Jada Bussey-Jones, MD (Host): Hello, this is Jada Bussey-Jones. I'm the President and the host of Society of General Internal Medicine's President's Podcast. We engage SGIM's former presidents who are leaders across healthcare, public health, policy, and academia. As we lead up to our 50th anniversary of the Society of General Internal Medicine, we aim to capture insights from thought leaders from our organization so that our organization, our members, and healthcare broadly are in a stronger position to grow, innovate, and meet the challenges of our time. To our listeners, we really thank you so much for joining us today.

Today, I'm excited to start our first ever session with Dr. Eric Bass. who is the current CEO of the Society of General Internal Medicine and has been in that role since 2017. He did his fellowship training in General Internal Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and Johns Hopkins before joining faculty at Johns Hopkins in 1989. His research focuses on evidence-based medicine and the effectiveness, safety, and cost of medical interventions.

He's done so much incredible work across academia and Medicine. In addition to being Co-Director of the Evidence-Based Practice Center. He is the Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Promotions in the Department of Medicine. He also directs the medical school's course on Foundations of Public Health and co-directs the school's scholarly concentration in Public Health Research. He was the Director of the Johns Hopkins General Internal Medicine Fellowship for 15 years and the Editor of JGIM for five years, and he is the founding editor-in-chief of Progress and Community Health Partnerships.

With over 260 peer-reviewed articles and over 50 evidence reports, he continues with all of this effort to practice as a general internist. And so, with all of that fantastic introduction, Eric, I'm so thrilled that you've allowed us to start our first ever President's Podcast with you. It's very appropriate given that great career that I've just outlined, as well as your large role in our organization. So, I'd like to start off by asking if you could tell me a little bit about why you chose General Internal Medicine as your career.

Eric Bass, MD: Great. Thanks, Jada. Now, I have to say, I feel like I'm under a lot of pressure being the first person that you asked of all the wonderful presidents that we've had. I'll do my best to make it an interesting conversation. I have to think back, I guess, to medical school when I was debating what I wanted to do. And to be honest, I was considering Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Pediatrics. And I realized that I really was much more comfortable working with adults than with children. And I definitely didn't want to be responsible for OB as a family physician, given that I was married to a real obstetrician. So, that sort of got me pointed toward Internal Medicine.

I went to University of Pittsburgh for residency training. And for, I'll say, the first year or two, I was sort of leaning towards Heme-Onc as my specialty. And then, I met a great group of general internists at Pitt, or what was then called Presby University Hospital, people like Wishwa Kapoor and Frank Kroboth, Missy McNeil was one of my senior residents. They opened up a career that I hadn't really even thought about before. And I realized I really liked the variety of what a general internist does. And the key was I really saw in Academic General Internal Medicine an opportunity to integrate my interests in public health, which I had been exploring, but hadn't quite figured out how to combine it into a career. So by the time I finished residency, I was heading towards academic General Internal Medicine.

Host: I love that. I think it's very similar to many folks' careers, especially mine as well, where you sort of think you're going to go into a specialty until you find generalists who kind of share with you the richness of this career. And I'd love to hear, I outlined in your introduction all of the vast roles and experiences that you've had. I'd love to hear a little bit about how not only did you choose general internal medicine, as you described, but how you started on your leadership journey and sort of taking on these roles over the course of your career.

Eric Bass, MD: Yeah. It's interesting because unlike some of my colleagues that, you know, know early on that they want to be a department chair or a dean or something else, I really hadn't set that as a specific goal. Most of the leadership opportunities that sort of happened opportunistically. And my approach to that was that oftentimes a great opportunity rose, and if it was related to where my interests really lie, then, you know, I was willing to give it a try. I would say maybe a few examples of the leadership opportunities that sort of came my way.

The first was actually soon after I'd finished my fellowship, and I joined the faculty at Hopkins, I was attending a faculty meeting and we were talking about the fellowship program, and I made a few suggestions for ways to strengthen the fellowship program. And the next thing I knew, the division chief asked me if I would like to co-direct the fellowship program. So, how could I say no at that point? And as you mentioned earlier, I ended up leading the fellowship program for 15 years and met amazing people. I interviewed many great candidates, some of whom ended up going to other places, who I've sort of kept in touch with over the years. And many of whom are very active members in GIM, and obviously had some phenomenal fellows here at Hopkins. Most of the pictures on the wall behind me are of fellows over the years, and it's been very rewarding to see how their careers have evolved.

