sat through talks including “Understanding Your Hospital’s Key Financial Drivers,” “Hiding in Plain Sight,” and “Introduction to QI Methodology.”