← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm Chris Sosa, your host. I'm so very happy to be joined today by Dr. Joe Pishon, who, of course, is the CEO of Jefferson Health in the Greater Philadelphia area. Joe, how are you today?
- [00:12]
B
I'm good. How are you doing, Chris?
- [00:14]
A
Not bad. Not bad at all. I'm so glad you're able to join us today for conversation about who you are as a leader. What got you here, you know? You ready to discuss that?
- [00:24]
B
Absolutely.
- [00:25]
A
Wonderful, Wonderful. My first question for you simply is, what is something you've learned outside of healthcare that you've applied to your career?
- [00:33]
B
You know, I come from a family of coaches. My brothers are all football coaches. And in fact, they tell me I'm the only failure in the family, that I wasn't a football coach. And I actually coached little league baseball and middle school basketball when I was in college. And, you know, sometimes as a CEO, you feel like a coach, very competitive. So I'm always looking to win. So that's first thing about being a coach and, you know, keeping score. You know, if we're going to do something, we'd like to see how it works. And so, you know, sporting events keep score and tell you if you've won or lost a game and help you keep score on how effective you are. It's really a microcosm of management, and I think that's why. I think that's why some of our athletes do so well in management, because they are competitive and they are. They work toward a goal and they're good team players. So as a coach, you know, I see my role today as a coach managing a much bigger team of 65,000 colleagues. But I think a lot of the things I learned about just human nature and how to get more out of people really were. Some of that work was foundational in my coaching experience.
- [01:59]
A
Joe, do you ever find any coach isms coming out when you speak to your staff? Are there certain messages, mantras, you know, anything of that sort of nature that. That comes out from that experience you have?
- [02:11]
B
You know, I would say, you know, I use a term that is probably not really. It was implied in coaching. And I, you know, I was coaching middle schooler, so we couldn't be too cerebral about. But, you know, the term that comes to mind is we have met the enemy and they are us. Mentor. That gave me that. And, and candidly, that is true sometimes we're our own worst enemy. And so I say that oftentimes to our team, if we have met the enemy and it is us. And so we can't. Sometimes we got to get out of our own way.
- [02:46]
A
Got it. I'm sure a lot of your colleagues and leadership can relate to that message. If not your team, certainly your team can, right?
- [02:54]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [02:56]
A
Along those lines, Joe, my next question for you is simply, what is something you've learned about yourself from working in healthcare?
- [03:03]
B
You know, when you interview for medical school, the first question they ask is, why do you want to be a doctor? And you know, the answer that you're supposed to give always is, I want to help people. And what I have found over the course of my career is that is something that is fundamental to why I went into medicine is the genuine care of people and looking to make people better, whether it be emotionally, physically, however, to support people through times of need. And I think healthcare and higher education, I think are, when done correctly and done successfully, I think make people's lives better, whether it be physically or from a career standpoint. And so I. I really believe that I have a. A genuine care of people. I had somebody ask me one time, why do you care so much? And it's not something that you try to do, it's just something that happens. And, you know, I. I don't want it to sound too altruistic, but it. It is fundamental to my DNA. And I think as I' further in my career, it's. It's been more. I've been more aware of sometimes. I know people would laugh, they say, what a pushover. But at some times, as I've gotten older, maybe I'm becoming softer. And I think a lot of that comes back to that. It's not just sympathy, it's really empathy. Being able to try and put yourself in people's shoes, know what they're going through, and be able to help them through a trying time in their life.
- [04:58]
A
Well, Joe, I, for one, I'm never going to ask you to apologize for being altruistic. I think that the world needs as much of that as it can possibly get, including from people such as yourself who are in leadership positions of health care and other related organizations. So definitely hold on to that. I would recommend. I'm glad you have and will likely continue to do so. Joe, shifting slightly here. You've been at this a while, and I think that's a good thing, and I hope you're at this for a good while longer. But what do you consider to this point your most memorable day, your most memorable period of your career?
- [05:35]
B
I would say I've got a few career events that really. And one that just happened to me. And I will tell you that I talked to young doctors and young medical students and people thinking about medicine. About six months ago, I got a phone call on my cell phone number I didn't recognize. And it was a former patient of mine from, probably from 30 years ago.
- [06:07]
A
Wow. All right.
