Accepting Directorship?

[MasterintuBater]

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Recently got tapped on the shoulder to consider taking over Medical Director for our ED group, current director retiring after 25 years. It's a stable group no major headaches, other than being perpetually short at least one FT doc. It's a large CMG that owns the contract for our hospital as well as other surrounding hospitals in our area so the regional support is strong.

Any words of wisdom or warning regarding accepting a directorship at a young age (36)? My relationship with medical staff is strong, no real red flags that I can think of. Anyone go down this road, or watch one of their partners go down this road, only to regret it?

 

[Birdstrike]

Way back in the day, I was rotating in the ED as a medical student for the first time. I was loving every minute of it. The new ED director walked by me and the attending I was working with. Dr. Bill, my hero attending said, "Hey Tom, how're you likin' your new ED director job? I hardly ever see you working in the 'pit' any more."

Tom the new director answered, "I'm not quite sure yet, Bill, but I can't tell you how nice it is to finally be able to eat when I wanna eat and sh¡t when I wanna sh¡t."

We all "laughed out loud" (long before "lol!" was born). I didn't think much about the brief interaction after that, yet 15 years later it still rattles around in my head once in a while. If only I had known how prophetic that statement would become...

 

[EM_Rebuilder]

Not a department director, just an EMS medical director and also do some education stuff in our department.

As far as administrative tasks, I think its something you either love or hate. It has its OWN set of headaches, but the actual work hours tend to be better, yet the pay likely less.

If you like the political side of things and have interests more in operational problems, then you will likely enjoy it. Make certain the pay and hour commitment IS appropriate so that you can reduce your total department shifts. Some director jobs suck because the pay is so little that you would take a big pay hit from reducing shifts to give pay to admin duties..

What do you have to lose? Do it a year, if you hate it tell them to get someone else!

 

[Cerberus]

Out of curosity as someone taking a director position (not medical director) what is your hour reduction?

 

[dchristismi]

I'm a medical director, but in an academic-ish department, so I share administration duties with our Academic Chair. I do get a stipend, but whether I can cut my hours back depends on the staffing. I do go to a lot of meetings and am coordinating a big CME conference later this month. If I was doing all of it, I'm guessing the hour reduction would be pretty significant, but since we were short staffed for much of the last 2 years, it really didn't happen. Now, I do make the schedule, which is both a blessing and a curse, depending on how you look at it.