Q: What is your biggest professional challenge?
A: Finding avenues and opportunities for advancing my career in leadership. In the organization I formerly worked for, there were few opportunities for physicians to move upward. There was very little space for advancement. Earning an advanced degree, putting my CV out on the wire, and having the courage to break with an entity where I had worked for 15-plus years was a challenge.
Q: What is your biggest professional reward?
A: Learning under a number of mentors (physicians and non-physicians, clinical and business-oriented), working with over 100 hospitalists in my career, and being able to mentor them as well. Having been given an opportunity as an administrative leader and being trusted to create solutions and collaborate with a lot of groups in my current job, using my experience as a physician and my interest in the business of healthcare, has been extremely rewarding.
Q: What does it mean to be designated a Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine?
A: I felt gratified to receive recognition for my career path and commitment to a vision that has developed into a thriving, essential force in medicine. Hopefully, I have contributed—and will continue to contribute—to that growth in some small way.
Q: When you aren’t working, what is important to you?
A: Family, photography, music, technology, and gadgets.
Q: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
A: I currently am enjoying a new role and testing new responsibilities and opportunities for growth as they are presented. I’ve discovered an interest in teaching, both of perceptive young physicians and physicians-in-training. I have terrific mentors who continue to provide constructive feedback and guidance. I want to see where this leads. I find that I really enjoy mentoring and working with young people.
Q: If you weren’t a doctor, what would you be doing right now?
A: I’d either be a professional photographer or a writer—maybe a graphic designer.
Q: What’s the best book you’ve read recently?
A: Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. It is hilarious and witty and offers a unique writing style and unexpected turns. Richard Ford’s latest book, Canada. Anything by Ford is a “must.”
Q: How many Apple products do you interface with in a given week?
A: About 20.
Q: What’s next in your iTunes queue?
A: Probably something by Matthew Sweet I have a threshold of about five minutes before I usually work my love for his music into a conversation.
Richard Quinn is a freelance writer in New Jersey.