← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:02]
A
This is where healthcare leadership comes together. Becker's 16th annual meeting brings more than 3,500 hospital and health system executives and nearly 800 speakers to Chicago, April 13th through the 16th. This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former President George W. Bush. For the agenda and event details, visit Beckershospitalreview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you in Chicago.
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This is Scott Becker with the Becker Healthcare Podcast. We're thrilled today to visit with a remarkable leader, but we're visiting today with Dr. Choi Pena. And Dr. Pena is both the VP of Global Health at Northwell Health. He starts to lead that direction. He's also somebody with multiple degrees. He's an emergency physician by background. He's been at Davos, the World Economic Forum last couple years, and we'll talk about that a little bit. He's also met the Queen of Belgium, and we're going to talk about that. Eric, thank you so much for joining us. Can you take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your career?
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Yes. My name is Eric Choi Pena. I'm a practicing emergency physician and the founding director and VP of Global Health at Northwell Health in New York.
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B
Fantastic. So, Dr. Choi Pena, thank you so much for joining us. Talk about the role. We're going to go back in a second and talk about your career and how you ended up as the vice president of Global Health at Northwell Health. But tell us a little bit about what does the role of vice president of Global Health? What does that look like and what are the core priorities or core focus in global health?
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Thanks for having me. It's really great to be here. The role vice president of Global Health, I'm actually the first person with that title in the health system, and it's not a very common title on the health system side of the street at least, and academic medical centers, often on the medical school side, you will see some sort of lead for global Health. But you know, we really created the center for Global Health at Northwell as a way of focusing and managing a lot of the great work that gets done internationally by a lot of our team members. We had noticed that a lot of this work was really being provided in kind, often as passion projects of some of our faculty. Some of our nurses, certainly residents, students, fellows are all interested in this as well. But we really wanted to have it be kind of more relationship focused in countries that were kind of locally relevant to the health system and that allowed us to really be good partners to those countries and to help them along in their health care journey and strengthening their own health systems. So really, if you can imagine taking a medical mission program and turning it into a development program, something that actually did some health system strengthening work in addition to kind of providing that feel good feeling of being able to volunteer, that's really kind of the genesis of the center for Global Health at Northwell.
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B
I mean, I mean, so overall, really amazing what you're doing. And I think if I saw online correctly that you were just at the World Economic Forum in Davos, is that correct?
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A
Yes. Yeah. I had the fortune actually of being named the corporate Social Innovator of the Year last year at the World Economic Forum by the Schwab foundation, which is a sister foundation under the World Economic Forum umbrella. It was actually founded by Klaus and Hilda Schwab, the co founders of the World Economic Forum. So this year I was invited back to speak on some of our work, both as a, you know, Northwell wide as a health system, but also in kind of our global, our global footprint as well.
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B
I mean, it must be a remarkable experience. I mean, growing up, did you ever think that you'd be doing that, being a speaker at Davos?
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No, no, no, definitely not. No. It's still very surreal. I have some pinch me moments. No, I, I mean I got into, I got into medicine, you know, with really thinking that I was going to be an HIV doc and that I was going to be working in kind of global public health on an individual basis. I didn't really envision kind of the system level, kind of population based role that I have now. And I think I, I kind of grew into it as my career develops. But certainly it's very humbling get to be in the room with people that I view as are a lot smarter than me, that are decision makers and kind of making decisions either behalf on very, very large companies or governments. And so it's been a really privileged kind of experience for me.
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B
That's a remarkable thing. And talk about a little bit about you're a doctor, you're an emergency medicine physician. Do you still practice emergency medicine at all? Are you completely on the administrative side today?
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No, I'm actually still practicing. So I like to think that I practice once a week. Every Friday is usually my clinical day. It tends to be twice a month. Once every other Friday I'll get the opportunity to be in the emergency department. It's one of my favorite parts of the week though, to be Honest with you, I really do love practicing still. And I think as a physician leader as much as you can, it's important to stay healthy. Kind of close to that. I mean, obviously there are roles where you just, you don't have the ability to do that. But emergency medicine happens to be the kind of medicine that you can practice where, you know, I don't have to maintain a patient panel or relationships. It's, it's shift work. So I'm able to, I'm able to pop in and, and, and do some work. And it's, it's enough time where I still think I'm keeping up my skills too. So it's, I don't feel, you know, just when I feel like I'm starting to get rusty, I have another shift, and that's a kind of a good thing.
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B
I'm going to do this. And you can't if you're, I don't know if your parents are still alive or not, but if they're alive, they can't blush as I read this. Okay? So you have to bear with me.
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Okay.
