As healthcare’s complexities and demands intensify, physician leadership remains a critical aspect of ensuring high-quality patient care and advancing and implementing clinical innovations.
According to a 2024 survey by Jackson Physician Search and the Medical Group Management Association, 67% of physicians expressed interest in pursuing leadership roles. Despite interest, only 18% of physicians receive any executive or business training during medical school, and just 21% of healthcare organizations offer formal leadership development programs for physicians.
“All physicians are leaders, but if you’re going to move to the next level, it’s learned,” Samuel Bauer, MD, chief medical officer of Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., told Becker’s. He said that physician leaders need to “continue to have these conversations,” whether through organizational support, like the American Association of Physician Leadership or system-level efforts.
“Even if you’re not going to necessarily be a CMO, physicians have influence,” Dr. Bauer continued. “When you’re in rooms with healthcare organizations that don’t have a lot of physicians, but have a lot of business or finance people, you have more clout that you might realize. But you need to have that very foundational knowledge.”
Reflecting on his own leadership journey over the last 10 years, Dr. Bauer said that he was placed in a situation typical for physicians who are eager to lead, but may not have formal leadership training.
“You’re a physician, you show up and say, ‘Yes,’ and next thing you know you’re reading something — and you may or may not quite have all the tools,” he said. “You don’t have the recipe to bake the cake.”
This is why he encourages all young physicians to jump at any opportunity for leadership, as smaller opportunities provide the hands-on experience that is necessary to step into more significant roles, like CMO.
“When you come into a role like this, you’ve been there before. You’ve had some experience and you’ve been taught things,” Dr. Bauer said. “I would encourage physicians to take advantage of all of those opportunities that they have in their careers.”
Mentorship has been consistently a vital component of Dr. Bauer’s path to CMO, especially as physicians’ presence in C-suites has diminished over the last decade.
“The mentors that I have had over the last five years, including today, have been instrumental in my progression to this role,” he said. “Just being in that environment where you’re always trying to have kind of continuous improvement in yourself has been helpful.”
