This is Laura Dierda with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by doctor
Paolo Ferrata, who's the chair of the department
of surgery at Inova Fairfax Medical Campus and
system division chief for trauma and acute care
surgery at Inova Health System. Doctor Farada, it's
a pleasure to have you on the podcast
today.
Laura, the pleasure is online. Thank you so
much for having me.
Absolutely. Well, I'm excited for our discussion because
I I know, you know, there's so much
happening at,
Inova, and especially looking at clinical care. It's
just a time right for innovation. So I'm
looking forward to diving in. But before we
do, I'm wondering, can you introduce yourself and
tell us a little bit more about Inova
Health System?
Yes. Yes. So my name is Parda Perata.
I am the chair like you said, the
chair of the department of surgery at Inova
Fairfax Hospital, which is our flagship hospital. We
have over 900 licensed beds, although we take
care and serve more than, those patients.
And we are located in Northern Virginia to
serve a population of 3.2,
million,
people.
We have the third busiest emergency,
room in the entire country.
And, the department of surgery, we need more
than 90 surgeons from different specialties,
all cutting edge,
very,
very interesting and very talented group of physicians.
And from the trauma perspective,
we have a trauma system. So we have
a level one trauma center in Fairfax Hospital.
For those of you that are not familiar,
what does that mean,
level of trauma center could be level one,
which is the highest acuity.
Level two,
same clinical acuity, but without research and residence.
And level three is less acuity, and then
their other levels are not, recognized by the
state or the American College of Surgeons. So
we have a level one in Fairfax, and
we have a level two in Loudoun. Beautiful
hospital.
Great teams. Very capable clinicians.
In terms of my background, I have been
working in IEnova for four years. Before, I
was,
at another at Virginia Commonwealth University where I
was the director of the ICU and professor
of surgery and director of the fellowship.
And I trained,
residency at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
in Boston and did,
an extra year
of training in the University of Pittsburgh's critical
care and trauma and an extra year of
acute care surgery at shock trauma in Maryland.
And, I have been practicing as a surgeon
since 02/2008.
So that's that's my background. In terms of
leadership, I think that, I have done, I
have taken several courses and and learned a
lot,
mostly from experience
and from being surrounded
by
an amazing team and great leaders.
And so I consider myself lucky in my
leadership journey. We'll continue to grow and stretch
as we go.
Absolutely. I I think that's great to hear
and and definitely inspiring to know,
how you've, you know, gotten to the point
where you're at, from being practicing clinician into
more of this leadership role. And could you
expand a little bit more on your leadership
philosophy? I know grounded in the principles of
butter level five leadership. Could you talk a
little bit more about that and what your
focus is now in driving long term success
within the organization?
Yeah. That's a great question.
And, and, and I thank you so much
for asking me that. I think that I
I got a,
a junior faculty asking me this
in one of our lunches last week. Why
did I go into leadership? Because we all
have to have our purpose clear and our
why. Right? And I was like, I was
never really hungry
for power recognition,
but it was more that I saw
what poor leadership does to the team. I
saw what poor leadership how it trickles down
to everybody, how toxicity
actually can destroy teams. And even though,
we think it's just for the positions, everything
else everything that we do in terms of
leadership
or,
clinical care or anything that we do in
in a hospital
ultimately touches patients,
and,
whether we want it or not. So I
think that why did I get in leadership
and
and training myself and surrounding myself with people
that I wanna emulate
and, and doing everything that that I think
I dedicated my life to doing the last
decade
is because I wanted to,
make surgery particularly, but also health care a
place where we can speak up, that we
can, mentor each other, we can protect each
other, we can help each other, But we're
allowed to be vulnerable with each other and
where,
we obviously try our best to prevent mistakes.
But when mistakes happens, we avoid blaming and
shaming people, but actually
understanding failure
as a learning opportunity
where we have know that we have each
other's best interest at heart. Nobody in any
health care system shows up to the hospital
to harm somebody.
We are healers, and so I think that
that is the reason why I got in.
That is the reason why I train myself.