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B
Eric the, the nyu, Bachelor of Arts, BA in Spanish American Literature and Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Doctor of Medicine, Medicine and Global Health, Columbia University, Master's of Public Health, and then Hofstra University, more recently Master of Business Administration. So I know if I was your mother, and I'm not, I would be, of course, blushing and so proud of you. Talk for a second about the commitment to lifelong education and learning and where that came from.
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Yeah, I mean, I, I was, I'm the first doctor in my family, but education has always been really paramount. My mother is actually a PH in nursing science and does research and is actually the associate dean for the University of Rhode Island School of Nursing. So I think that's probably where I get my love for education. My mother used to joke that if she could be in school for her entire life as a student, she would. And she's found a way to be in school, maybe not as a student, but her entire life. So I think she lived to that. So education's always been very important. And then I think one thing kind of led to another. You know, I obviously, you know, bachelor's in medical school were pretty straightforward, traditional pathways. And then, you know, I decided to get really involved in global health. And there was a fellowship opportunity. It's really not a clinical fellowship, but it was global emergency medicine. And it. And Columbia had one, and it came with the mph. And the MPH really, I think, tried to give you the bird's eye view of global health practice. And I was really impressed by not just the formal instruction but the, you know, the interactions with colleagues. And I think that's similar, similar to, similar story with the mba. You know, I was in a physician leadership program at Northwell and a bunch of the physician leaders decided to go back and get their MBAs and they felt like it would be a value add to their, their executive leadership as physician leaders. And so I was kind of caught up in that and decided to do that as well. And I do think that, you know, each, each moment has provided a little bit different perspective than I otherwise would have had. And I think it's made me into a better leader. And I think my view is even outside of formal education, I'm constantly trying to learn new ways of doing things, new ways of thinking about things, because I think if we get stuck in, well, this is what I do, then you're not really on the edge of innovation or on the edge of change. And I feel like I've gotten from the corporate leadership at Northwell this feeling that, you know, you, you've got to kind of be pushing the envelope. If you are standing still, you're, you're, you're probably going to be overtaken. And I think that's kind of the general feeling is that we have this drive for innovation and learning and, and the, it comes with the permission to fail. I think that's a really important part of it, is that you can't really be innovative without having kind of that permission to try something and, you know, not get it right the first time you do it.
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No, it's really a remarkable career. Talk For a second, Dr. Troy Pena, about what are you most excited about and focused on this year?
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Yeah, I'm really excited. We have a C suite change at Northwell that's been pretty dramatic. We have a new chief operating officer, new chief executive officer. I'm really excited in the direction that they're taking the health system and I'm excited to have our global programs continue to be a value add to that direction. And I think, you know, everything about both the domestic and global practice of healthcare is fundamentally changing. I think there's technological disruptors, there are obviously financial disruptors. And I think, you know, this, the new leadership team is, you know, trying to develop the health system of the, of the, of the, you know, the late 2000s and have that be an adaptive and vibrant system. And I think that global has an important role to play in that. And I think that we, we help ground A lot of the teams back into the mission of healthcare. And I think it's just exciting to see the evolution of it as we go through a pretty seismic leadership change.
- [10:20]
B
No, simply remarkable. And of course, Mike Dowling was a legendary leader for a very long time there, and the system has just flourished so much over the last couple decades. Really remarkable. Eric, you've had this great career, I mean, literally the first in your family to go to medical school. Talk for a second about, you know, what advice would you give to emerging leaders? I mean, I love it. I joke about your mom blushing, but I love the concept of constantly going back to improve oneself and learning. What advice would you give to emerging leaders?
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A
Yeah, I mean, it's. I think it's the same thing I give to residents when I work with trainee doctors, which I guess, you know, in their own way are all emerging leaders as well as they're becoming attending physicians. But, you know, I try to learn something every day and you don't have to read a treatise, you don't have to, you know, spend hours studying. But I think that every day try to pick something that you thought was interesting that you didn't know about and read a little bit about it. And it can be five minutes of reading. And I think that will serve you very well in terms of lifelong learning. I don't remember anything that I did in terms of when I had to cram or study for tests. I really don't. The things that I really, that have really cemented as core memories are the experiential learning kind of buttressed with the book, learning to satisfy a curiosity that was occurring that really, to me is the foundation for being a great doctor and great leadership. Is that kind of very, very methodical but bite sized kind of interrogations of new aspects of life. I'm a big podcast person. I know we're recording for a podcast, but just having the opportunity to think about something in a different, I think really build strong, confident leaders. And it also makes you comfortable in saying, I don't know. You know, I think that part of the thing that we're all plagued with as emerging leaders is imposter syndrome and feeling like, you know, we're not kind of cut out for the role that we've been given. And I think that the more that we're kind of acknowledging kind of all the different aspects of life that we, you know, we're not familiar with, I think the more comfortable you get with the, oh, I don't know that I think the better you are in Kind of in, in your role because being comfortable with saying, you know, I don't know that the answer to that question, but I'm gonna, we're gonna figure it out, I think allows you to be a little bit more agile because you're less worried about whether people are going to find out whether you know something or not. And I think that's, you know, overcoming that early Imposter syndrome is a really, I think, important part of leadership development.
