The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare

Meg welcomes Dr. Kelly LeBlanc, Chief of Anesthesia and President of the Medical Staff at Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital. Dr. LeBlanc is also a physician partner with U.S. Anesthesia Partners (USAP), a physician-owned, clinician-led organization providing anesthesia services in more than 700 inpatient and outpatient facilities across the country, serving more than 2 million patients annually.

At USAP, Dr. LeBlanc is part of the Clinical Operations Committee, focusing on enabling great patient outcomes, developing exceptional clinical leaders, and creating a positive clinical culture, which includes a healthy work-life balance. 

Meg and Dr. LeBlanc discuss USAP’s role in addressing staffing shortages within health systems. Dr. LeBlanc highlights the importance of creating a positive clinical culture and improving the employee experience. She shares how USAP is implementing innovative strategies, such as a culture committee and surveys, to listen to and address the needs of their team members. Dr. LeBlanc reflects on her journey into medicine and anesthesia, emphasizing the importance of mentorship and caring for patients. The importance of representation and mentorship in attracting and retaining more women, especially minorities, in medicine is highlighted as well. Dr. LeBlanc’s experiences overcoming barriers speak to the the importance of creating a supportive and inclusive culture within the healthcare industry. 

Further Reading: 

Episode Credits: 

The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare is a production of The Krinsky Company. 
Hosted by Meg Escobosa. 
Produced by Meg Escobosa, Calvin Marty, Chelsea Ho, Markala Comfort, and Wendy Nielsen.
Edited, engineered, and mixed by Calvin Marty. 
All music composed and performed by Calvin Marty. 

©2024 The Krinsky Company

Creators & Guests

Host
Meg Escobosa
Meg Escobosa has 15 years of innovation consulting experience, focusing on the unique challenges of healthcare since 2012. For The Krinsky Company, Meg leads client engagements overseeing advisory board design, creation and management. She also leads industry research, expert recruitment and trend analysis to support corporate innovation initiatives centered on the future of healthcare. Her background in innovation and strategy consulting began at IdeaScope Associates where she was involved all aspects of strategic innovation initiatives including understanding the voice of the customer, industry research and aligning the executive team to invest in promising strategic growth opportunities. Meg received her BA in Latin American Studies from Trinity College in Hartford and her MBA in sustainable management from the pioneering Master’s degree program, Presidio Graduate School. She is also on the board of a non-profit foundation focused on researching and developing technology to support a sustainable society. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two teenage daughters.
Producer
Calvin Marty
A man of many hats, Calvin Marty is a Podcast Producer, Editor, Engineer, Voice Actor, Actor, Composer, Singer/Songwriter, Musician, and Tennis Enthusiast. Calvin produces, engineers, edits, mixes, and scores The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare. Calvin is also the creator of the 2020 podcast, irRegular People, among others. Find his music under the names Calvin Marty, Billy Dubbs, Nature Show, and The Sunken Ship. Over his long career as an actor, Calvin's has voiced many Radio and TV commercials for a wide-range of companies and products and has appeared in small on-camera roles on shows such as Chicago Fire and Empire.

What is The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare?

The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare is a podcast featuring exceptional women making an impact in healthcare today. We celebrate our guests’ accomplishments, setbacks, and the lessons they've learned throughout their careers. We dig into the many healthcare issues we face today and how these innovative leaders are working to solve them. Join host Meg Escobosa in conversation with some of the many brilliant, courageous women on the front lines of the future of health.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: The need for anesthesia has grown so much. Revenue was generated through procedures. Procedures means operating rooms. It means endoscopy suites. It means cath labs. All of those areas are now requiring anesthesia. Before, when I came out, they used to do endoscopies with a nurse and Versed®, and that was that. Now it's anesthesia and propofol and same thing with cath lab. The need for our care has grown exponentially. That's grown - the number of residents that were graduating hasn't changed.

