Remembering Your Why: Dr. Rice’s Guide to Purposeful Leadership || EP. 194

[00:00:00] So what I would say to them is somewhat what I say to myself. Remember your why. Remember why you took this path. I live by a quote that I wake up every morning and it says, what would you do if you could not fail? Our life is about plan B. And plan B does not mean I plan on having a different outcome. I may just have to take a different path.

[00:00:31] This is Inspiring Women. I'm Laurie McGraw and I'm speaking with Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice. She is the CEO and president of the Morehouse School of Medicine, an important institution. 50 years old, she is the first woman to hold this position. You're holding it at a very important time in medicine and in this country. Dr. Rice, thank you for being on Inspiring Women. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:55] Well, let's get into it. So first of all, we're here in New Orleans. We're here at the Women Business Leaders Conference. You're speaking this morning. It's pretty early. We don't have our coffee yet. No coffee. No coffee. But I'd like to just start with a bit of the career arc. You're in a very important position. You are also known as an infertility specialist. You work in medicine for many years as a researcher, but you're holding a very important position at a very important time. Can you give us a little bit about how you got here?

[00:01:25] Oh, let's see. I can give that speech in about three minutes, but I'll make it even shorter. So I grew up in a single parent household. My mother divorced my father when I was six years old. I have three other sisters. There were four of us. Unfortunately, one of my sisters passed in 2020. And so we grew up very tight knit. And my mother really did believe that education was the equalizer.

[00:01:52] So she only had a high school education. And she finally got a good job in a paper factory, Georgia Craft. And she became the highest ranking woman to run this type of machine, which was a big deal.

[00:02:04] And that was a game changer for us. It allowed my mother to buy a house. And she kept always telling us, education is what's going to get you out of Macon. And so I always knew that I would go to college. But I graduated from Southwest High School, which was at that time the largest high school in the nation in 1979. My graduating class was 1,049. That was three times my school.

[00:02:57] And all of a sudden, I recognized I got toward the end of my third year. And I recognized I didn't like engineering. I didn't want to be an engineer. And yet I was sort of being funneled into this career. And so I went one day after they had offered me a job, they offered me a job early on. Now, you got to remember, my mother is working at a paper factory.

[00:03:18] She's probably making more than what they're going to offer me. And I said, I don't want to do this. So I called her up long distance, no internet, no fact, you know, long distance. You can talk about three minutes. And I told her, she said, that doesn't make any sense to me. And I said, well, mom, trust me. And then I went to the encyclopedia. Remember the encyclopedia? I do. And you do those word matches, people, math and science, medicine comes up. And I decided to go to medical school. Okay. And it really happened like that.

[00:03:47] That's amazing. And I went back to Georgia Tech. They didn't have pre-med majors. I went over to Spelman College and asked for some counseling or what I need to do in a woman. I never forget this. She said to me, you don't seem to know a lot about being a doctor. And I said, I didn't know a lot about being an engineer and that's working out okay. And she really did counsel me that I need to take the MCAT and all of that. And I ended up going to Harvard Medical School.

[00:04:11] And so my career from then on has really been about making choices for myself and not allowing others to put me in a path that maybe I'm not passionate about. And so fast forward, I've served at every level of academia, becoming tenured as an associate professor, doing basic science research that was translated to clinical research, and being able to have really great administrative roles that have gotten me to be where I am today.

[00:04:41] Okay. First of all, how long did it take for your mother to recognize that that was a good decision? She recognized it, I think, when I was finishing my fellowship and I was getting ready to go start at University of Kansas. And she said to me, you're not going to be one of those doctors that's going to have their sign up outside the door and people come and see you from eight to five, are you? And I said, no, mom, probably not. I think she got it. She got it.

[00:05:08] So in those positions where you move from being an actual physician caring for patients to an administrator, and there are not enough physicians in those leadership positions either, there certainly aren't enough women, and there certainly aren't very many women of color. So there are so many opportunities along the way where there weren't mentors to bring you forward who are in those positions. So what drove you to the next level?

[00:05:35] And I am confident that along the way there were many people who were like not ready, not qualified for a host of reasons, and yet you made it anyway. So what were those things that allowed you to have the confidence, have the whatever it was that brought you there? When I really think about it, there were actually a lot of people in those positions who actually stepped up to be mentors. They didn't just look like me.

[00:06:04] And one of the things that I figured out early on, and I figured out this at Georgia Tech, because when I went to Georgia Tech as a chemical engineering major, I finished with the chemistry degree because I graduated in four years instead of five. But in chemical engineering, there were only about 10 women in that field at that time. So I recognized then that I was going to be in a field that had limited choices of mentors that would look like me.

