Year End Review: Strategic Plan 2017-2019:
Thrive by Leading & Caring
By Christopher Hickey, LMS EVP/CEO
It is hard to believe Dr. Charles Papp’s year as our LMS president is concluding. The year included sustaining successful programs started in previous years and implementing a couple of new ones.
Here is a review of our past year.
Goal 1: Physician Wellness
The LMS Physician Wellness Program (PWP), has completed its fourth year. The PWP provides free counseling sessions, 8 per calendar year, to address life’s normal difficulties with a psychologist group LMS has contracted with. This service is completely confidential. LMS pays a monthly invoice based on the number of visits, no names. The PWP service started in January, 2016 and expanded to include all University of Kentucky Graduate Medical Education residents and fellows in July, 2016. The PWP, since its inception, has provided 818 counseling sessions for active physicians and residents and fellows.
LMS, in working with other medical societies with PWPs, has created an award-winning toolkit and website (physicianwellnessprogram.org) which provides medical societies with all the tools they need to start a program. The result is over two dozen medical societies have established PWPs for their members. This is up from three at the beginning of 2016.
Analysis: Continue to fund and support the LMS PWP.
Goal 2: Physician Leadership Development
LMS continued to support the Kentucky Physician Leadership Institute (KPLI) and the Leadership of the Business of Medicine workshops. KMA’s KPLI launched its inaugural year in 2017. This program focuses on developing physician leaders through four, two-day overnight sessions on topics of personal leadership, business leadership, advocacy leadership, and leadership on a critical health care issue. The sessions are led by a talented faculty team from Butler University. LMS has sent 11 physicians to the KPLI program since its inaugural year in 2017. Feedback from LMS KPLI participants was entirely positive. LMS will fund three more slots for the 2020 class. Contact LMS if you are interested and want more information.
The Leadership of the Business of Medicine workshops leverages the existence of a world class business program here in Lexington. LMS has partnered with the University of Kentucky’s Gatton College of Business of Economics to provide these four-hour workshops. The logic of the program is that physicians require business knowledge whether they are in private practice or a major health care system. Gatton tailors the workshops on business topics for our physicians. We launched a pilot workshop, “Negotiations,” in April, 2017 and the feedback from our member participants was positive. We had one workshop, Healthcare Finance, in 2019.
Analysis: Continue to fund three LMS physician slots for KMA’s Kentucky Physician Leadership Institute (KPLI). LMS will bring back a program, Woman Physician Leadership Initiative, in 2020. This program was well attended by 48 of our woman members in 2018. Additionally, LMS will host several Private Practice Business Forums in 2020.
Goal 3: Support for Early Career Physicians/Students
LMS continued to support two longstanding programs and started a new initiative. LMS held its sixth “Career Chats” event in September. Medical students chated with physicians representing over 15 specialties. This event, which includes catered food and refreshments, typically attracts over 120 medical students and 50 physicians and gets positive reviews by all. Additionally, LMS supports a pizza welcome lunch for the incoming medical student class and is a Match Day sponsor. Through the Kentucky Doc Magazine, LMS supports an annual essay contest and awards thousands of dollars in prizes. The essay contest is especially popular among medical students and residents.
The LMS-U.K. College of Medicine Mentorship Program launched in August 2017 and is currently in its third year. The program pairs our physicians with third year medical students. The concept is the program is centralized structured by LMS to match the participants and monitor program progress but decentralized executed by the mentors and mentees based on their time and interests. The program averages mentoring 35 medical students per year. Click here if you like to become a mentor of a third year U.K. medical student.
A new program started in 2019 was the LMS Foundation Medical Student Emergency Relief program. This program provides grants to medical students, those who otherwise don’t have a means of support, to address life emergencies. The program is supported by LMS, the LMS Foundation, and member contributions. One grant was awarded to help a medical student in 2019. Click here if you would like to give a donation to this fund.
Analysis: Continue support for U.K. College of Medicine through “Career Chats,” the incoming class welcome lunch, Match Day sponsorship, the mentorship program, and the Medical Student Emergency Relief program.
Goal 4: Legislative Advocacy
LMS integrates with the legislative advocacy efforts and programs of the KMA and AMA. Each year LMS sends 30 physicians to KMA House of Delegates to develop KMA’s policies on community health and other issues of importance to physicians. Our delegates met twice prior to the House of Delegates, at LMS Caucus Meetings, to develop resolutions to be considered by the House of Delegates. A similar process occurs at the AMA level. KMA periodically asks, during the state legislative sessions, LMS physicians to provide expertise at state legislative committee hearings. In 2019 LMS physicians attended the Physicians’ Day at the Capitol and the AMA National Advocacy Conference to meet with our state and federal legislators. At the city level, Mayor Linda Gorton was our guest speaker at our May dinner meeting. LMS formed the LMS Legislative Task Force, over a dozen members of varying backgrounds and specialties, who would be willing to speak to legislative panels or write op eds regarding health care issues.
Analysis: LMS will continue to support KMA advocacy efforts with our LMS Legislative Task Force and programs such as the Physician Day at the Capitol, the KMA Annual Meeting and House of Delegates. LMS will continue to invite our federal and state legislators to periodically speak at our dinner meetings. LMS will continue to send its leadership to the annual AMA National Advocacy Conference in talk with our federal legislators.
Goal 5: Improve Community Health
LMS, new in 2019, hosted a community health symposium on the opioid epidemic. The event was attended by over one hundred of our members and received very positive feedback.
LMS helps many Lexington, medical-related, non-profit organizations through our LMS Foundation. Each year LMS awards nearly $25,000 in grants to organizations such as the Ronald McDonald House, Surgery on Sunday, Camp Horsin’ Around, the Baby Health Service, and many others. Most of the funds are raised by the annual LMS Foundation Golf Tournament which is organized by the LMS Golf Committee led by LMS Foundation President John Collins, M.D.
Analysis: Host another community health symposium in 2020. Continue to support, thru the LMS Foundation, Lexington-area medical non-profits.
LMS continues to focus its energy and resources to add value to our physicians. We will constantly drive towards the vision of supporting passion for the practice of medicine. Let us know if you like to get further involved with the Society, provide feedback for existing programs, or have ideas for new programs. Our strategic planning, by its nature, is never done and we will constantly innovate and adapt to serve those who serve others.
