Reader feedback.

Dear Editor:

Right on the mark

I was struck by and greatly enjoyed Larry Tyler's article on VPMA's making the transition to the CEO position (volume 25, issue # 5). As a CMO for a three-hospital system, I have often contemplated what should be the next career move and have looked at the CEO position as about the only viable choice.

The article points out succinctly and accurately the dangers Inherent in making the leap for physicians from a VPMA-like position to the top slot. Physicians do not lack for intellect or ego, but those are not enough. In some situations, a CFO and/or COO can be hired to make up for the deficiencies a physician CEO might have. While I think that physicians will increasingly gravitate to the top spot, it will take awhile. The experience garnered as a COO may be indispensable to be an effective CEO. more than simply the VPMA slot can provide.

As I was completing the Tulane MMM program two years ago, I realized that our group was the vanguard of a movement and that we could drag younger physicians to the top of the mountain to view the promised land-but for most of us, we were too old to enter. The younger physicians will go in however, Physicians will claim their proper place in the health care hierarchy, but it will take time. There is stiff competition for these top slots and many of the CEOs that I have met have egos that can equal In breadth, depth, and width those of the most arrogant physicians.

In any event, many thanks for the article. It helped me put some loose pieces into place. I think it was right on the mark.

James Butterick, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Southcoast Hospitals Group

Fall River, Massachusetts 

[e-mail]

CEO track

Larry Tyler's article in the September/October issue of The Physician Executive is terrific! As a "physician-CEO" of a three-hospital corporation, I really appreciated it. I did follow the VPMA->COO->CEO track, Nice work!

Best of health,

Ron Goodspeed, MD, MPH CEO

Southcoast Hospitals Group

Fall River, New Bedford, Wareham. Massachusetts

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An oversight

The September/October issue on "The Evolving Role of the Physician Executive" contained a great deal of valuable information for our entire membership. It was of particular interest for those of us poised in mid-life to launch into full-time executive positions. I therefore found it more than a little ironic that in a journal published by our American College of Physician Executives on at least three occasions in different articles such career changing physicians would be exhorted to obtain a professional degree--"an MBA or an MHA." As I write this I am just one month short of completing my studies at Carnegie Mellon University for an MMM, that same Master's of Medical Management created by the ACPE and Tulane University.

There would seem to be two possible explanations for this abbreviated catalogue of executive professional degrees: either the authors indeed do not feel that the MMM belongs on the same playing field or the editorial review process did not capture this oversight. I hope it is the latter.

Thomas V. Whalen, MD

Associate Professor of Surgery & Pediatrics

Head of the Division of Pediatric Surgery

Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Camden

Camden, New Jersey 

[e-mail]

Editor's note:

Thank you for pointing out that the MMM was not included when advanced degrees were being encouraged in the recent issue of the journal on the evolving role of physician executives. The MMM definitely belongs on the same playing field as an MBA or MHA and is even more focused for physicians moving into medical management. It was an oversight on my part and I regret this error.