[00:06:30] And so I became very much open to diversity of thought based on people who didn't necessarily look like me. And what I decided was that there was something in their story that was going to be able to help me. So along the way, I had lots of different mentors. In fact, my two primary mentors when I was in medical school, Dr. Isaac Schiff and Dr. Anne Kiesling,

[00:06:54] white male, white woman, who really are the ones who really got me interested in reproductive endocrinology and fertility. When I moved to the administrative side, I think I leaned in more in ensuring that I found other people, not necessarily in medicine, though, who could serve as mentors, because I was really trying to figure out how to be a good leader. That's very thoughtful.

[00:07:19] And so thinking about people in business, I figured out early on as a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist, because medicine at that time, insurance did not pay for IVF. And so I had to learn sort of the business side of medicine, which is not something you learn in medical school. So early on in my career, I became exposed to how to set up a practice, how to run a business. And there were definitely people on the business side who helped with that.

[00:07:49] So, Dr. Rice, along the way, you're so thoughtful in terms of these different career steps, how you surrounded yourself. And none of these things were fitting in and not making noise along the way. You've been an extraordinarily strong advocate for diversity, equity, inclusivity, and you're very strong in your conviction of how that remains critically important. Before we go there, I'm wondering if you could just talk about that point at which Morehouse School of Medicine, this is a very important institution.

[00:08:18] It is 50 years old. It was created for a purpose, and you're the first woman to lead this important organization. What drew you to Morehouse? So I knew about Morehouse School of Medicine early in its founding. Georgia Tech is in Atlanta. Morehouse School of Medicine is in Atlanta. And they were a very new school. And I didn't apply to medical school there. I could have, but I thought that I wanted to leave Georgia. And they were a new school. And I was like, hmm. I don't think people leave Georgia.

[00:08:46] I think Georgia just draws you in. And so I said, you know, I don't think I want to go there. But then I came back to Atlanta for my residency at Emory. And at that time, Morehouse School of Medicine was still doing joint rotations. Their medical students were doing joint rotations with the Emory students. Now, I went to residency at Emory, but we all worked at Grady Hospital.

[00:09:11] And I will tell you, this was really my first really big slap in the face of seeing it wasn't discrimination. It was just how people were treated differently based on which school they were attached to. And when I was a third-year resident, they separated out the rotation. So Morehouse School of Medicine got its own faculty and residents. And the students were actually there doing that rotation under their own supervision.

[00:09:42] Well, the Emory residents, there happened to be six out of the 12 were Black in my year. And we saw how those students were treated differently because most of those students were Black. And we decided that we were going to take them under our wing, which we did, and ensure their success. And that was the first time that I really recognized that, okay, you've got to have somebody advocating and guiding for you

[00:10:05] and people speaking about you when you're not in the room and dispelling myths and bad talk, quote-unquote, when you're not in the room. And that was probably my first lesson in advocacy and speaking up for people and understanding does make a difference. And so full circle, when I got to come back and was recruited to Morehouse School of Medicine, I had been the dean at Meharry.

[00:10:31] At that time, when I was named as the dean of Meharry, I was the youngest dean in the country. And it didn't work out that well. I mean, I think I did a great job for the first two and a half years. And then a new president came on, and we did not get along. And that person decided to ask me to step down. And I was devastated. Did you not see that coming? Were you not prepared? You know who saw it coming? My husband saw it coming.

[00:10:58] My husband saw it when the person interviewed, and he said to me, that person is not going to be able to handle your strong presence. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And I'll never forget, he said that one night after we had dinner together with the person and his wife, and I said, no, no, we'll be fine. We are aligned in our mission, our passion, et cetera. He said, watch. And over a year, you could see the relationship deteriorating.

[00:11:27] And not that I was bad, not that he was bad. We had different styles, and we had different ways that we wanted to accomplish things. And one of the things I've learned as a CEO, and this is part of that learning curve, when you are a CEO, you do have to have people on your team who are aligned with your mission and vision and who are not going to create friction. And I think I did create some friction because I had been there, and I thought I knew also what was best for the institution.

[00:11:57] Well, those are very hard lessons, and there is no woman at the level of leadership that you are who hasn't been in the situation where there's been a change, a change that you didn't see coming or a change that you didn't want, and taking control of that, recognizing how you can lead further from that, it's important. Let's move to your work at Morehouse School of Medicine. So you are a strong advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusivity.

