Cardiologists were the highest paid (median 325 K)...after Orthopedists and Radiologists. Pediatricians are the lowest paid (median 149K). Unclear if pediatric cardiologists were included in under cardiologists or pediatricians!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Physician Compensations Survey
15,000 physicians were surveyed across US in early 2011. The results are released by Medscape.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Osler: Words
Beware of words - they are dangerous things. They change color like the chameleon, and they return like a boomerang.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Quote: Advice to physicians
Keep your minds open, your hearts full, and your ears attuned to the calling. And, for goodness' sake, physicians, take care of yourselves!
Leon R. Kass
"Care of the Doctor"
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 1991;34:553-60.
Leon R. Kass
"Care of the Doctor"
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 1991;34:553-60.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Distilling the Wisdom of C.E.O.’s by Adam Bryant
NYTimes
Published: April 16, 2011
This article was adapted from “The Corner Office" by Adam Bryant
IMAGINE 100 people working at a large company. They’re all middle managers, around 35 years old. They’re all smart. All collegial. All hard-working. They all have positive attitudes. They’re all good communicators.
So what will determine who gets the next promotion, and the one after that?
5 Qualities of a leader are the following:
1) Passionate Curiosity
Many successful chief executives are passionately curious people. It is a side of them rarely seen in the media and in investor meetings, and there is a reason for that. In business, C.E.O.’s are supposed to project confidence and breezy authority as they take an audience through their projections of steady growth. Certainty is the game face they wear. They’ve cracked the code.
But get them away from these familiar scripts, and a different side emerges. They share stories about failures and doubts and mistakes. They ask big-picture questions. They wonder why things work the way they do and whether those things can be improved upon. They want to know people’s stories, and what they do.
It’s this relentless questioning that leads entrepreneurs to spot new opportunities and helps managers understand the people who work for them, and how to get them to work together effectively. It is no coincidence that more than one executive uttered the same phrase when describing what, ultimately, is the C.E.O.’s job: “I am a student of human nature.”
The C.E.O.’s are not necessarily the smartest people in the room, but they are the best students — the letters could just as easily stand for “chief education officer.”
Published: April 16, 2011
This article was adapted from “The Corner Office" by Adam Bryant
IMAGINE 100 people working at a large company. They’re all middle managers, around 35 years old. They’re all smart. All collegial. All hard-working. They all have positive attitudes. They’re all good communicators.
So what will determine who gets the next promotion, and the one after that?
5 Qualities of a leader are the following:
1) Passionate Curiosity
Many successful chief executives are passionately curious people. It is a side of them rarely seen in the media and in investor meetings, and there is a reason for that. In business, C.E.O.’s are supposed to project confidence and breezy authority as they take an audience through their projections of steady growth. Certainty is the game face they wear. They’ve cracked the code.
But get them away from these familiar scripts, and a different side emerges. They share stories about failures and doubts and mistakes. They ask big-picture questions. They wonder why things work the way they do and whether those things can be improved upon. They want to know people’s stories, and what they do.
It’s this relentless questioning that leads entrepreneurs to spot new opportunities and helps managers understand the people who work for them, and how to get them to work together effectively. It is no coincidence that more than one executive uttered the same phrase when describing what, ultimately, is the C.E.O.’s job: “I am a student of human nature.”
The C.E.O.’s are not necessarily the smartest people in the room, but they are the best students — the letters could just as easily stand for “chief education officer.”
There are plenty of people who are passionate, but many of their passions are focused on just one area. There are a lot of curious people in the world, but they can also be wallflowers.
Though chief executives are paid to have answers, their greatest contributions to their organizations may be asking the right questions. They recognize that they can’t have the answer to everything, but they can push their company in new directions and marshal the collective energy of their employees by asking the right questions.
Some of the most important advances come from asking, much like a persistent 5-year-old, the simplest questions. Why do you do that? How come it’s done this way? Is there a better way?
2) Battle-Hardened Confidence
Some qualities are easier to spot than others. Passionate curiosity? It’s there for all to see. There’s an energy from people who have it. Other qualities are tougher to discern, especially the ability to handle adversity. Some people embrace adversity, even relish it, and they have a track record of overcoming it. They have battle-hardened confidence.
The best predictor of behavior is past performance, and that’s why so many chief executives interview job candidates about how they dealt with failure in the past. They want to know if somebody is the kind of person who takes ownership of challenges or starts looking for excuses.
Though chief executives are paid to have answers, their greatest contributions to their organizations may be asking the right questions. They recognize that they can’t have the answer to everything, but they can push their company in new directions and marshal the collective energy of their employees by asking the right questions.
