Women's Dermatologic Society

    From Dr. Shawna Flanagan My office staff and I bring joy and fun to the workplace by having fun office dress up events. We love a group Halloween theme and do random themes throughout the year (pajama day, sports team day, Taylor Swift day). Not only does this create a bond with the staff but our patients love our fun energy as well.  Sometimes it’s just little things that bring a joyful boost to the workplace. From Dr. Una Miniter To cultivate joy in the workplace, my office has a potluck celebration for each person‘s birthday. Additionally, four times a year we have a craft night as we have a lot of talented crafters on staff. Lastly, we have numerous patients that come in telling jokes at each of their visits. We all informally compete to see who has heard the best one.   From Dr. Catherine Tchanqu é -Fossuo Creating Joy & Fun at Work is ...

   By the WDS Practice Advisory Committee   From Dr. Shawna Flanagan: I think cross training your team in very important. My office is like a fine dining experience where all the servers and staff can answer your questions and they work as a team to create the best experience. You will never hear in my office “that’s not in my job description” or “I don’t know.” If one of my staff doesn’t know the answer to something, we politely address the issue and immediately get someone who does know. The patients appreciate the effort and the confidence in this big team approach. Frequent training and retraining sessions as well as lunch and learn meetings are an important part of creating an effective team. My team members love hearing about new procedures and protocols. This also creates an environment where everyone is willing to help each other out. Letting staff experience new procedures while others watch and learn is also a great team activity. The old adage “one bad appl...

A Female Dermatologist’s Guide to Being a Leader By Azeen Sadeghian, MD “Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” ~ John C. Maxwell Being a physician equips us, in a way, to naturally become leaders. Many of the traits needed to exemplify excellent patient care are also traits that are seen in strong leaders. Not only that, we are expected to step into our roles as archetypal leaders. We are held to a higher standard in serving. Medical decision making is not the only thing expected of us. For example, many of us serve on dermatologic or medical committees, volunteer in our communities, or manage clinical personnel. The reason why leadership is something we should talk about is because it’s something we all face as physicians. The leadership role we encounter is not limited to the business realm of being a manager or owner, it exceeds that. A friend recently loaned me an article from the Harvard Business R...