While there is little data that breaks down chief medical officers’ backgrounds by medical specialty, anecdotally, many come from internal medicine, general surgery or anesthesiology, Samuel Bauer, MD, chief medical officer of Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., told Becker’s.
Dr. Bauer, however, is trained in maternal fetal medicine and his medical practice primarily focused on high-risk pregnancies and complications, a less common path to leadership for the average CMO.
He recently joined Becker’s to discuss why he believes his specialty background makes him well-equipped to step into the CMO role.
Editor’s note: This response has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What lessons or insights from your experience as an obstetrician give you a unique perspective as CMO?
Dr. Samuel Bauer: I believe that OB-GYNs have some of the best qualities to be a CMO, because we are trained to do a little bit of everything. We do a lot of ambulatory. Every pregnant patient goes from the ambulatory setting to the inpatient setting back to the ambulatory setting. So we understand the length of stay. We do surgeries. We take care of emergencies. We have to take care of end-of-life issues. Unfortunately, sometimes we are with people during some very joyous times, but also very challenging times in their lives. We have to deal with a lot of families. So I actually think those tools that I have as a physician are going to be very beneficial to me as a physician leader.
