An emergency physician, who is a good clinician, also has an entrepreneurial spirit. Following the mantra of business to �find a legal need and fill it,� he decides to establish a professional group of emergency physicians. He initially enlists the participation of several friends who are emergency docs, and they land a couple of hospital contracts. They provide good care in an efficient manner, and quickly build an excellent reputation. As the head of the physician group, he recruits several other physicians from around the country, with the lure of excellent compensation packages and good administrative support. He makes a concerted effort to mentor his younger colleagues so that they can grow in their leadership abilities. After less than 10 years, with progressive growth of the group to contracts with more than a hundred hospitals, the board of directors, which he chairs, and on which sit several of the physicians he had mentored, votes him out as President and Chairman of the Board.
1. Is this rare? Are you aware of basically similar situations?
2. Based on the admittedly limited information presented in the situation above, are there steps the group founder might
have been able to take to reduce the potential for losing his job?
3.How would you counsel a subordinate who expresses hesitancy in mentoring, out of fear of repeating a situation similar to the
emergency physician who no longer heads the organization he started?
1 answer