Meg Escobosa: Welcome to the Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, featuring exceptional women making an impact in healthcare today. Together, we dig into the many healthcare issues we face today and how these innovative leaders are working to solve them. We celebrate our guests’ accomplishments, setbacks, and the lessons they've learned throughout their careers.

I'm Meg Escobosa. Join me in conversation with some of the many brilliant and courageous women on the front lines of the future of health.

Welcome back to The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare. I'm your host, Meg Escobosa. A quick note before we get into today's episode, we are currently looking for sponsors for the podcast. If supporting and encouraging female leadership in healthcare is important to you or your organization, help us do that by becoming a sponsor of the Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, reach our engaged audience with a mention by me in future episodes, or we'll produce a short audio spot for your organization. At The Krinsky Company, we believe in female and diverse leadership in healthcare. If that's important to you too, become a sponsor of the podcast and proudly share your values with the world. Reach out to us at podcast@thekrinskyco.com and thank you.

Today on the show, we have Dr. Kelly LeBlanc, who is Chief of Anesthesia and President of the Medical Staff at Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital. Dr. LeBlanc is also a physician partner with U.S. Anesthesia Partners (USAP), a physician-owned, clinician-led organization providing anesthesia services in more than 700 inpatient and outpatient facilities across the country, serving more than 2 million patients annually.

At USAP, Dr. LeBlanc is part of the Clinical Operations Committee, focusing on enabling great patient outcomes, developing exceptional clinical leaders, and creating a positive clinical culture, which includes a healthy work life balance. Kelly, welcome to the show.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Meg, thank you so much for having me. I am so honored to be here today.

Meg Escobosa: We are lucky to have you. So thank you. Kelly, just to give us a bit of a foundation, can you briefly describe how an organization like USAP works with health systems? Just because it's a little different from how it used to be back in the day. And I know USAP has been around a little while, but can you describe the organization and how it works with health systems?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Yes. So it's truly a partnership. I want to emphasize that…we do provide a service and so it's important to not only meet the needs of our patients, but the healthcare systems that we work with.

Meg Escobosa: Great. So you're really addressing like a staffing issue, right? There's this shortage around the country, and is that the reason that USAP came to be is to address this shortage or is it a different mission?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Yeah, it's funny. I've been - before we were the USAP. We were what was called GHA, Greater Houston Anesthesiology.

USAP was birthed right here in Houston. And we just saw all of the challenges, all of the headwinds coming for smaller practices or privately owned practices, it was a challenge for physician-owned practices. And so one of those things being staffing shortages, and it's only been exaggerated over these years, especially with COVID, and so it's one of those significant headwinds that we thought about very early on. I'm so glad that we did. Being partnered and creating such a larger organization where we can really focus on the clinical aspect, where we have partners to help us with the business aspect, has really been instrumental in figuring out ways to be more efficient because when you have a staffing shortage, you've got to be as efficient as possible.

How to do a better job of recruiting, being much more intentional in that. And then most importantly, I think, which is something that's near and dear to my heart is the employee experience and how do we focus on that?

How do we make sure that everyone who is a part of our organization feels that this is not only a place where they work but their work home and that we're an extended family. And so being able to focus on clinical care, the quality, and just the overall experience has been an amazing opportunity - something I think that we are uniquely structured for because we saw very early on the need.

Meg Escobosa: Thank you for telling us that. Is there anything that you're doing particularly innovative right now as an organization or in your group in Houston?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: So I guess a couple of things. I think what I am most closely associated with is the experience of our employees, our partners, our team members, we have a strategic planning committee meeting here in Houston, and last year it was actually the end of 2022, we came together as a team, and we really looked and assessed what was important, what were our needs ongoing and we really saw the staffing shortage is not getting better. And post-COVID attrition rates were really high.

We saw a lot of people leaving for locums, traveling positions, they were quite lucrative at that time. And so how do we meet the needs of our hospital systems if we don't have the staff? And we also see that there's a huge desire for a hospital system to continue to grow. Not only organically within the hospitals that they were currently in, but they continue to create new hospitals within their system, right?