I love
I'm very passionate about leadership. I read something
about leadership almost every
every day. But I think when we're talking
about level five,
leadership, it's not only about learning yourself, be
your best self, changing the environment,
but the capacity of mentoring other people to
be leaders as well.
To,
make a change and to leave a legacy
of trust
in each other as a team where people
feel safe speaking up, where people feel that
we belong. So that is,
my leadership philosophy and that is my why.
That's amazing to hear. Thank you so much
for sharing with us and being very candid
about your journey into leadership. Now I'm curious.
Can you share any, specific
examples or or things you're most focused on
right now when you're looking at applying this
leadership in some of the results that you've
seen from it?
Yes. Yes. Thank you. So I think that
I,
so I came from I'm I'm a foreign
graduate. I was born in Colombia, South America,
and
it's incredible. We go straight from high school
to medical school. So I started I started
medical school when I was 16 years old,
and I had the opportunity
of seeing, you know, how different types of
changes in society changes
the teams, the dynamics, the leaders, the resources.
So I think, I think, and and also
I had the opportunity to see in different
countries serving as the Pan American trauma society
president and all the all that I did
before.
I, I serve in that capacity for that
society, teaching people in
every like, places of Latin America with less
resources
and how, emotional regulations and how we show
up for our team
changes culturally,
but also changes in the level of stress
that you have. So meaning, you can have
you're gonna have excellent if you if you
put your mind to it, you can have
excellent emotional regulation.
When you sleep eight hours a night, when
you take a break for lunch, when you,
don't have three emergencies to go to. But
that changes when you understand that any mistake
that you make can result in somebody's death
and when you have three patients waiting for
you and we have when you have work
for forty eight hours straight without a break.
Right? And, so and and and you have
an Ethan also. Right? So this is these
are things that I think in health care,
sometimes we take for granted, especially during residency.
We have the eighty hour work,
week rule,
to avoid some people to work more than
eighty hours. But what else do we have
in terms of extending compassion to your team
members?
What all health care professionals,
all health care professionals,
we all have a deep
compassion
for patients.
And we and that's our why, and that's
why we show up, and that's why we
train for longer,
years than anybody else.
But can we extend that compassion
to yourself
and to your team members
instead of going to judgment,
to apply some curiosity?
And it's interesting because I think health care
is one of the places where we have
where where the the concept that, you know,
Brene Brown, talks about it very in a
very eloquent way. The concept of being vulnerable
and showing that it's brave, and showing up
vulnerable allows your team members to also,
be vulnerable and not,
be super big and bad so so you
cannot talk about the the the things that
you need to talk about
to improve, the care of our patients. So
I think how does that result when, I
I I can speak about our division.
I think when I showed up,
at the beginning in our division, there was
some, culture transformation that needed to happen, same
with the operating rooms. But once you do
that and once the team trusted each other,
you know, they our our, discharges
got faster.
Our consult times were faster.
Now we're like, our our relationship with the
emergency medicine service, with EMS and paramedics, our
our relation with them is better. So therefore,
now, we are the trauma center that gets
the most EMS,
transfers referrals or patients in the entire state.
With the operating rooms, we changed the way
that we communicate with nursing and anesthesia and
surgery. We created a culture of trust,
And that ended up,
improving our metrics, improving our first on time
start from what we have until what we
have now. So I think that even though
it sounds it sounds for people that are
very scientific, that wanna always look
at, the numbers or people that are still
hooked up in hierarchies
or, you know, impact factors, publications, and RBUs.
It it's interesting how all goes back to
this very,
kumbaya
in in in, you know,
concept
of compassion towards yourself, compassion towards your team
members,
having a culture of trust. And even though
this seems like super soft,
that level of empathy always results or at
least in my experience and and, you know,
I I might prove myself wrong later on
in my career. But to now my in
that in my experience, it will,
improve your metrics. It will improve the data.
You have to invest in people. And, honestly,
we're leading people. We're not leading,
numbers. We're not leading a metric. We're not
leading a title. Right? So I think that
is when you,
I I I a 100% believe that through
empathy and to vulnerability,
we can create teams that where the trust
is there and we can and that trickles
down to better patient care, better quality metrics,
better,
you know, less less safety issues because people
are not afraid to raise your hand and
speak up.