[00:12:23] And very recently, actually, you've spoke quite loudly about that with an intention to not back down in terms of the mission of why that is important. And we're in a time where it's become a charged word, a charged set of descriptors for things that I believe are very important. So first of all, can you talk about where we are as a country, talking about DEI, and then also what is important to you as you lead Morehouse?

[00:12:51] So when I think about where we are as a country, first of all, people have such a limited view of what diversity means. They immediately go to race, ethnicity, and gender. And I have always been a real strong advocate for thinking about diversity in a more inclusive way. In that, it is not just your race, ethnicity, and gender.

[00:13:20] It is your distance traveled. It's your relationships you've had. It's your experiences you've had. Now, unfortunately, in this country, that is based on our history of having 400 years of slavery. Okay? I mean, we have to be very realistic that that time in our history set us up for many of the disparities

[00:13:49] and differences we see, whether it's socioeconomic, whether it's disease burden, whether it's economic inequality, it was based on that foundation. And that happened to be delineated by race and gender. So what has happened over these years I've seen is people trying to figure out how to narrow the gap

[00:14:17] based on those circumstances that people were born into and have lived through. So when I look at Morehouse School of Medicine, founded 50 years ago by the state of Georgia to diversify the healthcare workforce because those persons at that time, physician-led but supported by the state, recognized that we were living in a segregated society.

[00:14:46] There were 93 black physicians caring for 75% of the black population at that time. It was probably about 28 to 30% black people in the state of Georgia. But 93 physicians caring for all of those people. There were two medical schools started at that time. Mercer University, which was founded to increase access, and it required that every student be from Georgia.

[00:15:14] Morehouse School of Medicine founded at that time to diversify the healthcare workforce for access. And they couldn't limit it to just everybody coming from Georgia because you would not have had enough people to fill a class, right? And so when you think about why we were founded, and we have been, I think, a proven level of success with a return on investment. The state in Morehouse School of Medicine, along with the state in Mercer,

[00:15:41] we have a public-private partnership where we get a state-operating grant. And we can clearly show the return on that investment. We can show that when we recruit students from Georgia, 68% of those students are going to come back and practice in Georgia. They're going to practice in an underserved community. And we now have data to show that when a Morehouse School of Medicine student or resident comes back and practice in the state of Georgia,

[00:16:06] economic impact, $1.3 million a year in two years, whether you're looking at number of jobs produced, improvement in health outcomes, and decrease in lost work days, etc. From that physician or from the population that they care for? From that physician because that physician is there in that community creating that economic well-being. And now we are tracking improved health outcomes.

[00:16:32] That's what I want to dive into because I think in terms of, you know, there's so much conversation about the charged words, the politicization of something that is important. When people are cared for by a physician who looks like them, who speaks a language like them, they absolutely have improved health outcomes. Can you talk about that? Because I think that we don't spend enough time talking about the importance of the why. Right.

[00:17:01] So when I think about it, you know, we use this word concordance. Okay. Where is their alignment? So when I'm here talking to you and I am your provider, the first thing I always tell my medical students and residents, ask one basic question. Based on who's sitting in front of me, what's possible? You ask that question with every encounter. It requires that you dive deeper beyond the chief complaint.

[00:17:28] And you find out that the chief complaint is really not the real reason sometimes people came. Or if it is, you actually learn something about that person, which allows you to maybe prescribe something different or in a different manner or in a different timeline.

[00:17:44] Now, if I am from a small rural town, which I am, and I know that there's limited access points, I'm not going to per se prescribe for you something that is not going to be attainable in the first phase. I'm going to try to meet you where you are. And so when you see that with me as a patient, there's automatically trust that's built.

[00:18:14] The foundation of any relationship is trust. And so when we talk about concordance around race, ethnicity, gender, we're talking about really cultural identity. We're talking about does this person see me for what I am capable of being or becoming or is at the current stage? And are they willing to co-pilot with me solutions that are unique for me? So I say to people, the data is real.

[00:18:42] When you look at the data, we see improved compliance. We see improved engagement. We see increased patient satisfaction. And we are now beginning to track and see improved health outcomes. Well, the trust is such an important factor. And we've seen actual erosion of trust. Physicians remain the most trusted clinician in erosion of trust of institutions, erosion of trust of government institutions.

[00:19:12] That are out there. So that individual trust for a person who is seeing a physician makes so much difference. So, Dr. Rice, I want to move to just one last area, which is about being a woman CEO. So we are seeing more and more women actually take steps down or out of the workforce at the most senior level.