So it's like, how do we keep up with all of this? And we can't do it if we're continuing to see high attrition. And so we really wanted to step back and see what can we do to make, again, this a work0home, create a work family. And how do we assess that? How do we look at that? This is something we've never done before.

Before I remember when I first came out, I'm not going to tell you how long ago, a while, right? When I came out of residency, it was, “Hey. Here's the job, here's the money, You're where you want to be, so do the work, don't complain, and just keep your head down and do what you have to do,” and it's not like that anymore. And so I'm learning a lot from all of the new residents and SRNAs and SAAs that are coming out and graduating and joining us. They're smart enough and bold enough to say that, “My life matters. I need some balance. Mental health matters,” and so we realized that the way we used to do things, we can't continue.

So we really had to regroup and think about what's important and change, not only what we offered, but the way we operate within each of our facilities. And then also to find a way to listen. I think that's the most important thing, because what I think may not be what's actually needed. Yeah. And so, trying to come up with a strategy to do that has been our goal since that strategic planning meeting in 2022.

And so out of that, we created a culture committee here in Houston that I chair. And what was important was when we started that culture committee was that everyone's voice was represented on our committee. So it's comprised of CAAs, CRNAs. Physician partners, associate physicians, we have our MSO, which is our business partners. They are working alongside us each and every day. to help implement all of these things that we're working on.

Again, we're physician led, so all of the ideas, they're all us, right? We govern everything, but they help us make it happen. And so we're all sitting there collectively at the table trying to figure out ways to listen and then to activate and implement based on what we're hearing from all of our family members within the US Gulf Coast.

And then also, how do we listen? How do we create a safe environment for people to be able to talk about what's important to them? What do they see as opportunities and challenges? Not only here within our platform, but it was even more important for us to understand how we're doing at each different practice within Houston because one place may be doing very well culturally, but there's another place that may have more of a challenge. And so, we were really intentional in not only creating this very inclusive culture committee, but we created a survey that we started at the beginning of 2023, we sent it out to every member of our team all across Houston and got feedback.

And that feedback was very sobering and it was great. It only again allowed us to see how we were doing as a whole, but then we were able to actually focus on each site and we were able to see, okay, these sites are doing well. But there's always opportunity for growth. And then while these sites need our assistance and need our partnership even more and so let's see how we can continue to lend even more of a hand to them and help them so that we can continue to improve. And so we did that. And we were able to get that feedback and provide feedback to each of our clients. Site leaders and then follow up with them throughout the year to help develop action plans based on the suggestions and concerns that our family members, our USAP family members here in Houston gave and worked on that all year.

So we sent out the second ever survey at the beginning of this year and we saw remarkable improvement.

Meg Escobosa: Wow.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: We had this tier. We had a stoplight where it was green, yellow, and red. So it was very colorful last year. We had green sites, some yellow sites, and we had some red sites where there were really a lot of concerns, and this year we had greater participation because our team members felt heard and they saw that based on what they wrote, what they suggested - they saw changes.

Meg Escobosa: That's so important.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Right. I think the important thing is not only to hear, but to do. If people don't see anything, then any changes, they're going to be like, “Why did I even take the time to do this?” So, we were really happy about that and all green, no red and very few yellow.

Meg Escobosa:That's amazing. I was just going to say, like, first, just to take the time, the moment to reflect and invite the entire team to weigh in is so important and just congrats to you for taking the initiative to do that, and it's important to get that baseline understanding of where are we. Can you describe what some of the problems were? What's affecting the workforce? Were there any surprises in there?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: I think one thing that was great for all of us to see is that we actually shared a lot of the same challenges. And that is a lot of the staffing, the ability to get breaks, the ability to make sure people get out on time. I think those were the big things.

