Leadership Thoughts from Hal Paz

The work will always be there, but you’ll only have one first chance to meet and connect with all the people in a new community when you begin a new position, so take it while you can, advised Hal Paz, M.D., executive vice president and chancellor for health affairs at The Ohio State University (OSU) and CEO of the OSU Wexner Medical Center, at his appearance Thursday, April 1, on the VITALS: Visionary Health Leadership in Action speaker series. 

Dr. Paz’s presentation for the Northeast Ohio Medical University series included a discussion of how his institution is addressing current issues such as vaccine hesitancy. After his remarks, questions flowed from the VITALS audience. Monica Robins, senior health correspondence for WKYC, moderated the questions, which included how to improve diversity in health care, how to bring more women into health care leadership roles and what can be done about burnout among health care professionals. 

Much of the one-hour event was connected to COVID-19 in one way or another, and a final question wrapped it up: What has the health care profession learned from the pandemic? 

How to collaborate and get things done faster than anyone would have thought possible – like developing a vaccine in a year, said Dr. Paz – noting that this was just one of many examples he could have given.

Earlier, he gave a detailed rundown how an OSU team ramped up from performing 30 COVID-19 tests in the first week to 4,000 a day about two weeks later. It seemed that nothing could stop them: When they ran low on swabs (made in Northern Italy, where a surge temporarily slowed the process), the team figured out how to make them in Ohio. 

Listen to the whole story and the rest of Dr. Paz’s presentation.

The final VITALS of this inaugural season will take place May 4, featuring NEOMED alumnus Mehool Patel, M.D. (’98), the associate chief medical officer of IBM. Dr. Patel is a medical oncologist/hematologist and an associate professor of internal medicine. 

Register here. Free CME credit is available.

Watch 2020-21 VITALS webinars.