I think the second big leadership opportunity that came along was when SGIM was entertaining applications to be the JGIM editor. And it sounded like a really interesting opportunity. I was not that far along in my career, and I somewhat naively thought that it might be something I would be good at. In retrospect, I was very lucky that it ended up working out and the society entrusted the position to me. At a point in my career, I wasn't yet a professor. Many journal editors are, you know, full professors. But I absolutely loved the years that I spent as the JGIM editor, and it allowed me to get fully immersed in the life of the organization that I have been a member of for my entire sort of academic career.

Host: Wow. That's fascinating. Thanks for sharing that. And what I hear you saying is that, even without any sort of specific intentional goal around a position that you were ready and seized opportunities. But also, it sounds like you had some great ideas and that people gave you those opportunities, because you were just sort of sharing your thoughts and they were giving you tasks to kind of move those forward. So, I love that.

Eric Bass, MD: Well, thanks.

Host: Yeah. So, that's a little bit about your leadership journey in general. I'd like to talk a little bit about your roles within SGIM a little bit now and turn the conversation there. As you reflect on your engagement, as you said, it's been a long and deep relationship with SGIM over the years. Tell me a little bit about why did you join? Why did you get started in SGIM in the first place? What led you to the organization?

Eric Bass, MD: Yeah, it's a great question. I guess I'll take the story back to when I joined the fellowship program at Johns Hopkins. It was 1987. And although I had done a year of fellowship at Pittsburgh, my wife had finished her training, and wanted to move, and I realized I wanted some additional training to pursue a career in Academic General Medicine. So, I applied to the fellowship program at Hopkins, came here where I still am located, you know, optimistic to explore the opportunities.

Soon after I arrived at Hopkins, the Chair of the Department of Medicine announced that he saw no need for a Division of General Internal Medicine at a place like Johns Hopkins. So here I was, you know, I just committed, made this move, just committed to this new place to pursue my career interests. And I was in a department that didn't value what GIM was all about.

Now, fortunately, our Division Chief, amazing man, David Levine, pretty much ignored the departmental directive and proceeded to continue growing the division. And to make a long story short, the division has grown to be enormously successful over the years. And a few years later, that department chair actually became an advocate for a General Internal Medicine in academic medical centers.

But given sort of how tenuous, sort of GIM was at that time, our division was pretty small. We actually weren't even called GIM. It was the Division of Internal Medicine. And most of the faculty were researchers. Only a few of them were SGIM members. But two of them that I got to know very well, Brent Petty and Earl Steinberg, were active members and they really encouraged me to go to the SGIM meetings and they went out of their way to, you know, introduce me to the people they knew. I can remember Earl, for example, introducing me to John Eisenberg, one of the absolute giants of General Internal Medicine. And, you know, I was a lowly fellow, but you wouldn't know that by the way that John sort of greeted me and made me feel welcome in this community. So, I started going and have made it to every national meeting ever since.

As far as how I got involved, it was maybe a circuitous path. But the context is probably important. So, here I was still a fellow and then I joined the faculty at Hopkins. There was a lot of pressure to focus on research. But I really wanted to stay involved in medical education. I had good fortune to participate in a faculty development program that Randy Barker and Dave Kern led here at Hopkins. And through them, I learned about the community of medical educators in SGIM. And so, I saw SGIM as a way to help nurture my interest in medical education. I signed up to participate in the education committee. And a couple of years later was asked to chair the education committee. From there, just got, you know, more involved in the organization and additional sort of opportunities came along the way.

Host: That's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. I think your experience mirrors mine and many others, where once you get to the first meeting, you meet people who you have just found awesome and incredible and then get a chance to talk with them and they really engage you and keep you engaged moving forward. So, thank you so much for sharing that. I'd like to talk a little bit about, you know, your views about General Internal Medicine broadly. You were sharing about your chair initially when you got to Hopkins, sort of thought that why do we even need General Internal Medicine? Thankfully, he was wrong and sort of came to those thoughts himself. But I'd love to hear about what you see as the current most important challenges and opportunities for Academic General Internal Medicine.

Eric Bass, MD: Very important question. I think the first thing that comes to mind is that, as a country, we don't provide enough support for Primary Care. And that's true not just for inadequate support for the practice of Primary Care Medicine, but also there's inadequate support for primary care-related research and teaching.

I feel so strongly about that concern and challenge that that was actually one of the reasons that I applied for this position, I now hold as the part time CEO of SGIM. I felt it was really important to be involved in advocating for better support of Primary Care General Internal Medicine. One of the most rewarding parts of my current position with SGIM is the opportunity to work closely with our health policy committee in actively advocating for the changes that need to be made to provide better support for primary care. Unfortunately, I think the challenge has gotten even greater as we've experienced more and more "financialization" of healthcare. I think that's making the situation even worse, which calls for greater urgency in the advocacy that we do as an organization.

