Patrice Harris, MD, MA shares her learnings from her year as AMA president

Watch the AMA's daily COVID-19 update, with insights from AMA leaders and experts about the pandemic.

AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger speaks with outgoing AMA President Patrice Harris, MD, MA, who shares reflections and learnings from her presidency, largely shaped by a global pandemic and flagrant social injustice. Learn more at the AMA COVID-19 resource center.

Speakers

• Patrice Harris, MD, MA, AMA president

Unger: Hello, this is the American Medical Associations COVID-19 update today. We're talking to AMA's outgoing president, who shares reflections and learnings from a presidency, largely shaped by a global pandemic and more recently flagrant social injustice. I'm joined today by Dr. Patrice Harris, AMA's outgoing president and a psychiatrist and former public health director in Atlanta. I'm Todd Unger, AMA's chief experience officer in Chicago.

Dr. Harris, nobody could have imagined a year ago when you became the first African American woman to lead our AMA, the year that you would have ahead of you. Is there anything you wished you had known then and what have you learned?

Dr. Harris: Well, Todd, absolutely. Each AMA president and actually board chair is typically confronted with one issue over the course of their tenure, but certainly a pandemic and certainly this rash of awareness about racial injustice, because we have known that these injustices exist. But certainly just the recent rash of these injustices has really brought into stark relief what many of us knew already. But I have to tell you and as you may recall in my inauguration speech, I said, I wanted to elevate three things this year during my tenure. And the first was the importance of mental health and to overall health. The second one was around diversity of the physician workforce in the service of health equity, and the third was trauma. And aren't those all interrelated and interwoven into what we are seeing now? So I am just glad, I believe I was in the right place at the right time. And I'm so glad to have been able to serve and lead our great organization during this time. I feel like my experience and expertise matched this moment.

Unger: Well, you've faced the challenges of the last year in an extraordinary way serving as a unified leader for our organization, but also the nation's physicians. Looking back, what were the biggest challenges for you personally?

Dr. Harris: I think, candidly, and this was early on, personally was the travel. It's such a wonderful opportunity to really get out and meet and see physicians and see our specialty societies and our state societies actually bring the mission, bring the work of the AMA to life. So initially it was the travel, but well worth it. But I think right now, we are faced with a challenge that our country, indeed, our world has not seen in generations. But as usual, and as you have heard me say many times, physicians don't run away from problems, we run towards them. And so I think the challenge was sort of listening to the many voices of physicians out there and bringing those challenges and giving voice to those challenges.

Unger: And one of the challenges obviously we've seen is that all of the issues that were broken about health care, then exacerbated by this pandemic. And now we have a new layer on top of that around inequity that are exposing problems that have been in place for far too long. You've been really active in this area before recent events. What can physicians do to help and what will you personally continue to do beyond your presidency?

Dr. Harris: Well, Todd, you mentioned learning. What did I learn? And I really have made it a practice in my entire life to look for those learning moments, for me and for others. And I think there's a through line, we talked about this pandemic shaping my presidency and we talked about the recent injustices. And again, amplification bringing into stark relief structural racism. And so I think the huge learning, there's a through line here. And I think the through line is about prevention, sort of being proactive and preparedness if you will. Because if we look at COVID-19, and you noted in my intro that I'm a former public health director, we need to make sure that we are prepared. We have not had the resources in public health for many years to make sure that we are prepared. So I think that's a through line here. How can we be proactive so that we can be prepared?

If you look at the recent episodes of police brutality, but not just police. Here in Georgia, we had Mr. Arbery who was simply jogging and was shot by a couple of other folks, not even the police. We did not take, I would say, in this country an opportunity to learn. We have had ample opportunities to learn from previous instances, ample opportunity to learn from others who have tried to elevate these issues. And we didn't. And so I think the through line of this moment and the learning moment here is being proactive and really learning from moments and not waiting, not just getting through the crisis and getting to the other side and going back to business as usual. But learning through these crises and making sure there is a new normal that we don't go back and accept the way things were before.

