Dr. Donald Palmisano, past-president of the American Medical Association and clinical professor of surgery and medical jurisprudence at Tulane University School of Medicine, discusses his new book, On Leadership, Essential Principles for Success which includes lessons about leadership, resiliency and preparedness that come from experiences in the ranks of healthcare workers.
Transcript Excerpt
If you are just joining us, you are listening to The Clinician's Roundtable on ReachMD, The Channel for Medical Professionals. I am your host, Dr. Maurice Pickard. I am speaking with Dr. Donald Palmisano. Dr. Palmisano is a Clinical Professor of Surgery at the Tulane University School of Medicine and the former president of the American Medical Association. He has just written a book and is called On Leadership: Essential Principles for Success.
I know you were born and raised and practiced in New Orleans. The first chapter of your book deals with Katrina. Did this what happened in Katrina, you know, the leadership that was shown or the lack of leadership that was shown prompt you to write this book?
DR. DONALD PALMISANO:
We have learned a lot of lessons and now we are ready and so what happens when Katrina comes. Katrina arrives and all of these lessons were not used and did not have communications, did not have places where people could go for shelter, and to have the supplies there, it was just a disaster, and that was an example of not having effective leadership. You have to be able to be prepared. You have to be able to make decisions in a crisis even when you don't have all of the information and you can't be bound by some rule book that says you must contact somebody else before this patient's life is saved. No, you need to act now and so that gave me the first chapter, but the point that I make in this book, I listed 20 elements of leadership that I have learned from observing leaders and also from reading history. I won't go through the 20 points, but I can say in a sentence the leader is defined as a fully informed and decisive person with integrity who advances courageously toward a goal and is determined to overcome obstacles and setbacks along the way and the bottom line of that you can't be a leader without courage and the ability to make a decision and act on it in a crisis when time does not allow waiting for all of the facts....read more