President's Message

It is an exciting time of change and renewal at the medical association. We have just celebrated the retirement of our long time Executive Director, Sue Malone, and thank her for her decades of tireless service to  the  physicians and patients of San Mateo County. I am excited to introduce to you our new Executive Director, Keith Darby, who comes to us as the former Interim Executive Director of the American College of Phlebology. Keith brings to the organization a fresh new perspective and drive and shares my desire to revitalize and reinvigorate our venerable medical society.

A vigorous democracy and capitalistic society  involves constant change. Responding and adapting to change is critical for  long term success. Just look at history’s waste bin of once world- beating companies: Blockbuster, Kodak, Blackberry. These are organizations that could not foresee and respond to the changes in their respective industries. Change is difficult but can be a great opportunity just as much as it can be a great risk.

In medicine and health care, there is certainly no shortage of change. We, as physicians, are dedicated to a life-long learning philosophy and continue to learn and incorporate new knowledge into our practices.

But the changing landscape of healthcare requires us to adapt to even bigger challenges - challenges that I would argue our medical training did not adequately prepare us for. These are challenges such as adapting to new financing models and evolving our own business models from fee-for-service to value- based care and  risk-bearing  ACOs; or becoming managers and leaders of teams of clinicians; or analyzing patient data on  population  levels and figuring out how to intervene on behalf of the patient in a non- clinical setting. I am certain that none of us are practicing medicine in a similar fashion to when we first completed our residencies.

And I will assure you that none of us will be practicing medicine in a similar fashion upon our retirement as we are now. We, as individual physicians, must adapt and respond to the changes we see in our practices and we, as a profession, must adapt and evolve what it means to be a physician in these times of change.

Change for change-sake  does not always mean improvement and progress. However, managed change and the right leadership in times of change can. Physicians are among the most trusted of professions, hold authority, and are held in high-esteem. This is a profound foundation for us to serve as leaders in the health care space. Yet, more often than not, physicians do not feel  empowered to lead or even speak up. Most days, physicians feel like things are being done to them rather than with them and that they are under greater and greater productivity pressure and excluded from the major decisions made by payers or their employers. More physician leadership  is  what is needed with the major challenges in our healthcare system today, not less. Studies have shown that the best hospitals are  managed by physicians. Why? Because physicians are ethically bound to patients, have content expertise, and already have experience as leaders, as heads of their clinical teams. Therefore, in order for our profession to adapt we have to see ourselves not only as clinicians but more so as the leaders in health care.

Just as responding to change is critical for our profession, it is critical to any organization, including our medical association. Your Board of Directors, along with myself, and your new Executive Director plan to adapt your medical association for the 21st century. We plan to reassess our mission, strategic direction, resource deployment, member services and programs, and we are looking forward to unveiling this exciting new SMCMA to you in the near future.