Some of the most important advances come from asking, much like a persistent 5-year-old, the simplest questions. Why do you do that? How come it’s done this way? Is there a better way?
2) Battle-Hardened Confidence
Some qualities are easier to spot than others. Passionate curiosity? It’s there for all to see. There’s an energy from people who have it. Other qualities are tougher to discern, especially the ability to handle adversity. Some people embrace adversity, even relish it, and they have a track record of overcoming it. They have battle-hardened confidence.
The best predictor of behavior is past performance, and that’s why so many chief executives interview job candidates about how they dealt with failure in the past. They want to know if somebody is the kind of person who takes ownership of challenges or starts looking for excuses.
“You can never really tell how somebody deals with adversity. When you have a difficult situation, some people just take it and run with it. Some people see adversity and they cower, as talented as they are. You could ask them about the adversity they had in the past, but you never really know the intensity of that adversity” said Jen-Hsun Huang of Nvidia.
Many C.E.O.’s seem driven by a strong work ethic forged in adversity. As they moved up in organizations, the attitude remained the same — this is my job, and I’m going to own it. Because of that attitude, they are rewarded with more challenges and promotions.
“I will ask them directly: ‘Give me an example of some adverse situation you faced, and what did you do about it, and what did you learn from it?’ The people I’ve hired who have had that ability to describe the situation have always worked out, because they’re able to sort of fall down, dust themselves off, and keep fighting the next day” said Nancy McKinstry, the chief executive of Wolters Kluwer, the Dutch publishing and information company.
Do they tend to blame failures on factors they cannot control, or do they believe they have the ability to shape events and circumstances by making the most of what they can control? It’s a positive attitude mixed with a sense of purpose and determination. People who have it will take on, and own, any assignment thrown their way. They say those words that are music to a manager’s ears: “Got it. I’m on it.”
3) Team Smarts
At some point, the notion of being a team player became devalued in corporate life. It has been reduced to a truism — I work on a team, therefore I am a team player. It’s a point captured in a cartoon, by Mike Baldwin, in which an interviewer says to a job candidate: “We need a dedicated team player. How are you at toiling in obscurity?”
The most effective executives are more than team players. They understand how teams work and how to get the most out of the group. Just as some people have street smarts, others have team smarts.
Team smarts is also about having good “peripheral vision” for sensing how people react to one another, not just how they act.
George S. Barrett, the chief executive of Cardinal Health, described an example of how he assessed managers when he moved into a new role.
“We were sitting with a group of about 40 to 50 managers, and people were standing up to raise certain issues,” he recalled. “And I watched this one executive. People were riveted to him, really listening and engaged. And then this other executive addressed the group, and I watched everyone’s eyes. And their eyes went back down to their tables. It was a clear signal that said, ‘You’ve lost us.’
Companies increasingly operate through ad hoc teams. Team smarts refers to the ability to recognize the players the team needs and how to bring them together around a common goal.
“Early on, I was wowed by talent, and I was willing to set aside the idea that this person might not be a team player,” said Susan Lyne, chairman of the Gilt Groupe. “Now, somebody needs to be able to work with people — that’s No. 1 on the list. I need people who are going to be able to build a team, manage a team, recruit well and work well with their peers. The people who truly succeed in business are the ones who actually have figured out how to mobilize people who are not their direct reports.”
4) A Simple Mind-Set
There is a stubborn disconnect in many companies. Most senior executives want the same thing from people who present to them: be concise, get to the point, make it simple. Yet few people can deliver the simplicity that many bosses want. Instead, they mistakenly assume that the bosses will be impressed by a long PowerPoint presentation that shows how diligently they researched a topic, or that they will win over their superiors by talking more, not less.
Few things seem to get C.E.O.’s riled up more than lengthy PowerPoint presentations. It’s not the software they dislike; that’s just a tool. What irks them is the unfocused thinking that leads to an overlong slide presentation. There is wide agreement it’s a problem: “death by PowerPoint” has become a cliché.
A lag exists in the business world. There was a time when simply having certain information was a competitive advantage. Now, in the Internet era, most people have easy access to the same information. That puts a greater premium on the ability to synthesize, to connect dots in new ways and to ask simple, smart questions that lead to untapped opportunities.
5) Fearlessness
Are you comfortable being uncomfortable? Do you like situations where there’s no road map or compass? Do you start twitching when things are operating smoothly, and want to shake things up? Are you willing to make surprising career moves to learn new skills? Is discomfort your comfort zone?
