'Hone your compass'
In 1984, Amy Acton sat in a class lecture in the College of Medicine that changed her perspective on her future career. Around that time the World Health Organization had defined health as a complete state of psychological, emotional and physical well-being, not merely the absence of disease.
“I remember that standing out to me because I thought no one had ever really said the end goal of what we do it. A lot of what we learn is sick care,” Dr. Acton recalled on the VITALS program. “But to learn about how we actually create the community conditions in which we can all thrive...that’s sort of what threw me into this career of preventive medicine.”
Adaptive Leadership
Amy Acton, M.D. (’90), M.P.H., joined VITALS | Visionary Health Leadership in Action on Thursday, Nov. 2, to share her insights on adaptive leadership and lessons learned in her role as the director of the Ohio Department of Health in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
VITALS is a monthly health leadership series presented by NEOMED in collaboration with University Hospitals.
Dr. Acton will be long remembered among Ohioans for the 2 p.m. press conferences she held with Governor Mike DeWine in 2020.
She noted three things that she tried to infuse into her delivery of emerging and ever-changing information about the novel coronavirus: brutal honesty, vulnerability and empowerment.
“We decided we would tell you what we knew, when we knew it,” she said.
Because of that forthrightness, Dr. Acton become a hero to many people around the country, who tuned in daily to get information from a trusted source. Being in the spotlight also brought some negative attention, however, including threats of physical harm. In spite of that, Dr. Acton worked hard to maintain her integrity and make difficult public health decisions in the face of sometimes intense opposition.
Her advice to others who may find themselves in confronted with similar choices? “Hone your compass and have that compass to call on,” she said.
Watch VITALS with Amy Acton, M.D., M.P.H.
Additional resources
Dr. Acton shared several resources during her VITALS presentation:
- The New Yorker’s How American Can Avoid Dual Cataclysms by Paige Williams (Nov. 2, 2020)
- The Public Health Crisis Survival Guide by Johns Hopkins physician and researcher Joshua Sharfstein
- The Pandemic Playbook the national strategy for pandemic response (George W Bush Administration, 2005)
- The Great Influenza by historian and author John Barry
- New York Times: The Leader We Wish We Had
- Leadership On the Line by Harvard professors Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky
- Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community (2023).
Next up on VITALS
Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., FCCM, chief quality and clinical transformation officer and the Veale Distinguished Chair in Leadership and Clinical Transformation at University Hospitals, joins the program on Thursday, Dec. 14, at noon in Watanakunakorn Auditorium and via Zoom. Save your seat!
Learn more about VITALS at https://www.neomed.edu/vitals/