Meg Escobosa: But with surgery, that's nearly impossible. How can you know that?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: It’s hard, but I think when we are able to do that, Because we're unique, right? We're in operating rooms. And so we're sitting in those rooms and we're hoping that someone remembers we're in there and remembers to feed us and give us bathroom breaks and remembers not to leave us in a room after 3 and 5 o'clock, right?

And so that's very important. And so when we're short staffed, it's how do we do that even when we're running one physician to four CRNAs or CAAs, the care team ratios that we have. And so not only hearing that, but sharing that with all of our site leaders and then sharing best practices because if we're all challenged with this, how are they doing it better over here than over here?

And then getting together and working smarter, not harder. And sharing that. And so it really, I think, helped us operate more as a community because we realized we are definitely more alike than not.

Meg Escobosa: That's great. So finding that common ground and then translating some of the insights from one site to another to share the learnings.

Fantastic. Well, kudos. Where do you see anesthesia going in the next few years? Are there any big changes that you anticipate?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Iit's changed so much because when I started, when I'll just put it out there, I finished residency 20 years ago. Over 20 years ago. So I've been practicing.

Meg Escobosa: I can't believe that. I also can't believe that you're an empty nester.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: For 20 years ago. I've been out practicing over 20 years with the same group. Again, very fortunate not to ever have had to leave at all. It's always been home.

But it's very different. The need for anesthesia has grown so much. We see hospitals understanding that revenue was generated through procedures and procedures means operating rooms, it means endoscopy suites, it means cath labs, and all of those areas are now requiring anesthesia.

Before when I came out, they used to do endoscopies with a nurse and Versed® and that was that. Now it's anesthesia and propofol and same thing with cath lab. The need for our care. Has grown exponentially as that's grown, the number of residents that were graduating hasn't changed.

Meg Escobosa: Right. So that's the pressure point right there.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: That's the pressure point. And we haven't adapted to that need.

Meg Escobosa: And is it a legal issue? Is it say we need an anesthesiologist in the room for safety and to protect our downside risk if there's a problem?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Right. There are a lot of platforms, a lot of places across the country that used to be able to be an MD-only model, where there is a physician in the room for everything.

And now that's just not going to be possible. There's no way that's going to be possible moving into the future. And so the need for this care team model, we're going to continue to rely on more and more so the need for CRNAs, the partnership with CRNAs and physicians is going to continue to grow. And then we also see CAAs. The need for that. That MD model only is going to continue to be fewer and the care team model that's going to continue to emerge and be critical in order for us to deliver the care that's needed.

Meg Escobosa: Yep. And this is just driven by many more sick patients needing more care and many more procedures that either are elective or just additional procedures that are investigative, looking for diagnostic.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Yes. So the diagnostics.

Meg Escobosa: Colonoscopy. Endoscopy.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: All endoscopy procedures, interventional radiology, kyphoplasty for compression fractures need anesthesia. Some neuroradiation cases need anesthesia. Some MRIs need anesthesia. So these are like out of operating room areas that require us, not to mention the expansion of ASCs, ambulatory surgery centers.

We're seeing them pop up all across the country for outpatient procedures. So, not only now are we required to cover our hospital systems, but also these ambulatory surgery centers that are either a part of the hospital systems or standalone. So this is just a trend I think that's going to continue.

Meg Escobosa: Well, let's back up just a wee bit and just hear how did you get into medicine? What brought you into anesthesia? There's lots of possibilities, lots of pathways, and tell us about that pursuit of medicine.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: It's so funny. I always knew that this is what I was supposed to do. There are no physicians in my family.I think I'm one of the only members, one of the first members in my family, that pursued higher education beyond the college level. My parents graduated from college. I had a grandmother and great grandmother who graduated, but no one who attended higher education in my immediate family beyond college.

