Workplace wellness. Clean water supplies. Substance use disorder and a slew of other public health issues. A recipient of multiple teaching and public health honors. As a collaborator and leader, Elizabeth Ablah, Ph.D., MPH, CPH, has done much to improve the health of Kansans and communities in her two-decades-plus on the faculty at KU School of Medicine-Wichita. And all the while teaching medical students about producing and consuming research.

But Ablah, professor and vice chair of the Department of Population Health, wished to do more: “I wanted to determine how I could contribute to the school through my own development, figuring out ways I could better serve the school.”

The path led her to ELAM, the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine program operated by Drexel University in Philadelphia. The year-long program, originally for women but now open to all, is designed to increase the leadership and impact of graduates in the health sciences, with a key ingredient being the commitment of participants’ institutions.

“Having the school’s support to be involved in a program that's saying, ‘We want you to advance in your career, and if that's with us, terrific.’ Why in the world would you not want to do that?” said Ablah, who graduated in April after a year of online and in-person sessions, self-assessment, mentoring, working in small and large groups, and developing a project designed to keep Sedgwick County jail inmates from falling back into substance use and crime after serving their time.

About the program

Ablah is now one of more than 1,800 graduates — yes, they’re ELUMs — of the program, which draws classes from medicine, public health, dental and pharmacy programs. More than 300 now hold executive leadership positions at medical schools and related health organizations.

About two dozen KU School of Medicine faculty across campuses have gone through ELAM, as well as through a related Executive Leadership in Health program to build hospital and health system leadership. Sarah Eickmeyer, M.D., chair of the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, went through ELAM with Ablah, while Deetra Ford, M.D., clinical associate professor of neurology, went through ELH.

Ablah is the second graduate from the Wichita campus, and Dean Laura Tatpati, M.D., now going through the program, will be the third next spring. They follow Tracie Collins, M.D., MPH, MHCDS, now dean of the College of Public Health at University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, who graduated in 2015 while leading KUSM-Wichita’s Department of Preventive Medicine & Public Health (now Population Health).

The medical school’s sponsorship is critical from application to graduation and beyond. Ablah met with her department chair, Simon Craddock Lee, Ph.D., MPH; Garold Minns, M.D., then dean of the Wichita campus; and Akinlolu Ojo, M.D., Ph.D., MBA, executive dean of KU School of Medicine. Her application was screened by KU ELUMs, and Ojo became her official sponsor. With travel costs and time away, the program is a significant investment for participants and the institution, which paid for the program.

“ELAM really want folks that are in a mid to late career. They encourage those people to take that leap into even more leadership roles and authority and responsibility.” said Giulia Bonaminio, Ph.D., senior associate dean for medical education on the Kansas City campus and a 2013 ELAM graduate who served as Ablah’s mentor. “She has so much energy and is such a great leader.”

Bonaminio has worked with Ablah for years in her medical education role. “She really loves taking care of the people in Kansas and has a really great calling for the work that she does.”

The coursework and the gatherings

Ablah and her ELAM classmates did their work in multiple ways. There were 90-minute Zoom sessions twice a week during summer evenings, small-group sessions of about a half-dozen people in Ablah’s time zone (thankfully, she said), and larger subgroup meetings working through a scenario — playing the role of dean or CFO or another leader.

The curriculum focuses on strategic finance and resource management, personal and professional leadership effectiveness, organizational dynamics, and building a network of fellow leaders. Three times across the program, the class spent a week in Philadelphia learning and getting to know one another better.

As someone who works on grant-funded projects, Ablah said budgeting focus was particularly helpful in starting to fill a knowledge gap and left her wanting more. Her small group included an OB-GYN, a physical medicine rehabilitation specialist, a pediatric allergist, a physiologist and a biostatistician. As an MPH holder and public health educator in a class with many physicians, she came at topics from a different angle, which required shifting her perspective and attempting to broaden theirs. The same was true as an educator in a community-model medical school, one without its own hospital attached.

Each participant had to create an Institutional Action Project that furthered the goals of their school ­— in Ablah’s case improving the health of Kansans. She drew on a recent research focus, substance use disorder, and collaborative work she’s been doing in Sedgwick County through a federal grant to reduce fatal and non-fatal drug overdoses.

“I had to come up with a project in my area, which was really unusual for me because I often do projects with partners. It's different than anything I've tried, and it takes time to build something completely new,” said Ablah, recounting how she talked through enough iterations to have fellow group members ask, “What’s your project this week?”

Ablah zeroed in on bringing systematic substance use screening and support to the Sedgwick County Jail, because inmates are often released without resources or treatments to prevent relapses into drug use and criminal behavior. Mental health issues, too, play a role. The project includes working with stakeholders at the jail, and a first step is to integrate Sedgwick County community health workers into the jail, to support inmates during and after they are incarcerated. They also plan an assessment of health and social service needs, with the goal of making connections more seamless to health, mental health and other resources.

“I love finding problems that need attention and aren’t really getting the attention they need. And with mental illness and substance use disorder, ding ding, we've got it,” Ablah said.

The work on the project is a long-term effort but illustrating the collaborative nature of its creation, its co-authors are Ojo, Bonaminio and Carrie Francis, M.D., who oversees KU’s ELAM efforts.

Bonaminio said the program’s benefits include the classmates they met from diverse fields and institutions and the networks built for support and advice.

“Sometimes we think the challenges we face are unique or particular to KU, but these are challenges facing all medical school faculty, whether it's funding or the mistrust in science nowadays,” Bonaminio said. “ELAM is all about building that community. You can be honest and talk about challenges. Sometimes it's hard to do that within your own institution.”

Ablah found one component of the program particularly helpful for her work going forward: “360-degree feedback” confidentially obtained from supervisors, colleagues and people who report to her.

“It was really constructive in thinking about areas where I could develop. I was struck that I rated myself more harshly than others rated me, and I think that's probably pretty common,” Ablah said. “Getting that feedback was probably one of the most useful things I got out of this program.”

The interactions Ablah had and relationships she developed helped her better see strengths she has.

“ELAM helped me recognize my ability to build connections and foster collaboration among people with different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives,” Ablah said, “and highlighted how much I enjoy bringing people together around a shared purpose.”

Ablah hopes to bring that new awareness to her leadership.

“The experience reinforced the importance of seeking diverse viewpoints, remaining open to new ways of thinking and creating opportunities for others to be heard and contribute, because strong solutions often emerge from diverse perspectives,” she said.

Above, left: Elizabeth Ablah, Ph.D., MPH, CPH, far right, with members of her small-group ELAM learning community. (Courtesy photo)