Below is the text of an executive farewell speech written for the American Medical Association
House of Delegates Annual Meeting
June 18, Chicago
Thank you for that welcome. It’s good to be among you for a short while yet.
As an otolaryngologist, I know how important it is to have a voice. I’m proud to have lent mine to the AMA for the past nine years.
I like to think it’s been a voice of reason, sound guidance and, ultimately, consensus. And as a man who has dared to stand in front of his employees while wearing a giant turkey suit, I like to think it’s been a voice that hasn’t been afraid of advocating for what’s right. Even when I knew my tail feathers might get singed.
Usually, on this occasion, I would stand before you to tell you about our goals for the year ahead. Today, as I wrap up my time with the AMA, you’ll have to permit me to reflect on a few of our accomplishments of the last nine years.
I feel incredible pride in the job we have done. We have kept the AMA financially healthy.
Our management is strong.
Our marketing is focused.
And we’ve made sure that the AMA has had a voice that even an otolaryngologist would find impressive.
There have been struggles, of course. But in the end, I take pleasure in what we have done with the AMA in a decade that has brought us challenges including a major recession, association apathy that cuts across all professions, a huge surge in the way we all interact with technology, and the biggest healthcare debate since the formation of Medicare.
In short, it’s been anything but boring.
FINANCIAL SUCCESS
One of the things I’m most proud of is the financial health of the AMA. Maybe it’s the MBA in me. Even in times during which membership was a struggle, we managed to be profitable. Oftentimes, strongly profitable.
When I arrived here in 2002, we were coming off a year in which annual operating results were only about $5 million. In my first year, we more than doubled that. And by 2004, we hit nearly $40 million.
I can’t say that we achieved success without sacrifice. When revenues fell in 2008, I knew we had to make some tough decisions. Some of them weren’t all that hard—things like holding all Board meetings here in Chicago, cutting back on travel expenses and making much better use of electronic delivery to get production costs down. There were other decisions that were much tougher, both on me and on our staff. But I was willing to make them because I knew my responsibility was to keep the AMA healthy. Maybe that’s the physician in me.
By the end of 2009, operating results were back up over $16 million, and last year we came just shy of hitting $24 million, thanks in large part to strong publishing and business revenues.
And in 2010 we marked our 11th straight year of operating profits. Maybe it’s the otolaryngologist in me that makes me want to make sure you hear that.
As physicians, we know that numbers are only part of any story. For the AMA, solid financial standing means we have the resources and reserves to be effective in our service to physicians and our public policy initiatives. To further my ENT analogy, money is the muscle that keeps the AMA vocal cords ready for action.
STRONG TEAM
We couldn’t have made such strides without a strong senior management team.
From day one, I’ve taken very seriously my role in making sure we have top people in our top jobs, and investing in their talents. I took care in choosing a team that was up to the task of furthering both the historic mission of the AMA and guiding it into a future of action and relevancy. Some were seasoned AMA veterans. Some came from the outside. Many of them are still ably guiding us.
I tasked the Board of Trustees with a few new missions as well. In official terms, the Board is supposed to “promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.” We wanted them to better understand the business of medicine as well. So, as if years of medical school, internship, residency and practice weren’t enough, we sent them to business school. They attended customized executive education seminars at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management as well as at Harvard. They delved into the finer points of corporate responsibility, “Co-opetition” and other matters that could help the AMA help physicians help patients.
They brought back many positive ideas, proving once again that good people and good education are the foundation of success.
But process and strategy count too.
That’s why, shortly after I came to the AMA, we began a year-long “Organization of Organizations” process followed by an in-depth review of membership and business processes.
It set the groundwork for much of what we accomplished. Our three pillars were advocacy, involvement and communication. They’ve guided much of what we have done.
MARKETING
Part of that effort has been establishing a strong, cohesive brand image for the AMA. Branding is more than making sure your brochures look good. It’s also about building strength by making sure everyone—internally and externally—has a vision of who you are and what you stand for. And it’s about sticking to that vision, and living that vision in our professional lives.
Sometimes, it seemed, the AMA had bumblebee vision in the beginning—there was a lot of image fragmentation, and we weren’t always consistent.
I recognized that we needed a Chief Marketing Officer. Someone who could help the AMA speak with a stronger, more unified voice and bring consistency to our efforts.