In other words, are you fearless?
Risk-taking is often a quality associated with entrepreneurs, the kind of people who make bet-the-farm wagers on a new idea. But risk-taking doesn’t quite capture the quality that many C.E.O.’s embody and look for and encourage in others.
With the business world in seemingly endless turmoil, maintaining the status quo — even when things appear to be working well — is only going to put you behind the competition. So when chief executives talk about executives on their staffs who are fearless, there is a reverence in their voices. They wish they could bottle it and pass it out to all their employees. They’re looking for calculated and informed risk-taking, but mostly they want people to do things — and not just what they’re told to do.
“One of the things that I characterize as fearlessness is seeing an opportunity, even though things are not broken,” said Ursula M. Burns, the C.E.O. of Xerox. “Someone will say: ‘Things are good, but I’m going to destabilize them because they can be much better and should be much better. We should change this.’ The easiest thing to do is to just keep it going the way it’s going, especially if it’s not perfect but it’s not broken. But you have to be a little bit ahead of it, and you have to try to fix it well before you have to. Companies get into trouble when they get really complacent, when they settle in and say, ‘O.K., we’re doing O.K. now.’ ”
“Specifically, in this culture I have to have people who not only can manage change but have an appetite for it,” said Mindy F. Grossman, the C.E.O. of HSN, the parent company of Home Shopping Network. “They tend to be more intellectually curious, so they don’t just have vertical climbs. I ask for those stories. I love hearing them and it gives me a real sense of the person.”
Chief executives advise that you will be rewarded for fearlessness, because so few people live that way and bring this attitude to work. It is risky. You may unsettle people by shaking up the status quo. But if you have the best interests of the organization in mind, you can unlock new opportunities for the company and for yourself.
C.E.O.’s can act as mentors to speed people along that learning curve. They may not develop silver-bullet theories, but they are experts in leadership because they practice it daily. And many of them have spent years honing their leadership styles, studying what works and what doesn’t, and then teaching others.
Chief executives face criticism from many corners, and it is often deserved. But there is no arguing that they have achieved a great deal.
Through their stories, lessons and insights, they have much to offer beyond the hard numbers.
Many C.E.O.’s seem driven by a strong work ethic forged in adversity. As they moved up in organizations, the attitude remained the same — this is my job, and I’m going to own it. Because of that attitude, they are rewarded with more challenges and promotions.
“I will ask them directly: ‘Give me an example of some adverse situation you faced, and what did you do about it, and what did you learn from it?’ The people I’ve hired who have had that ability to describe the situation have always worked out, because they’re able to sort of fall down, dust themselves off, and keep fighting the next day” said Nancy McKinstry, the chief executive of Wolters Kluwer, the Dutch publishing and information company.
Do they tend to blame failures on factors they cannot control, or do they believe they have the ability to shape events and circumstances by making the most of what they can control? It’s a positive attitude mixed with a sense of purpose and determination. People who have it will take on, and own, any assignment thrown their way. They say those words that are music to a manager’s ears: “Got it. I’m on it.”
3) Team Smarts
At some point, the notion of being a team player became devalued in corporate life. It has been reduced to a truism — I work on a team, therefore I am a team player. It’s a point captured in a cartoon, by Mike Baldwin, in which an interviewer says to a job candidate: “We need a dedicated team player. How are you at toiling in obscurity?”
The most effective executives are more than team players. They understand how teams work and how to get the most out of the group. Just as some people have street smarts, others have team smarts.
Team smarts is also about having good “peripheral vision” for sensing how people react to one another, not just how they act.
George S. Barrett, the chief executive of Cardinal Health, described an example of how he assessed managers when he moved into a new role.
“We were sitting with a group of about 40 to 50 managers, and people were standing up to raise certain issues,” he recalled. “And I watched this one executive. People were riveted to him, really listening and engaged. And then this other executive addressed the group, and I watched everyone’s eyes. And their eyes went back down to their tables. It was a clear signal that said, ‘You’ve lost us.’
Companies increasingly operate through ad hoc teams. Team smarts refers to the ability to recognize the players the team needs and how to bring them together around a common goal.
“Early on, I was wowed by talent, and I was willing to set aside the idea that this person might not be a team player,” said Susan Lyne, chairman of the Gilt Groupe. “Now, somebody needs to be able to work with people — that’s No. 1 on the list. I need people who are going to be able to build a team, manage a team, recruit well and work well with their peers. The people who truly succeed in business are the ones who actually have figured out how to mobilize people who are not their direct reports.”
