Senior Vice President at ABC News Gives Keynote Address at MSTP Leadership Workshop
The MSTP Leadership Workshop (LW) I for junior graduate phase students was held on September 14th and attended by over 30 students in the graduate phase of training. The goal of this biennial workshop is to coach students on leadership competencies fundamental to success as a physician-scientist. As Dr. Chris Williams pointed out in his opening remarks, many people go their whole careers with little or even no formal training on leadership – the workshop, alongside LW II for senior graduate phase students, is meant to address this gap.
LW I Committee members (Alex Sundermann, Shawn Barton, Caleb Ford, Petria Thompson, Lizzie Flook, and Matt Madden) selected core leadership competencies and developed content with Dr. Mark Cannon, Associate Professor in the Department of Human & Organizational Development at Vanderbilt. Dr. Cannon, who regularly teaches at the Owen Graduate School, led much of the discussion. Competencies this year focused on expectations and feedback, group dynamics, and motivation. Furthermore, students also participated in case discussions, goal-setting, and reviewed actual MSTP seminar feedback to practice their skills in these competencies.
The day concluded with a keynote address given by Beth Hoppe, the senior vice president for Long Form content at ABC News. Prior to joining ABC, she held leadership positions at PBS and Discovery Networks, producing Emmy-award winning scientific content including “DNA: The Human Race” and “The Secret Life of the Brain.” In describing her career path, she emphasized how a leader must act as a positive influence because their actions have major impact on people far and wide. In addition, she pointed out that despite tremendous responsibility of being a leader, it’s important to enjoy the process and take pride in what you do. We’d like to thank the entire LW committee and both Dr. Mark Cannon and Beth Hoppe for making the day truly memorable and giving us the opportunity to expand our toolkit to be successful leaders in the future.