The AMA had never had a CMO before. Once we hired one, it was quickly apparent we couldn’t ever get by without that kind of leadership again. Together, we undertook a major branding campaign.
Produced a new logo punctuated by a more modern staff of Aesculapius.
And created powerful, effective campaigns like “Everyday Heroes” and “Voice for the Uninsured” that spoke directly to the public and affirmed our image as an organization that was there to help doctors help patients. Let’s look at the “Voice for the Uninsured” campaign for just a moment. By the time I spoke to you here in 2008, the campaign had been seen more than 180 million times. More than 280,000 people visited the website. And many of those turned around and signed a petition to Congress.
We also found new partners, including the AARP, that had missions complementary to our own. And we reached out more vigorously to state and specialty associations, soliciting their feedback as well as their membership through Member Connect.
We got better at communicating with our members—we email our “Morning Rounds” news roundup to more than 60,000 members each weekday.
And we know that even physicians who don’t join us outright derive great value from our publications and products, which we are now much better at promoting. The JAMA/Archives media relations team has made sure of that. And I can’t even tell you how many awards our publications have received over the last decade. I think there were a dozen between 2006 and 2007 alone.
So it isn’t just a slogan: We are Moving Medicine Forward. And, Together We Are Stronger.
AMA AS RELEVANT NATIONAL PLAYER
We drew on that strength like never before when it came time to help shape the national healthcare debate.
While not everyone agreed with the final AMA position, to be silent would have been to risk irrelevancy as an organization.
Instead, we have remained the most prominent voice of the medical profession, both in the eyes of the public and in Washington, D.C., where the most important decisions get made. And make no mistake about it, issues will arise that will make you want to be heard again.
With hundreds of specialty and subspecialty associations out there, it’s been especially important to make sure that our impact as physicians is not fragmented—that at least one voice be powerful enough to be heard by everyone.
Without that voice, we might not have gotten the extension that again delayed Medicare reimbursement cuts.
Without that voice, we probably wouldn’t have the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act.
Without that voice, physicians might be blocked from owning their specialty hospitals.
And without that voice, there wouldn’t likely be much movement on malpractice reform or many other issues that directly affect physicians, their patients and their communities.
That’s not a voice any of us wants to lose. And we’ve worked exceptionally hard to make sure that that voice stays strong. It’s no coincidence that we moved our D.C. offices closer to the action—we now have literally more proximity to power.
RESPONSIVENESS
But we also have ears. We know that today’s physicians often feel under siege, often by productivity quotas, insurance paperwork and their own desire for a full private life. Just as we’ve created advocacy programs to help doctors achieve their higher goals, we’ve worked toward giving them more products to help them in their daily professional lives. We’ve laid groundwork, and the effort is ongoing. I hope you will all continue to weigh in on ways the AMA can help your local state members.
THANKS TO STAFF
Finally, as I leave, I want to voice my appreciation for the entire AMA staff, from the people who have the big offices to the people who staff our front desks and security kiosks. Not to mention the folks in the AMA Unified Service Center, which in 2006 was named a Center of Excellence—that’s something the 300,000 or so people who call them every year doubtlessly already know.
In addition to doing an outstanding job, the employees of the AMA made my tenure both more rewarding and, oftentimes, more fun. It was part of my job to motivate them, but in many ways, it was they who motivated me. For every time I pulled on a goalie suit or played the Blackhawks “score” music to raise the energy in the room, they were right there, ready to win one for the team. They’ve done a great job of supporting me as well as supporting one another and standing strong for the AMA.
The people here produced a video a while back featuring our employees speaking about me as their CEO, friend—and secret lover of figure skating. I was touched by much of what they said, but one comment really stands out as appropriate for this occasion. In that video, Mike Skowronski said of me, “He’s always said thank you.”
I wouldn’t want to contradict him.
So to Mike, and to all of you, thank you.
Thank you for making me feel welcome from the very start. Thank you for making these last nine years a time of great accomplishment and deep satisfaction. Thank you for being a part of the house of medicine, and a big part of my own family of medicine.
And, of course, I thank you, our delegates. Thank you for being physicians who care deeply about your profession. Thank you for giving so much time to your AMA activities, when you doubtlessly have families, friends and other ways you might want to spend a lovely weekend in June. Thank you for always letting me know where you stand, whether or not you agreed with me. Thank you for letting me stand before you and offer my voice for these past several years. Thank you for being here today, and always.
(pause)
Thank you.