Reimagining the chapter as members and their needs evolve
In Pittsburgh, someone who identifies with the city is called a Yinzer. And Yinzers tend to stick around. That’s as true in the old steel mills that defined this section of western Pennsylvania as it is in the hospitals that now help drive the local economy.
So how do hospitalists who identify with Pittsburgh commune? Well, that’s the SHM Pittsburgh chapter’s role, if you ask chapter president Eric Gardner MD, MBA.
“People come to Pittsburgh from all over the world for the world-class medical training it offers. It’s a very livable city, and trainees often choose to stay in the western Pennsylvania area after graduation,” said Dr. Gardner, a hospitalist with Allegheny Health Network in Pittsburgh. “But many leave the major academic institutions and move on to different hospitals and health systems. This can lead to a sense of siloing among hospitalists at different programs, and hospitalists at smaller programs may have fewer opportunities for socializing and professional networking.”
How can the chapter help?
“One of the main roles of the chapter is to bring the hospitalists of our region together to share their challenges, best practices, personal stories, and professional connections, Dr. Gardner says. “Chapter events are the perfect place to get to know one another. Who is the chief hospitalist over there? Who has graduating residents who are eyeing a career as a hospitalist?”
Dr. Gardner says he aims for six to eight chapter events annually. He views gatherings as integral to the fabric of a strong organization, especially one as geographically diverse as Pittsburgh, whose footprint covers all of western Pennsylvania, extending into eastern Ohio and parts of northern West Virginia.
“For many years, the bulk of our chapter events were held near the central Pittsburgh area,” Dr. Gardner said. “When I came on as membership director, I was surprised to find that we had more than 200 members in the chapter. I was used to seeing the same 30 or 40 people at all of the events.
“I asked myself, ‘Why aren’t we reaching these people?’ And then I saw, geographically, we’re missing all kinds of people who want to be involved in SHM, who want to reach out, who want to make connections and colleagues and friends, but they’re located further from the city, and getting to a chapter event far from home after a long day of work was a barrier. We’d have to bring a chapter event closer to home. And this began our idea to host ‘regional’ events throughout our chapter territory. Immediately, we began to see new faces at these events.”
Dr. Gardner focuses as much as he can on in-person events to foster collaboration, camaraderie, and collegiality.
“We want our events to bring people together,” he said. “We want our events to be exciting and engaging so people want to attend. We want our members to come to a chapter event and experience something they can’t get somewhere else.”
Take the annual Resident Abstract & Poster Competition, the chapter’s largest event.
“We want this to be an SHM signature event,” Dr. Gardner said. “We make it a gala event. We host it in the evening at a banquet hall. People dress up. We serve hors d’oeuvres during the judging and an upscale dinner during the awards presentation. We aim to be inclusive with as many residents presenting as we can accommodate. A few years ago, we expanded efforts to invite family practice residents to submit entries, and last year we added a pediatrics category. This event keeps growing and in 2023 we had more than 90 attendees.”
And then there’s the cooking class, where the chapter brings in a physician who is a specialist in wellness and lifestyle medicine, who teaches how to build a healthy diet, and attendees cook a vegan meal.
Why a cooking class, one might ask?
“When we do a cooking program, people are bumping elbows,” Dr. Gardner said. “People are sharing. I am cutting what you’re going to eat. When you’ve cooked something, you’re going to hand the dessert back to me, and I’m going to taste it. There’s a sharing aspect to it. And if there is anything that can bring people together, it’s food. It’s a way to break the ice when networking. We can laugh when someone grabs the wrong ingredient or causes a spill. The physical interaction of making a meal together is much more engaging than sitting and watching a lecture together.”
Dr. Gardner says he was pleasantly surprised by the chapter earning a 2024 Platinum Excellence Award, as he notes the chapter isn’t looking for accolades.
“We’re always striving to push the chapter in more directions,” he said. “Hospital medicine, over the last 20 years, has had to keep reinventing itself as the field has evolved. One of the things we do at the chapter level is to keep reimagining the chapter as our members and their needs evolve.”
Richard Quinn is a freelance writer in New Jersey.