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B
Talk for a second more about imposter syndrome. It was a term I first heard probably five, seven years ago and I think quite frankly in interviewing somebody, it was actually someone who preaches about women's leadership. Now the reality of imposter syndrome is whether short, tall, black, white, whatever one is, woman, male, most of us, except for that 1% of the, of the population that just is crazily confident for whatever reason. The rest of us periodically have that imposter syndrome and talk about that for a second about, you know, define it for people. Maybe talk about an example of when you've worked through the feeling of imposter syndrome because all of us have, I think most of us have. But talk about that for a moment more. I think it's just so interesting because I think, I think it's, there's this, the reality is most all of us suffer from it periodically. It's not just this type of person or that person, that person, but all of us and take a moment on it. Feel, mind.
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A
Yeah, I think, I think the definition of imposter syndrome, if I had to define it pretty broadly, is, is anything from the complex thought around this feeling or just the inkling maybe I don't belong in this room. I think that at the, at the core level it's kind of this feeling that like I was somebod made a mistake, like I don't belong here, I shouldn't be here representing whatever I'm supposed to be representing. And, and I don't have the skill or qualification to, to currently do either the short term task or the long term role that I've been placed in. And that's, you know, I think the reason why we call it imposter syndrome is because oftentimes we are a lot less able to discern that for ourselves. We're a little bit more critical. Now there obviously are people that get put in, over, in roles over their head and I'm not, I'm not talking about kind of those situations. I, I really talking about a situation where an objective third party would look at whatever credentials you have and say, yeah, this is a role that you are cut out for. And I think that in most selection processes in healthcare, when we put people in leadership positions, there's often almost an over vetting of people for roles. So it's very infrequently that the feeling that you have that you don't belong in the room is actually true. You've probably gone through either a national search or a committee, or at least your peers have decided that you belong in that role. And so it's the feeling of not being in that role despite kind of third party assurances that you're, you're in the role. And it often will lead people to either not speak up and not participate in things where there are multiple leaders kind of joining on a team to try and solve something, or just a feeling of underconfidence that causes you to be more guarded in your leadership style. And that can actually come off as even being, you know, overly bossy. You know, a lot of times people who don't have confidence in their role because they have imposter syndrome will, will often not allow a lot of discussion with their subordinates or direct reports as to kind of options because they don't want to appear like they're not in control of, of the decision making process when the really the, you know, the opposite is, is, is really kind of the truth there where the more confident you are in your leadership role, the more you are likely to foster various different opinions because you're confident in your ability to hear those opinions, hear the analysis and then make the decision for the team if that's, if that's the role that you're in. So I think that to me, I think almost everyone, like you said, 99%, except for that 1%, do feel this. I think how we are socialized to deal with it does vary dramatically based on your upbringing and your, your kind of, your phenotype. I think that does. We are socialized in different ways how we respond to imposter syndrome, but I think it's a pretty human trait to, to have it.
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B
I love that take on it. I couldn't agree more. Fascinating. Eric, what else would you like to share with the audience that I'd love to hear 30 seconds more, a minute more about the experience of being at Davos. That's something very few people in the world ever get to do. I know I've never got to do it. Talk about that for a moment. What is that like?