- [06:08]
B
And I remember that. I remember the patient very well because he was 45 years old or so. Walked, cry. I was in the emergency room as a cardiologist. He walked in front of me and walked right across and dropped over and had cardiac arrest. And we resuscitated him and took him to the cath lab and opened an artery and, you know, turned out very well. And. But he was calling me on his 75th birthday with his grandchildren around him to tell me thank you for 38 years of life and thank you for the time he got to spend with his grandchildren. There are very few things in life, very few careers that would afford you that level of. I can tell you that when I talk to young doctors about the rewards of being in medicine, sure, doctors are paid well, all that stuff. But at the end of the day, that has left an indelible mark on me and it affirms all the things I knew about myself of why I went into medicine is that idea that I changed that person, that whole family's life. They had a grandpa, they had that he gave his daughter away at her wedding. He walked me through his life that he wouldn't have had I not been there that day to, to bring him back. And it's a humbling experience. And that to me is a story that I'll take with me forever and may, you know, the 35 years or 30 years or so of, of the trials and tribulations of being in a complicated field of medicine and healthcare today, those kinds of things make it all worth it because. And I have other stories about. You know, I had a. I was with my 12 year old daughter in a grocery store and a lady came up to me and said Dr. Cashone, I just wanted to say hello and thank you for taking care of my mother. And I was like, oh, you know, as a cardiologist you're always worried. Are they still around? And yeah, my mom passed and she passed while under your care. And but, and she, and I vaguely remembered the story was a lady who was from a nursing home that was, had pretty end stage dementia and they brought her in, they brought her into the ICU and they were. Had her on a Ventilator. And, and it was, they were really pulling out a lot of stops. And, and I sat the family down and just said, listen, I, I think we should probably just let nature take its course and allow mom to go in with dignity. And, and she said to me that day at the grocery store in front of my daughter, she said, you allowed my mother to die with dignity rather than to. And so there was a story about saving a life, but there was also a story about helping people at the most vulnerable time at the end of life and helping them get through a transition, helping the family make a transition to let go when it was appropriate to let go. And my daughter was like teary eyed when. And so, you know, those two things are in health care there. And there are nurses that have those stories, there are doctors that have those stories. I mean, frankly, anybody inside healthcare have, have those stories that will leave indelible marks in your personality and indelible marks in your career and makes you feel, makes you put your shoes on every day and be excited about coming to work.
- [09:56]
A
Joe, what one part about those stories that you told me. Thank you for sharing those. I'm sure our audience will love hearing them as much as I have. But one thing that stands out about them is just, it has to be so gratifying to build that level of trust with patience that they're able to tell you that, whether it's 30 years later or the story you just told about the woman who lost her mom, that, yeah, these are most vulnerable times. And to build that level of trust, understanding that you have their best interest in mind, no matter what the outcome is going to be and no matter what you're able to do for them at that time. I mean, I can only imagine the amount of gratification you receive.
- [10:35]
B
And I think that comes back to some of the things that, in terms of leadership, which I try to use, I'm a very relational leader, I can tell you that. I walk our halls of our executive suite here and I talk to my executives every day. And it's because. But I am somebody who really tries to establish relationships because we're going to have times where we disagree in the business world or in the management of a health care organization or higher education, we're going to disagree on things, but when we walk out the door, we still have the relationship and those relationships stand over time. And so I think those are a really important part of leadership is relationships. And it's, you know, directly emanates from the relationships I had with patients and patients Families is those are important things because they get you through the trying times.
- [11:29]
A
Yeah, I love that you're able to share that with us, Joe. And you know, I'm sure a lot of your colleagues can relate in our audience as well. So thank, thank you so much again for sharing that shifting just a little bit here. You've been again, you've been at, at this a while. You've been a physician, you've been a CEO, you've been so many things. So given what you have seen, question for you is what issue or aspects of healthcare do you think deserves a brighter spotlight and who do you think should be shining said spot spotlight?
- [12:02]
B
I think healthcare is always in, is periodically gets in the crosshairs because it is expensive and there's always this idea that health care is a certain percentage of GDP and we're spending too much on health care. And I think we have a responsibility to be more better financial stewards of healthcare. But I think the underestimated part of what happens in healthcare is the emotional support that every member of the healthcare team provides to people during vulnerable times. And I don't think that gets that know the nurse who's sitting with a family at 2 in the morning while they're on somebody's deathbed, or somebody who is there at the time of a, of a challenging baby delivery, the nurses and the staff and the doctors that support the families during that time, those are, those are heroes. You know, we use the word hero a lot in healthcare during COVID You know, healthcare heroes. And I think there was some true heroic things that happened during healthcare. But I would tell you it's not that much different than what it is all the time. Covid was not that much different. The only difference with COVID was we weren't able to compartmentalize. So people that went home, they went home and they had to deal with COVID because it was everywhere. But what happens in healthcare is a nurse who's taking care of an ICU patient and the family and supporting them through that 12 hour shift that she, he or she is on that is so underestimated. That emotional support that they give to those families and people don't and they underestimate the drain, the emotional drain on staff. It is to support people. And you know, the good news is they can compartmentalize that they can go home to their pets or their children or their spouse or their loved ones and they can go home and compartmentalize it during COVID We couldn't do that. That's why there was so much stress during health and the healthcare worker during COVID But I think that we need to continue to show a spotlight on that frontline worker that every day is there to emotionally support the patients that don our door, the families that are with their loved ones at the most vulnerable times. And I don't think that that gets enough attention. And I think, you know, healthcare takes a beating about oh, you're too expensive, it's inefficient, all this stuff. But at the day to day, I tell you those nurses I toured one of our hospitals about three weeks ago. I talked to the emergency room nurses they had, six of the nurses were assaulted during a 10 day period in our, one of our emergency rooms by patients. And they didn't stop coming to work. They were there to support, they didn't, they moved on to the next patient after that occurred. And I think that frontline worker needs the spotlight shown on them every day because what they do for society is remarkable. And sometimes today, and it's more common today than ever, is sometimes at their own peril.
