President's Message 

50 Years and Counting ... Finding the Next Path

NAPCRG is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and yet at this moment, it’s hard to feel jovial. Juxtaposed to this celebration of achievement is another historic health inequity now codified in the United States with a recent court decision that overturned federal protections for abortion rights and freedom of choice.

Women’s rights in the United States have been rolled back 100 years. Women have lost a basic right to make decisions about their health and well-being based on their needs. You can read the NAPCRG Board’s position on this issue on our website.

Anniversaries conjure reminiscences and prognostications. While celebrating past successes and cherishing those who accomplished them, we must also scan the horizon and contemplate our future. The Board is equipped to do that and committed to its own learning and development.

In its May meeting, the Board engaged in a facilitated session to reflect on NAPCRG’s growth and next milestones. The environment has changed rapidly in several ways. We have a relatively new strategic plan in place. We also know that the meetings landscape has enabled more virtual opportunities. And volunteer fatigue is prevalent. This dynamic is not unique to NAPCRG; it’s common in many membership organizations. NAPCRG’s operating committees (those committees responsible for routine programs and initiatives) have typically been busy, and the pandemic forced even fuller plates in terms of personal and professional obligations. As a result, we’ve seen more stress, burnout, virtual fatigue, and budget and staffing challenges within academic medicine. We feel your pain.

These dynamics led us to ponder whether we are positioned as a membership organization in our practices, decision making and committee and Board structure to advance our strategic priorities and to grow and sustain NAPCRG in the future.

• Staff vs Board Roles: The Board decides wise and consequential actions, setting the organization's direction, ensuring and allocating resources, and planning succession. Buoyed with professional staff with expertise in implementing policies and programs, the Executive Director (CEO) decides how to implement the decisions made, how to carry out the policy, how to achieve the mission and vision of the Board and presents progress to the Board.

This division of responsibilities is similar to what you have observed in organizations familiar to you. For instance, in a medical school, the Board of Directors is a set of elected (or appointed) advisors who have great interest in the organization's success and interview and hire the Dean to carry out the medical school's mission. There are many layers under the Dean through the departments and educational curricula that the Board does not decide. Instead, the Dean works within the budget to realize the goal of sustaining physician education and medical discoveries. When education moved to the flipped classroom, the Dean was responsible for facilitating this change via his/her/their faculty, not the Board.

Likewise, our Executive Director has the responsibility to oversee the implementation of programs and services, ensuring adherence to NAPCRG mission, policy, and budgets. For instance, the Executive Director organized virtual conferences to serve our members when COVID prevented in-person meetings. While staff confer with committees, the decision making between committees and staff are distinct. Staff manages budget and program administration while committees oversee direction.

In December, we will launch the nominations process where members will be invited to consider service on the Board. Think deeply about your ability to serve. Board members are responsible for:

• Set direction. Direct “what”, not “how”. Examples: The Board establishes policy but not direct how to carry it out. The Board sets goals but does not direct the plans to achieve them.
• Provide oversight.
• Ensure and allocate resources.
• Plan succession.

Source: Mark Engle, DM, FASAE, CAE – AMC Principal

Learn more about committee service at the Annual Meeting in Phoenix. Committees will meet onsite, and the schedule will be published with other meeting materials. The staff will be reaching out to committee chairs in the coming weeks to get these meetings set up.

The Board is committed to building on a culture of inquiry and collegiality, open to new practices adapted from other high performing boards. As we celebrate NAPCRG’s anniversary, we are grateful to past leaders who anchored NAPCRG in a bright future. We need new leaders to navigate the new horizon, looking past our current strategic plan to locate NAPCRG’s next position.

For questions or to identify yourself for future opportunities, please contact Executive Director Julie Sutter (jsutter@napcrg.org).

Best wishes,

Diane M Harper, MD, MPH, MS