4) A Simple Mind-Set
There is a stubborn disconnect in many companies. Most senior executives want the same thing from people who present to them: be concise, get to the point, make it simple. Yet few people can deliver the simplicity that many bosses want. Instead, they mistakenly assume that the bosses will be impressed by a long PowerPoint presentation that shows how diligently they researched a topic, or that they will win over their superiors by talking more, not less.
Few things seem to get C.E.O.’s riled up more than lengthy PowerPoint presentations. It’s not the software they dislike; that’s just a tool. What irks them is the unfocused thinking that leads to an overlong slide presentation. There is wide agreement it’s a problem: “death by PowerPoint” has become a cliché.
A lag exists in the business world. There was a time when simply having certain information was a competitive advantage. Now, in the Internet era, most people have easy access to the same information. That puts a greater premium on the ability to synthesize, to connect dots in new ways and to ask simple, smart questions that lead to untapped opportunities.
5) Fearlessness
Are you comfortable being uncomfortable? Do you like situations where there’s no road map or compass? Do you start twitching when things are operating smoothly, and want to shake things up? Are you willing to make surprising career moves to learn new skills? Is discomfort your comfort zone?
In other words, are you fearless?
Risk-taking is often a quality associated with entrepreneurs, the kind of people who make bet-the-farm wagers on a new idea. But risk-taking doesn’t quite capture the quality that many C.E.O.’s embody and look for and encourage in others.
With the business world in seemingly endless turmoil, maintaining the status quo — even when things appear to be working well — is only going to put you behind the competition. So when chief executives talk about executives on their staffs who are fearless, there is a reverence in their voices. They wish they could bottle it and pass it out to all their employees. They’re looking for calculated and informed risk-taking, but mostly they want people to do things — and not just what they’re told to do.
“One of the things that I characterize as fearlessness is seeing an opportunity, even though things are not broken,” said Ursula M. Burns, the C.E.O. of Xerox. “Someone will say: ‘Things are good, but I’m going to destabilize them because they can be much better and should be much better. We should change this.’ The easiest thing to do is to just keep it going the way it’s going, especially if it’s not perfect but it’s not broken. But you have to be a little bit ahead of it, and you have to try to fix it well before you have to. Companies get into trouble when they get really complacent, when they settle in and say, ‘O.K., we’re doing O.K. now.’ ”
“Specifically, in this culture I have to have people who not only can manage change but have an appetite for it,” said Mindy F. Grossman, the C.E.O. of HSN, the parent company of Home Shopping Network. “They tend to be more intellectually curious, so they don’t just have vertical climbs. I ask for those stories. I love hearing them and it gives me a real sense of the person.”
Chief executives advise that you will be rewarded for fearlessness, because so few people live that way and bring this attitude to work. It is risky. You may unsettle people by shaking up the status quo. But if you have the best interests of the organization in mind, you can unlock new opportunities for the company and for yourself.
C.E.O.’s can act as mentors to speed people along that learning curve. They may not develop silver-bullet theories, but they are experts in leadership because they practice it daily. And many of them have spent years honing their leadership styles, studying what works and what doesn’t, and then teaching others.
Chief executives face criticism from many corners, and it is often deserved. But there is no arguing that they have achieved a great deal.
Through their stories, lessons and insights, they have much to offer beyond the hard numbers.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
Osler, on being scientific
By scientific, I do not mean the acquisition of the bare facts of science, but an understanding of its methods, a realisation of its meaning and an inoculation with its spirit...It is an attitude of mind, a sort of reflex, which at once on the presentation of a problem makes a man burn until its solution is accomplished. until he knows the status of the question among the investigators of the world.
The Reserves of Life. St. Mary's Hospital Gazette 1907;13:95-98.
From Osler by Charles Bryan 1997.
The Reserves of Life. St. Mary's Hospital Gazette 1907;13:95-98.
From Osler by Charles Bryan 1997.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Quote: Knowledge & Wisdom
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more!
- Cowper.
..."sense" or "wisdom" is knowledge, ready for use, made effects and bears the same relationship to knowledge itself that bread does to wheat.
(From Osler by Charles Bryant. Oxford Univ. Press. p. 116)
Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.
- Tennyson
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more!
- Cowper.
..."sense" or "wisdom" is knowledge, ready for use, made effects and bears the same relationship to knowledge itself that bread does to wheat.
(From Osler by Charles Bryant. Oxford Univ. Press. p. 116)
Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.
- Tennyson
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)