[00:19:34] We are seeing a squishy middle in terms of people who are available to mentor, middle-level women who are moving into leadership. You are at the pinnacle of leadership in the position you are in. And it's not the only place that you've been at a senior leadership level. Can you just speak to the importance of what is still driving you to be there? It's not like it's gotten easier. It is actually harder.

[00:19:59] So can you just talk about that and your why and why it is important to you to continue to lead at the highest levels? So one of the things I will say is that I was very fortunate to take that risk of going to medical school because I actually found something that I was passionate about.

[00:20:19] And then as I really started to understand that beyond just the one-on-one relationship with the patient, I could actually influence who was educated and trained, how they were educated and trained. And that could also translate to improving health care outcomes for a broader group of people.

[00:20:40] But it did require me to step into leadership roles because I figured out that who controls the purse string really does matter. And whether you get to sit at the table where decisions are made about that purse, it matters. And I wanted to be at those tables because I knew that I would bring my original purpose aligned with my passion to my decision-making.

[00:21:07] And so it's challenging, though. It is challenging because it can be lonely. You don't have always a group of people that you can serve as your sounding board because there are not a lot of people who necessarily have sat in the seat. That's right. There's not that many CEOs. It gets narrower and narrower. It gets narrower and narrower.

[00:21:28] So what you have to rely on, again, is other persons who you believe their values align with you, whether they're in the same business or not.

[00:21:38] Because once you get to the C-suite, even if you are a health care company or you are a manufacturing company, it always comes down to the people and how you invest in your people and how you actually identify people who have the competencies and the skills aligned with their passion and purpose to have you realize the mission and the vision.

[00:22:07] And if you have a vision, I believe, that is informed by the stakeholders, the people that you're serving, and you have leaders who are committed to that mission and vision, you can be successful. Now, you have to keep your energy level up. You have to make sure that you remain humble. You have to make sure you recognize sometimes when you're deviating off the path, because we do.

[00:22:33] I mean, there are periods of time in my career where I felt like I have not brought my best self to work. And most of the time, it is when I am not focused so much on the goal, but listening to the background noise. And so you have to figure out how do you sometimes put on blinders so you don't become distracted and put earplugs in and only turn up the volume for things that are going to keep you moving forward.

[00:23:02] And we're in that time right now. People ask me, well, what are you concerned about? Well, we were founded to diversify the healthcare workforce. So if I'm not a part of the DEI story, if Morehouse School of Medicine is not a part of the DEI story, I don't know what the DEI story is. And so I'm a scientist, though.

[00:23:24] I can show you the return on investment, whether you want to measure by economics, whether you want to measure by patient satisfaction, or whether you want to measure by health outcomes. I can show you what it means for a family when their loved one walks across that stage and how they change the trajectory of their family's life, the community that they're serving, how they narrowed the black-white wealth gap.

[00:23:49] I can show you that all in data because while we were founded, it's pure. And it was needed then, and it's needed now. Well, I can hear that passion in terms of your leadership, your passion for what you're doing, and the importance and the impact of what you're doing as the president and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine. Dr. Rice, one last question. So usually I ask leaders like yourself for younger women who are up and coming.

[00:24:18] I actually would like to hear your best advice for women who are at the top, who are at the senior most levels, who are considering backing down in this time or not having the energy because it is hard. It's hard to take stands. It's hard to do the work at the most senior levels. What do you say to them? So what I would say to them is somewhat what I say to myself. Remember your why. Remember why you took this path.

[00:24:47] And a lot of times I have to journal. Sometimes I have to write messages for myself. I live by a quote that I wake up every morning, and it says, what would you do if you could not fail? Or life is about plan B. And plan B does not mean I plan on having a different outcome. I may just have to take a different path. And then I also remember the people that I'm doing this for.

[00:25:16] And so instead of sitting in my office sometimes, which I could sit in my office and do Zoom calls and do meetings all day, sometimes what I do is I go meet my leaders and meet in their spaces and places. I do walk around on the campus. I leave Friday afternoon sort of open. I create dialogue times. Anybody can make an appointment to see me for 15 minutes to talk about anything.

[00:25:45] And I put those on the calendar so that people will take advantage of it because I need to be reminded of my purpose and my why, particularly in these times. So the most inspiring times for me, like on Friday, is Match Day, where the students will open up their envelopes and understand where they're going to go do their residency training.

[00:26:10] And I will look at those young people, and it will affirm for me why I'm here. That is an amazing set of advice for so many women leaders. I have been speaking with Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice on Inspiring Women. And Dr. Rice, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you.