AAPI Leaders in New Haven Conference

By A Staff Writer

New Haven, September 23 –  Education is key to growth for an organization and its members. With a view to educate, train and enhance the leadership qualities of the members of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), this group’s leaders, in collaboration with Yale University here, launched a new initiative, a Leadership Retreat that began on Saturday, September 20.

“In response to the audible clamor for a formal education in organizational techniques for the leadership of AAPI, and of its Young Physicians’ Section (YPS) and the Medical Students, Residents and Fellows (MSRF) division, a search has been on since assuming office for an appropriate platform,” says Dr. Ravi Jahagirdar, who became AAPI president last June. Yale, with its long tradition of training nearly 200 diverse groups of leaders from across the globe, was identified to be the best place for this meeting, to fulfill this long cherished goal.

Describing the breadth of topics, Dr. Jahagirdar mentioned the following key ones discussed:

  • Team Building – the Drexler-Sibbet model and task roles
  • Strategic Planning – its flow from vision through goals and tactics to implementation
  • The methods of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)
  • Porter’s five forces and including Project Management
  • Leadership with the mental models and behaviors of Abundance and Scarcity Delegation
  • Special discussion on relevance and reference to AAPI as it surges into a rapidly expanding role in the future

Dr. Seema Jain, AAPI president-elect, says she believes in “bridging the gap between clinical research and medical practice, which is central to AAPI’s mission. The training at Yale was yet another way of providing opportunities for its members to grow and empower themselves, especially for women leaders. This daylong event offered us insights to Indian physicians in the United States to make our dream of nurturing the present for a prosperous future.”

Dr. Ajay Lodha, AAPI vice president, said the Yale leadership program was “very well attended and was very informative, very descriptive, informal and well organized. There were a lot of interactive discussions which led to new innovative ideas to improve the organization, including ways to increase revenue and control the expenses; the session on current problems in AAPI and how to resolve them in an amicable way was excellent.”