Transcription:

Melanie Cole (Host):  Welcome to our first episode of The Checkup with the experts at UAB Medicine. My guest is Dr. Selwyn Vickers. He’s the Senior Vice President for Medicine and Dean of the School of Medicine at UAB Medicine. Dr. Vickers, what a pleasure to have you with us today. Since this is your first podcast, I’d like to start by asking you why you decided to create The Checkup.

Selwyn Vickers, MD, FACS (Guest):  Well it gives me an opportunity for our staff and faculty to get to know me and potentially further members of our team on a more conversational level. One of the things as we’ve looked at our survey from our employees, it’s really important for them to have access to the Dean. And so, I’d like to use this as a mechanism that I can reach out and communicate with the people. As much as I’d like to be able to attend every event and be at most settings; it’s hard with my schedule to do all of that as one person. But hopefully, this will provide a venue for me to be connected in a more significant way.

Host:  Well it certainly would and that’s so forward thinking. So, ultimately, what do you hope that listeners will get out of the experience?

Dr. Vickers:  Well I want them to get a couple of things. Number one, that we have a strong sense of wanting to create an environment of belonging. That we want them as faculty members and employees to feel like they are a part of a great institution. Secondly, I want them to also understand the challenges that we are facing in academic medicine in relation to healthcare delivery, research and education and recruitment of faculty. But also understand the solutions that we are putting on the table to make a difference in these areas. Hopefully, they will hear our perspective and understand how we are making progress.

Host:  Well I’m sure they certainly will. So, for episode one, we’re talking about the Modern Think survey. Tell us why you chose this topic and give us a quick explanation of what that survey is.

Dr. Vickers:  So, the Modern Think survey is a survey that occurs every two years and administrated centrally to really get a sense of our employee experience. We’re doing this to know how we are providing services and how we’re leading and so their feedback is essential. And so, since we’ve just completed the surveys, we felt this was a really appropriate topic to basically address any of the issues that were concerns for our School of Medicine employees and faculty and for the overall enterprise.

Host:  Explain to us a little bit about why it’s so important to survey employees with a tool like Modern Think.

Dr. Vickers:  Well often, leaders are told what they want to hear not what they need to hear. And so, anonymity and this survey gives our faculty, employees a chance to be honest and for us to have an accurate measurement of their status and what things they are pleased about, what things that need improvement. And so, that is one of the major reasons it is important. It is also administered every other year. It give us a chance then to actually try to make some improvements in order to have the faculty understand that we are working in those areas that they were concerned about.

Host:  Give us a little summary of some of the high level results from the survey. What did you find out?

Dr. Vickers:  We had significant performance in almost all areas. So, our topline measures were good to excellent in almost all of our categories and this is really exciting, and we have seen this before that we’ve created an environment where people feel excited about working. We’ve also had consistency and across our staff and faculty, who also felt this was a very good to excellent place for them to carry out their mission.

Host:  Then generally speaking, Dr. Vickers, were you happy with the results and as a result of that, which score were you most pleased with and why?

Dr. Vickers:  So, overall, I was pleased. But there are certainly opportunities for us to continually create a space and place for our faculty and employees to feel excited about being. And I think that for the most part, people were clearly excited about their jobs. I’d also say that the opportunities for improvement are ones that we take seriously as well as we celebrate those things that are the positive results as well.

Host:  And on the flip side of the scores that were lower; which do you feel is most pressing and why?

Dr. Vickers:  You know, I think the things that were most pressing are related to I understand how my job contributes to the institution mission and I think it also helps us to understand that we need to create connectivity so that individuals know how their work makes an impact in both health outcomes as well as in scientific discovery. I think that’s the one area that I felt most compelled about making sure we create an understanding for that for our faculty and staff.

Host:  What an important point Dr. Vickers. So are you currently addressing some of them with your leadership team and do you have a plan for raising some of those lower scores?

Dr. Vickers:  Yes, we are. So, we’re implementing a plan now to proactively go after these areas where the lower scores occurred and begin communication process as well as addressing the areas where people feel like there’s need to understand what the purpose of the things they are doing as well as the relationship to the broader school enterprise.

Host:  As we wrap up, Dr. Vickers, and again I say, this is very forward thinking. What a great platform. What does creating community in the school of medicine mean to you? Why is that so important?

Dr. Vickers:  It’s important for every individual who is a part of the school of medicine to have a sense of their purpose, a sense that they are valued and a sense of belonging. That can only occur for people when they believe they are heard and that their feedback often is listened to and when there’s opportunity; it’s acted upon. I think that we want to make sure that everybody has access to leadership in a relevant and significant way. We are going to do that through having a website called Ask the Dean where our employees can drop their thoughts off. And we’re going to specifically call for feedback from individuals for areas where we can potentially make changes and make a difference. But I think that’s in large part why community is so important and what it means to me as a leader.

Host:  And would you have some final thoughts that you would like the listeners to take away from this first episode on the Modern Think survey and your upcoming podcasts?

Dr. Vickers:  Well, I think I want them to hopefully embrace the opportunity to communicate with the Dean’s office and the Dean through multiple mechanisms we’ll put on the table as well as us being there in person in many of the departments and areas. But I also want them to understand that this podcast is not a gimmick. It’s really a sincere effort to convey the truth and challenges we face but also to answer the difficult questions that they may have and to actually have strategies to make a difference in their work lives here at UAB.

Host:  Well, I’m very sure that it will and thank you so much Dr. Vickers for joining us. And that wraps up our first episode of The Checkup with Dr. Selwyn Vickers, Senior Vice President for Medicine and Dean of the UAB School of Medicine. Please visit www.uab.edu/thecheckup to learn more about this podcast and to keep up with new episodes. I’m Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for joining us today.