For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, like me, spring has transitioned into summer, allowing us all to spend more time outdoors, gathering again with family, friends, and colleagues. And, while people are always happy to hear about what’s going on with the family, or how things are going at Emory, the most common question I get is “So what’s it like to be President of CHEST?” Now that I’ve been on the job for 6 months, I thought it was well enough time to pull back the curtain on the role for all of you out in CHEST-land who might be interested, as well. For the purposes of this column, I’ll be incorporating things that occurred over the past week.
Dr. David Schulman
As I’ve previously reported, the most important decisions that relate to CHEST strategy are made by the Board of Regents. While I do have the privilege of organizing and running Board meetings, most presidential duties between these meetings focus on communication: with our members, our leaders, and other organizations. One of the best parts of the job is the opportunity to interact with our members; between the president@chestnet.org account and my own, I receive a couple of emails each day with questions about navigating CHEST, or ideas about ways that things might be better accomplished. With our recent Network and section reorganization, many of those questions have focused on leadership opportunities, inquiring about whether the writer should apply, or asking for information about the qualities that might increase the odds of earning a position. My answer is almost always the same: go ahead and throw your name in the hat; for most members, the sections are the first place to start the journey in CHEST leadership. And I’m pleased to say that I’ve had the chance to see some of the members who’ve reached out to me in the past selected for the positions to which they’d applied (in full disclosure, I have little role in selecting leadership positions; Network and section positions are chosen by current members of those Networks and sections). I look forward to watching their progress in our organizational leadership.
While CHEST CEO Robert Musacchio and I communicate almost every day, Wednesday is our weekly meeting during which we review progress on our organizational goals, the status of ongoing projects, and concerns from our membership and leadership. I also have the pleasure of meeting with my co-Presidents every other week; though Jack, Doreen, and Steve have always been happy to offer their counsel on very short notice, this semimonthly meeting helps to provide continuity in leadership, as well as a more formal opportunity for me to meet with trusted advisors to get a sounding board on active issues that affect CHEST. And, this gets to the other main job of CHEST President, which is to facilitate the making of important decisions on behalf of the College. I receive sporadic emails from CHEST staff as we are approached by other organizations or international partners for input on or approval for statements that they wish to make. In the case where the topic is clearly in the CHEST wheelhouse and the statement is consistent with our organizational goals, I can unilaterally sign off; a common example of something that fits in this category is content related to tobacco cessation. In the more frequent situation where the statement for approval is a bit more complex, I will usually refer the request to one of our committee, Network, or section chairs for consideration. Since the turnaround time on these requests is usually pretty short, I may ask them to advise me on their own, although they sometimes opt to run things by their own membership for further input or to achieve consensus.
The CHEST President also serves as ambassador to other organizations; this week, I had the pleasure of participating in a meeting with the American Board of Internal Medicine and a number of medical specialty leaders focused on how professional societies can help to mitigate the spread of medical misinformation. I also interfaced with several of our international partners in the pulmonary space, as they plan their own international meetings, to see how CHEST can contribute to the success of those endeavors by contributing content, speakers, or both. At the time of this writing, the CHEST Congress in Bologna, Italy, is right around the corner, and so I also spent time working with our Italian partners and program co-chair William Kelly, MD, FCCP, to finalize the meeting’s opening session. Though our own international meeting is still months away, work continues with the annual meeting innovations group, and I’ve been working with my own small team on some special surprises that you’ll hear more about in the coming months! The other CHEST meeting-related item on the front burner is the selection of the keynote speaker. The way this works is that I outline in broad strokes a sense of the flavor I’m targeting, and the CHEST staff work with a consulting group to propose some options. They provide me with a brief biography in clips, and we narrow the list down. As I write, we are finalizing our invitation, and I look forward to formally announcing the CHEST 2022 keynote speaker shortly!
After I explain the breadth of duties involved in my role, the most common follow-up question asked of me is whether I am enjoying the position. I’ll concede that it’s not for everyone. There’s a lot less independent decision-making than people assume. But, if you like getting to meet and interact with people from around the globe, helping them to see how CHEST can help them in their pursuits or career goals (and how they can help CHEST in our mission), it’s a super fun job. And I’ll most definitely miss it when I’m done.
So that, in brief, is an overview of what the CHEST President does. But each week is different. And, I get better at the job each day, as I learn something new about the position, the organization, and our outstanding members, leaders, and staff. I look forward to continuing to represent each of you in making decisions and communicating on behalf of CHEST. As always, I remain interested in your input as to how things are going; please consider reaching out to me at president@chestnet.org at your convenience. ... I expect to have a few minutes to write back sometime next Thursday.
Until next time,
David