Generation Gaps on the Medical Staff May Affect Physician Recruitment

The new definitions Gen Xers and Gen Yers bring to professionalism and loyalty have thrown older physicians for a loop. Twenty years ago, medical staff leaders had the luxury of mulling over recruiting decisions for weeks, or even months. "Now, if you are not texting them as they are getting in their car after an interview, they think you are not interested in them and they move on," says Sanson.

To leverage the strengths that all four generations bring to the workplace, Sanson suggests developing a mentoring program that pairs members of the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers with Gen Xers and Gen Yers. "The Xers and Yers forget that the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers have institutional knowledge and a wealth of experience, so we need to tap into that." At the same time, Gen Xers and Gen Yers bring the "why does it need to be done that way?" mentality to the table, which forces institutions to evolve.

Keep in mind that these mentoring relationships should not be created with the idea of one person denigrating the other for what he or she doesn't know. It's not about the younger physicians saying, "Here, let me teach you how to use e-mail," says Sanson.

If getting physicians onto the medical staff (and keeping them there) isn't hard enough, finding younger physicians who are interested in becoming medical staff leaders certainly is.

To help fulfill that need, Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota has developed a program that invites young physicians with leadership potential to undergo two years of leadership training at a local university. "There is still a high percentage who aren't interested, but we get a good return on investment for the ones we do work with," says Phillip Kibort, MD, MBA, vice president of medical affairs and chief medical officer at Children's. "We hope those people will participate more in the hospital."

The study mentioned above concluded that "academic departments of anesthesiology, which can successfully incorporate the changes and most importantly the functional and organizational flexibility needed to respond to the newer generations' worldview and so-called balanced goals will be able to best attract high-caliber house staff and future faculty." Well said.