Host: Yeah, there are definitely some big challenges that we face in this space, particularly around primary care. As we get to the latter part of our interview and our time together, I'd like to hear a little bit about your personal career and inspiration. You do so many wonderful things. I just want to personally grow from your work time and hear about how you've juggled these multiple commitments, and managed to stay on track with all the roles that you have.

Eric Bass, MD: Well, I must admit there are days when I feel a bit schizophrenic, and there are days when I go home and my wife asks me why am I continuing to try to juggle so many different things? But when it comes down to it, ultimately, I am a generalist at heart. I enjoy the variety of things that I do. You know, I actually find it stimulating to be doing many different things. And I'm willing and comfortable with moving and shifting from one thing to the next and, oftentimes, making multiple such shifts in the course of a few hours and in any given day. Sometimes it feels overwhelming. But ultimately, I find it stimulating, that variety.

Now, I do feel like I am very organized. I think that's been essential to be organized about stuff, to be able to manage all the various things that are being done. Ultimately, it comes back to the fact that I enjoy the variety of things that I do. I think that's the key.

Host: That is great. And it makes sense. Like you said, as generalists, it's so important. Can you tell me a little bit about what inspires you? Who or what are your sources of inspiration?

Eric Bass, MD: Great question. I think am inspired by the mission of the organization that I'm privileged to lead. And I think our organization's commitment to better health for everyone. That's at the core of our mission and our vision. That's something that means a lot to me personally. So, I draw inspiration from working with these amazingly talented people in our organization that share a commitment to that mission. So often, my greatest inspiration just comes from the people I get to work with. And often, the most rewarding are essentially the presidents, the past and present presidents of the organization, people like you, Jada, that I get to work with closely for over a three-year period. But also, keeping in touch with our past presidents who are amazing in what they have accomplished in their careers, what they contributed to the GIM and the health system at large, and I'm always rejuvenated and inspired when I have a chance to meet with any of our past presidents.

Host: That's so awesome. And I have to say, selfishly, that's part of the reason why I wanted to do these podcast is just for that reason, so that I can engage you and other inspiring past presidents to kind of hear about your journey, both to learn and be inspired by this great work. And I'm going to ask one final question and then allow you to share any last thoughts that you have. But because you do so much great work, in all the areas that you do, I'd love to hear about what you do for self-care. How do you sort of maintain?

Eric Bass, MD: Great question. Actually, my great love outside of work is playing tennis. So, I play competitively, relatively frequently. There's something about hitting a ball that is therapeutic. And there's something about the socialization of tennis that makes it fun. And so, I rely a lot on that for bringing a little bit of balance. I also, go to church almost every Sunday. And I'm part of a faith community that my wife and I have been a part of for 37 years and that lends a certain base of support and continuity to our lives. And lastly, perhaps most importantly, as my wife, Katie, who's put up with me for 41 years. And that's not a trivial thing, given all that I've been trying to juggle over the years.

Host: That's awesome. Again, thank you so much for the time today and sharing all of your wisdom and your thoughts and offer you an opportunity for any final parting thoughts for the society, for SGIM, for Academic Medicine, that you want to share before we end our time together.

Eric Bass, MD: Well, I guess, I'm looking forward to hearing the other interviews that you'll be doing. I'm much more interested in hearing about the other interviews than having to listen to mine. But I look forward to hearing perspectives that the other folks will share with you. I think there's much we can learn from our past leaders. I think Academic GM has faced many challenges over the years. We shared a little bit about that today, and we face big challenges lying ahead of us. But I have confidence in our organization and our members that we can rise to meet those challenges. And. You know, I hope that we can do all that we can to keep the organization as strong as possible to support, you know, the amazing people that are committed to a mission that is as important as it ever was, and maybe even more important than ever, that we're working together to advance healthcare for all. Maybe I'll close with that.

Host: Well, Eric, I just want to thank you again so much for your time today, but importantly for all the work that you've done over the course of your career, particularly with your work within Society of General Internal Medicine. It has been so impactful.

And for our audience, I want to thank you all for joining us today. And thanks to all of the listeners, for our first inaugural SGIM President's Podcast. If you like what you've heard, we'd like for you to rate us and leave a comment wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps others to find us. And also, you can look for us on the SGIM website at sgim.org and follow us on X.