Blog Post #6: HSP Director for a Day

Working at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) this summer, there is no “CEO” in charge. There is a President of the IOM, Dr. Victor Dzau, who took the position in July this summer. Dr. Dzau reports to his superiors at the National Academies of Sciences. However, the IOM is composed of several boards, each of which has its own director. Dr. Andrew Pope was the director of the board on which I worked, the Board on Health Sciences Policy (HSP). For the purposes of this assignment, I’ll pretend that I hold Dr. Pope’s job.

As head of HSP, I would schedule more meetings with the entire board staff. These could even be monthly happy hour meetings, lunch meetings, etc.; something more fun than the average briefing meeting. There are so many studies that happen within HSP that it is easy to get lost in the work without meeting everyone who works in the same division. I would also ensure that the less-senior staff are included at these meetings, especially interns, because they gain a lot of valuable experience from meeting older staff members with more experience.

In addition to these meetings, I would ensure that all staff within HSP know about other ongoing studies in the division (and even others at the IOM). This would help communication and could even allow staff to collaborate on resources. This could take the form of a weekly or monthly newsletter, or could even be addressed at the aforementioned meetings.

While other changes could be introduced, I think intra-division communication is extremely important and should be addressed even more at HSP.

Below is an image of my intern badge from my time at the IOM. It was deactivated on my last day and taken for security purposes, but the image is a good keepsake of my time at the IOM. Hopefully some day I will get another IOM badge—maybe for a position that’s a little more permanent.

My IOM badge from my summer 2014 internship.