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Yeah, I mean it's, I mean it's, it's funny because it, it, I think that when you think of Davos, you think of like billionaires, private jets and parties. And certainly there are the share of those things. What I was most impressed by was the fact that whether you're running, you know, one of the top companies in the world or running a country, the humility with which you enter some of those spaces and rooms, like was having round tables with, you know, the CEO of Moderna and, you know, the Queen of the Belgians. Right. And we were talking about healthcare. And you know, there, you've almost got to remind yourself, you know, they're just people and, and they're people that often are coming into these rooms with a genuine desire to improve the state of the world. And I think that some of the discussions and potential. I always get excited by Davos because the, the amount of work that you can get done in four days, because it's really, the conference is basically Monday to Thursday. And so the amount of work and the amount of meetings and the amount of synergies that can happen in those four days is just tremendous. And the level of discussion, because you're not allowed to send a surrogate to the World Economic Forum, you have to go in person, you can't send a delegate. So if the president can't come, like the, you know, the Minister of Foreign affairs doesn't get to be the delegate. It's. The decision makers are in the room. And so it's, it catalyzes action in a way that you don't see often because a lot of times, you know, almost a defensive strategy to making decisions is sending, you know, the second in command and then they, you know, anything that gets negotiated, you have to say, well, let me go check with, I gotta go back and check with my boss back in my country. And that you kind of short, it was intentional to short circuit that ability to make sure that, you know, action was, was happening in this meeting. Which is why I think we see a lot of big announcements happen in Davos, a lot of initiatives. It's because the principals are in the room and they're, they're meeting and it, to me, I'm not the principal of Northwell Health. I was there as an awardee from the SWAB Foundation. So it's interesting because I'm kind of an observer and, and you know, speaking of imposter syndrome, I definitely had a little bit of imposter syndrome when I was there in 2025. Until you realize that, you know, you, you, you have expertise and what they're what they're asking you for is not necessarily the decision of Northwell Health on a matter, but really your expertise as a social innovator who's created this thing inside of a corporation, you know, this, this center for Global Health or whatever the innovation was. I think it was, it, it really allows you to be at the table as a subject matter expert and meet with decision makers and help them make decisions about how 2026 is going to go. And so to me, it was a tremendous privilege. Like I said, I had to pinch myself both years, several times, but certainly amazing to be sitting in the room with, you know, the Royal family of Belgium or you know, CEOs of major corporations or heads of state and, and help them make decisions.
- [20:40]
B
Now I will tell you Eric, nobody cares about the major heads of corporations. Nobody cares about the heads of state. What we do care about is the Queen of Belgium. What is the Queen of Belgium like?
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A
So Her Majesty Matilda. And it's funny because I first met her in 2025 and I was on the conference app we all have, Becker's has a conference app and you'll get requests for meetings. There'll be a meeting request. They call them bilaterals at the World Forum. And I got this bilateral meeting request from HM Matilda and I was like, I think that's Her Majesty. And I had to, you know, google it. But you know, she, she's on the board of the Schwab foundation. She's incredibly invested in healthcare and education topics and she really just wanted to meet to hear about the innovation straight from the, you know, the, the, the, the horse's mouth, if you will and, and, and kind of talk a little bit more about innovation around healthcare delivery. You know, she's, she's incredibly passionate about last mile delivery in healthcare in rural and low income settings and wanted to hear about what we were doing in Guyana and some of the work we were doing in Ukraine. And it was amazing because you know, you expect that when someone from a queen of a country reaches out to you and wants to talk to you, you assume that they're going to have a lot to say. And she really was, she was very inquisitive and really gave the floor to me and a couple of other Schwab awardees that met with her about, you know, what, what we were doing and listened very intently, had her assistant next door taking notes and I was again, it was one of those, oh, they're real people, they're real people and they're thinking about how they can integrate some of the things that they're learning into their practice, practice, whether it's, you know, as a, as a royal member of the royal family or as a physician leader, it's all, we're all doing kind of the same things with just different, we're in different circles, I guess, but certainly was very humbling but also very, I think, I think it was very important to, to see and realize that, you know, everyone's just trying to make informed decisions and learn as much as they can to be better leaders, you.
- [23:05]
B
Know, I am, Eric. I'm looking online and for what I could tell the Queen of Belgium is 5 foot 9 inches tall. So I would feel very short with the Queen of Belgium. But what an amazing experience in all reality. What a great, great experience. Just fascinating, right?
- [23:20]
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No, I mean it was amazing. Yeah, she is, she is very tall. I'm a little taller than her and I, when I took the photo though, I made sure I was standing kind of in the group. I was at the end of the group so it wasn't like a direct comparison because she was wearing heels. But yeah, I mean she's very formidable in person, but super sweet, super nice. Made you feel immediately at home and got to have a really closed door meeting. And that's another thing. A lot of the meetings are under Chatham House rules, so there's no press and it's closed door. And you can kind of speak your mind about a lot of the things that are going on, problems in healthcare delivery, global health, and be candid. And that that combined with the fact that you can't send a delegate, I think is the magic of Davos. That's why they call it the magic mountain.
- [24:10]
B
That is truly remarkable. Congratulations on all that you've accomplished and what you're doing. Just remarkable. Eric. Dr. Choi. Pena. Pena. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I know I kept you longer than expected, but so interesting. So thank you for taking the time.
- [24:27]
A
It was my pleasure. Thank you.