Unger: Well, you mentioned recently that you always try to lead with authenticity, and that's very, very clear how that comes out. How has this helped you throughout the last year and to what do you attribute your success as a leader?

Dr. Harris: Well, my lesson that I really had to learn, right? I didn't come into this as a younger version of me feeling confident in that lesson, feeling confident in being my true, authentic self. I always make sure that everyone knows that because it's a journey for us all. But I think this past year and my opportunity both pre and post COVID, and all the things that have happened. Is that you can use your authentic self as a ballast, right? As a foundation. And from that foundation, the work can continue. But when you are grounded in your own authenticity, that includes knowing your strengths and where you have opportunities to learn and grow. It really gives you such a strong foundation to meet challenges. Certainly, I always use a team to meet challenges. Of course, the AMA is a huge team and I've always used my teams and AMA is a huge and wonderful team, whose management and staff are talented beyond measure. But you have to be grounded in who you are and surround yourself and be involved and engaged in organizations, and have teams around you to help you get the work done. And that's what I've tried to hold onto of this past year.

Unger: Well, you will be leaving your presidency at a time when our nation is struggling to reopen. What advice do you have as we navigate this uncertain time?

Dr. Harris: Well, let's do what the AMA encouraged at the beginning of this pandemic, start with the science and the evidence and the facts. That's how we move forward on this pandemic. And regarding reopening and loosening restrictions, we start there. We also allow for other than a one size fits all approach, right? Because sometimes we like blunt, quick-fix solutions to problems in our country. And really that's not pragmatic. That's not realistic actually. And so we are going to have to have some very science-based conversations about the path forward, but we start and begin with the science and then we make decisions based on the unique needs of areas, of ages, of individuals, of populations. I think that's how we move forward.

And I am optimistic, but I will say this, I am hopeful. But it is a pragmatic optimism because now is not the time for platitudes. I mentioned this yesterday in another forum at the AMA, it is not enough to just say, "We're all in this together." We are, that's necessary, but no longer sufficient. It is not enough to say to a young child, and I no longer do this, "You can be anything you want." Because we know in this country, not everyone has those equitable opportunities to be anything that they want. And certainly not equitable opportunities to be as healthy as they want. And so we want to get there, that's the space, that's the end goal.

But the pragmatic part of that hope and optimism is that we have to do the work. And so I will be continuing that work. I will continue to do that work as an individual. I know the AMA will continue to do the work. Of course, I will never leave the AMA. As I leave, I will be immediate past president and on the board for another year. But I'll never leave the AMA. I will continue to work within the bounds of the AMA, but I will also continue to work external to the bounds of AMA. And I think that if we are committed to do the work, have those hard conversations. Because Todd, on all these issues, as we talk about preparedness and health inequities and structural racism, the conversations can sometimes get difficult, right? And I will say if we are too comfortable, if we find ourselves having comfortable conversations about these challenges, we're probably not doing the work. So I will continue to do the work. I know the AMA will too. And I look forward to that work again, both internal to and external to our wonderful and beloved American Medical Association.

Unger: Well, I thought I would leave this particular segment with a story about you. Together over the past three months, we've done a lot of these COVID-19 updates. You're the charter member of this series. We are now almost 40 episodes in. This has been a challenging time, and I think an opportunity for the AMA to learn something very important, which is how physicians can tell their story better. And to elevate the voice of physicians in what is currently a very confusing time.

Back at the beginning of this, we were having a lot of technical difficulties. It was tough to get this up and running. And I did send you a little note and said, thanks for hanging in there with us. And despite all the obstacles of internet and no production and all that kind of stuff. And you sent me back a note and you said, "Todd, people's lives are on the line." And I think to me, that just summarizes where you come from and thank you so much for all the caring and everything you've done to advance physicians, science and the needs of our patients. So thanks very much.

That's it for today's COVID-19 update. Dr. Harris, what a pleasure it's been to work with you, and will continue to be so. We'll be back on Monday with another COVID-19 update.

For updated resources on COVID-19 go to ama-assn.org/COVID-19. Thanks for being with us here today.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this video are those of the participants and/or do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA.