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AAMC Reporter: November 2006
A Word from the President:
"Revving Up Our Engines With Some STP"
When the AAMC Executive Committee charged us to
engage in a new strategic process for the organization, I
knew the last thing we wanted was to labor over producing
a voluminous document—as so many of us have—that ends up in a vinyl binder gathering dust on a shelf!
Rather, we saw this as an opportunity to energize the governance
and the AAMC staff by engaging in new modes
of thinking that would position the association most
effectively for the future.We are calling this process
"strategic thinking and positioning" (hence the "STP"
acronym). In the coming months, our leadership,members,
staff, and external stakeholders will engage in highlevel
thinking about what kind of organization the
AAMC should be to meet the myriad challenges and
complexities we face over the next two to seven years.
To help "start our engines," the governance met in small
group sessions at its September meeting to discuss the
association's mission statement and the five strategic
commitments developed during the AAMC's last strategic
planning process in 1994. The questions raised by
these discussions were so intriguing—particularly with
regard to our mission, role, and our collective competencies
that I wanted to share some of my impressions.
For me, the most interesting discussion focused on our
mission. The reality is that we are a membership organization,
and as such, represent the interests of our members.
However, our mission statement—"to improve the
health of the public by enhancing the effectiveness of academic
medicine"—says that we are committed above all
to advancing the health of the public. This distinction
generated one of the liveliest discussions at the governance
meeting.Do we advance the interests of our members
and hope the public ultimately benefits? Or do we
focus first and foremost on what will benefit the public,
even if it conflicts with the best interests of our individual
members? While everyone agreed that this dynamic tension
is to some degree inevitable, I came away feeling
more strongly than ever how deeply committed our
members are to aligning their activities with the greater
good of the health of the public.
This discussion also raised some important questions
about the "boundaries" of AAMC activities. For example,
there are disciplinary boundaries, and the question of
whether we should more actively collaborate with other
health professions such as nursing and pharmacy. There
also are geographic boundaries, and the question of
whether, in an era of increasing globalization, we should
reach out to the international medical school community.
These questions naturally led to debate about our primary
role as an organization and the competencies
needed to perform that role. Is advocacy our primary
role? Educating the public? Strengthening our member
institutions and our system of medical education? All
three? If so, what should the balance be among them?
Depending on our answers to these questions, we may
need to consider developing new organizational competencies,
the key talents, expertise, and skill sets we need
within the AAMC to carry out these roles in the years
ahead.With so many changes to our operating environment
since 1994, as well as a rising level of member
services, ensuring the appropriate mix of competencies
will be critical to our success.
As an indication of the task before us, we have only to
look to the results of an "emerging trends" exercise conducted
prior to the September governance meeting. In
separate surveys, AAMC senior staff and executive
council members were asked to identify the top trends
likely to affect academic medicine in three domains: society,
our field, and within the AAMC itself.Hundreds of
trends were identified, with the overwhelming number of
trends falling into the category of clinical care, as opposed
to education or research.We now have synthesized these
trends into 68 distinct categories and are working to further
aggregate them into some key "megatrends." Though
we are only at the beginning of our analysis, I would like
to offer two observations.
First, we need to accept just how complex and unpredictable
our world has become. Accelerated access to new
technologies, continued growth of other associations with
similar interests, the increasing need for collaboration—these are just a few of the trends identified that will
require us to be an even more agile organization that
rapidly responds to a changing environment.
Second, the fact that most of the trends related to the
clinical arena (continued growth of the uninsured,
greater need to manage chronic disease, escalating health
care costs) was not surprising, given the many dysfunctional
aspects of our health care system. This finding not
only affirms the challenges our institutions face individually,
it also reminds us of one of our enduring strengths;
that despite massive challenges in our clinical mission,
we always seek to stay focused on our duties, obligations,
and opportunities in education and research. As we
move forward with the STP process itself, we must continue
to do so.
My first 100 days as AAMC president have confirmed to
me that we are a strong organization clearly headed in a
positive direction.While I do not expect a dramatic
change in focus, I do think we will need to be a different
kind of organization to be ready to respond to the complex
challenges we see (and especially to those we do not
see) in the years ahead.While our STP process ultimately
will result in a document setting the AAMC agenda in the
years to come, the discussion and consensus that emerge
from this process will be by far our most important products,
and I believe will truly give us "the racer's edge."
Darrell G. Kirch, M.D.
AAMC President
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