- [15:34]
A
Joe, you mentioned, to use your word, peril, you mentioned the assault, which is obviously horrible when you look at a subject like that. What can you do? What is the best thing you can do as a healthcare system to help support them in that time of need?
- [15:51]
B
Well, first of all, we have to do better with and we do. We've now have 75 police officers at Jefferson that are Jefferson police officers. They're not security. We also have over 500 security personnel that work in our emergency rooms and all across the system to help protect. But these things happen so quickly. Security. We couldn't hire enough people to have everybody covered every minute of every day. So we keep putting resources in. I know the hospital associations have been trumpeting this from the highest mountains, both the American Hospital association, the American Nurses association, ama. The number of things that are happening to healthcare workers is very challenging today. And so we have to be able to support our staff, we have to be able to protect them as best we can. We have to have zero tolerance for people that choose to assault patients. And we have to go through the legal system to enforce that. We are not here as punching bags for anyone. And so, you know, supporting our staff as best we can through these times and providing as much security as possible is very important. And I think every health system executive feels this way right now. I have been in conversations with many of my colleagues about the, the, the difficulties we have with workplace violence in health care today. And it's, it doesn't seem to be getting better. There's more attention to it, but it just doesn't seem to be getting better.
- [17:35]
A
Got it. Thank you, Joe. Thank you for illuminating some of the things that Jefferson's doing to try and mitigate that a little bit. But I am glad that you mentioned the emotional support aspect of healthcare and how there are so many people who embody it. I'm also curious though, what do you consider is an underrated leadership trait, whether it's through frontline workers or CEOs such as yourself? So what's an underrated leadership trait in your book and who have you seen embody it? It could be one person, a group of people. How do you see fit to spot like that?
- [18:08]
B
Hard for a cardiologist to say this, but no. Humility, I think is probably the most important leadership trait. You know, to me, humility allows you to be a better listener if you're only listening to people, to know when you can start talking, it's because you feel too, you've always solved these, solved the problem. So I think humility makes, has made me a much better listener and has made me understand. And I'll go back to the values of my parents instilled in me is never get too big for your britches. And my mom was always the one that would knock you right back down to size. And that really, I think, instilled that value of humility in. And I think that's something that is underrated as a leadership characteristic that I think makes a difference. There are other things that I think are important and that is having the confidence to be able to delegate, hire top talent and delegate responsibility. If you're a micromanager, you're going to find yourself with a bunch of people that are not working at the highest level. So I think that's sort of, that's humility is clearly number one. But if I had to pick a number two in my role today is about surrounding myself with really top flight people. And I think we've been able to do that here at Jefferson.
- [19:37]
A
That's terrific, Joe, and thank you again. Yeah, I, I'm sure everyone listening can relate to having to get knocked down every once in a while. We don't love it at that time, but eventually you look back and say, you know what? That was a good thing that happened to me. Right?
- [19:53]
B
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, somebody asked me the other day, do you learn still learn from your mistakes? I said, of course I do. I mean, and I think I kind of have a better idea when I'm making us making a mistake when it's happening. And so I'm. I'm probably questioning myself. Earlier in the past, I was committed and. And. And maybe would pause. Today, I take the second pause, and I think that's just maturity. And this gray hair that's in my beard gives you a little bit more time to think about things. Because I had a surgeon tell me one time, I was a medical student, he said, do you know what makes judgment? And I said, no, sir. He said, experience. He said, you know, what makes experience is prior bad judgments. And so, you know, there's a lot of truth in that as we learn from our mistakes. And if stop learning from our mistakes, we're. We're probably. Probably time to hang up our cleats.
- [20:56]
A
I think that's the perfect place to end this interview. Joe, back to your coaching roots, and everything you shared with us has been terrific. Again, we value your time and all your insights, and we're going to see you in November at our conference. And I know that won't be the last time that we interact, whether it's myself or Becker. So, again, thank you, and, you know, we'll see you next time.
- [21:16]
B
All right, thanks. Thanks. Thanks, Chris. Have a good day.