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E.O.E Newsletter | www.huanet.gr
T.S.: How did you feel when you were appointed as Dean of the UCI School of Medicine?
Could you describe us your responsibilities in that position?
Prof. Ralph V. Clayman: That's a whole different story. I loved being Chairman of the Department of Urology at UCI. For me, that was great fun. The people with whom I worked were wonderful. I had no interest in becoming Dean of the School of Medicine ever. That only happened because we had a crisis at the School of Medicine and our Vice Chancellor of Health, who had subsumed the position of Dean, then left. The school was in difficult straits, being tens of millions of dollars in debt annually.
The school needed someone to fill that position, but now as Dean of the School of Medicine, rather than the more expansive role of Vice Chancellor of Health. Also, our national medical school accreditation was facing some challenges. Even worse, in 2009, this was the beginning of the recession. The funding to the University of California had been cut by almost one-third. People here were asked to take a furlough, decreasing their salaries by 15%. These were very difficult times.
In 2009, I had been here for seven years and truly enjoyed and benefited from the leadership at UC Irvine, from Chancellor Drake, former Chancellor Cicerone, Provost Gottfredson, Dean Cesario, and CEO Ralph Cygan. When the Provost asked me if, despite my reluctance, I would do this for the School of Medicine, that changed the equation. I felt that it was my time to pay back for the time that I had enjoyed as Chair of the Department, and that's why I accepted to become Dean. We worked very hard and we were very fortunate. Within the five-year term that I served as Dean, our Medical School became fully accredited without any citations. We opened up three quarters of a million square feet of new space on the medical campus, including a new hospital. We went from tens of millions in deficit annually, to over ten million dollars in the black. At our institution, a term for a Dean is five years after which you may be given the opportunity for another five-year term. When I was asked if I wanted to stand for another term, my answer was: " No, I want to go back to Urology and do the things I love". It is very important to be able to walk away from power. You only want the power as long as you're going to be able to use it to make things better. You have to realize when the energy to do that no longer exists. You want to walk away at the top of your accomplishments.
F.N.: You wrote a book titled "The Compleat Dean" about leadership. From your perspective, what defines true leadership in medicine?
Prof. Ralph V. Clayman: That book is not about me, rather it is a compilation of 360 years of decanal experience. The book resulted from my sending questionnaires to the 60 Deans in the United States in 2014, who had served as the Dean of their School of Medicine for at least one, five-year term. They answered the questions, and from their answers, I wrote the book.
On a personal level, what I believe is most important for leadership as a Dean or as a Chair, is the concept of “servant” leadership. You are there to promote everyone around you. The Dean or Chair of a department should be like a farmer or a conductor. Your job is to bring out the best performance in every seed you plant or in every player in your orchestra regardless of the type of plant or the instrument. Your job is no longer to make yourself more famous. Your job is to make everyone around you more famous. What I told people we hired was that: "My job as Dean is to help you realize your full potential, as you see it, plus 10%. So that at the end of your time here, when you look back on your career, you shake your head and say: "I never believed I could have done this"”. It's my job to help people get to that full realization, plus 10%. That's servant leadership. You want somebody as a leader whose only question, when they wake up in the morning, is : "How am I going to make things better for everyone else?". By doing that, you find out that you've made things so much better for yourself also. But that's not the primary goal. The primary goal is: "I've been given this ability. I've been given this power. How do I use it to benefit everyone around me?". That has to be your goal.
T.S.: Could you describe us your feelings when you received the Keyes Medal from the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons (AAGUS)? Prof. Ralph V. Clayman: I was overwhelmed. There was probably not an individual in that room who wasn't also very deserving of that kind of recognition. To be recognized or celebrated by your colleagues is one of the sweetest things that can happen to you. I was deeply touched, deeply honored. But there is an important thing that we haven't touched on. While you can point to accomplishments and everything else, as a basis for an award or recognition, you need to go deeper into that and ask yourself: "Well, how did I really get there? What enabled me to do that?".