And that makes a lot of sense. And
I I really appreciate the explanation there because,
you know, it it can be,
very critical in the clinical care space to
keep these principles in mind, but easy, I
I think, to forget them, especially, as you
mentioned, when you're in a high stress environment
or haven't necessarily been able to take care
of yourself as a clinician and leader the
way you'd like to. So, that makes a
lot of sense. And I'm curious.
What do you,
typically do, I guess, or or what are
you excited about when you look into the
future of medicine and and see the leaders
upcoming the pipeline within your organization and and
beyond?
What do you see as being just something
that you're really excited about their energy and
passion and and more when you think about
where health care leadership is headed?
I'm really excited to see clinicians in leadership
roles. So I think but but, Ant,
those clinicians need to understand that leadership is
a skill. Right? Some people are born with
different types of skills, but, ultimately, leadership is
a skill that needs to be learned, practiced,
and,
almost, like, daily. Right?
Like, a lot of introspection, a lot of
reading, a lot of understanding,
time invested with your team. I mean, if
you're leading a team of people,
it's important that you know them by name
and story, not just by what they do
for you or for the organization.
I think when clinicians,
the people that are at the bedside, the
people that understand where the resources need to
be placed, the people that are that are,
like, you know, walking the walk. Those are
the people that are trained and empowered and
allowed to be in leadership roles. The the
organization moves differently.
There's I, I think that people feel less
at risk. People feel more understood.
There's less,
issues begging for what you need because those
people that are that have been clinicians or
are still clinicians
understand what the patients need. So it's less
about the bottom line, but in more about
serving people. And then, ultimately, yes, it will
make it will make,
systems profitable. Of course, no money, no no
mission. Correct?
That being said, our business is,
our business needs improving lives, saving lives, better
outcomes.
You know, when we fail
in leadership and when we don't create those,
open environments for people to collaborate,
it's not it's
those mistakes are,
are very are are
are very,
costly
because we're measuring our success in how we
impact other people's lives.
That's fantastic to hear, doctor Farada. Thank you
so much for joining us on the podcast
today. Before we wrap up, is there anything
else you would like to to leave our
audience with, especially emerging leaders as they're,
trying to navigate,
the health care system right now and and
figure out what it will take in order
to be a great leader in the future?
Yes. I I have several things to to
to that I think are important. I think
for, for those that are listening that wanna
be in leadership, start training, start looking for,
avenues to grow.
And but more importantly, understand that leadership is
not really
about personal power, but it's about service. And
if if serving is beneath you, then leadership
is not for you.
However, I also wanna empower every clinician to
understand that your leadership and your influence
goes above and beyond a title of professor,
associate professor, or chair, or,
whatever the title might be because everybody around
you are listening. The medical students are listening.
The families are listening. Nursing is listening.
Your partners in emergency medicine and and and
other, specialties are listening.
And,
and, ultimately,
our why,
the reason why we show up every day
to the jobs that we show up for
every day is to help people, to heal
people. And so in order for us to
do that, we have to be whole ourselves.
If if there's some issue with emotional regulation
or you feel stuck in, how you communicate,
maybe it's important that you take a look
inward,
Do some introspection
and lead yourself, understanding why are you you're
not showing up the way that you need
to show up. And once you heal
inside and you find an environment where you
where you feel that you can belong, where
you're heard, when you're understood, where you believe,
treasure that environment. And and and once you're
there, help others too.
Lend a hand. That that's that's not only
good for you and good for the other
person, but, you know, all that secretion of
oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine when you're helping people
prolongs your life as well. Ultimately, it's all
of our jobs, everybody in health care,
to,
make this place a better place. And I'm
not only talking about Innova. I'm talking about
globally.
How do we leave something behind? How do
we leave a legacy of
trust and compassion
so we can help others also grow?
I love that. A legacy of trust and
compassion is truly remarkable.
Doctor Farada, thank you so much for joining
us on the podcast today. This has been
a really fun and informative conversation, and I
look forward to connecting with you again soon.
Thank you, Laura.