Meg Escobosa: That's actually pretty rare, too, to think about great grandmother and great grandmothers.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: I agree well, especially the African American experience, right? Not everyone can say that. We still see a high number of people where they
re first generation college grad. So I agree. Very fortunate that I came from that and because of that, I was raised by my mom, single mother, and she stressed the importance of education. She always let me know that there is nothing that I could not achieve as long as I work hard for what I want and have the opportunity for a better education. So she actually thought - I grew up in Philadelphia and the neighborhood we lived in was not a very good neighborhood and she knew that education matters and so she fought and had to talk to her congressman and write and do everything that she could to get us the ability to bus out and catch two buses just to get to a better school.

How courageous she was because she allowed us to get on these, my sister and I, we got on public transportation and I was nine years old and my sister was seven and she taught us how to do it, prayed over us quite a bit. And that's how I was able to get a good education.

Meg Escobosa: And look at that. I actually think even just the example of her trusting, you're going to do this. You're going to be able to manage this big task as a little kid. Get through the city buses and figure out the transfer. That alone is terrifying, let alone be a nine year old and do it. No smartphone.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Nothing, right? No smartphone, no way to contact her to say I missed my bus or I don't know where I am or somebody's following me because it's in the middle of Philadelphia, the city. Again, I can't say how much she prayed over me and my sister, but she knew the importance and that comes a sacrifice for that. But it worked out. She always knew that was my goal. I thank her so much. I always tell her she's my shero because of her, I am. Yes. And so, yeah, she laid that pathway for me.

Meg Escobosa: So cool. And I know, so you, you started there, but there aren't a lot of black women in medicine, do you? No. Can you tell us about what that experience was like and any obstacles you faced as you maneuvered your way to where you are now?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Yeah, there were a lot, 'cause I didn't have any mentors. Right, so I knew what I wanted to do, I didn't know how to get there and I didn't have anyone to guide me to say, “this is the way to do it.” Even in college, I went to Howard University and learned some, but there were still challenges. When you take the MCAT, how do you prepare for it?

There were financial challenges. I went through college on loans and grants. And being able to pay for classes for MCATs and all those sorts of things is hard. I actually ended up doing a post baccalaureate program with UTMB, University of Texas Medical Branch. Through that, got into medical school, which was a blessing. And I always thought that I was going to be a pediatrician until I actually did the rotation.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: No way. Not for me.

Meg Escobosa: Okay. Wait. What was it? What was it the crying children?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Honest answer. It wasn't even the kids. It was the parents. Oh, it's difficult. It was the parents.

Meg Escobosa: The most precious thing in the world.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Their most precious thing, but I distinctly remember I did one rotation and it was so funny, I was doing an outpatient, it was a clinical setting rotation and I'm in the pediatrician's office that I worked with for that month and we had this kid and this, the mom comes in with the kid is just all over the place and she says, “Johnny keeps biting everyone and I just don't know what to do,” and I'm like, “Oh my gosh.” I'm like, this is not for me.

It quickly opened my eyes that pediatrics is not my forte, but I ended up loving surgery, but I knew that being a surgeon also was not for me. By the time I was in medical school, I had two kids and I knew that being there for them was important, and a surgeon's life will not allow me that opportunity.

And so I met, and this is where mentorship is important - again, I'm at the University of Texas Medical Branch for medical school, and there was a young African American physician. Lo and behold, from Philadelphia, who was a mom of two kids and she was my mentor and she took me aside and showed me what it's like to be on the other side of the table as an anesthesiologist, opened up doors so I can do the anesthesia job, which is an opportunity for medical students at University of Texas Medical Branch to actually make extra money by helping the anesthesia department set rooms up, go get food.

Meg Escobosa: So you got a lot of exposure to the field.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: A lot of exposure and I just fell in love with it. And so, that was honestly the first taste of mentorship that I've ever had, especially from someone that looked like me. And that was so meaningful. And I don't know if Dr. Felicia Daniels is looking, but I thank you again because of you, I'm here too. So yeah.

Meg Escobosa: Thank you. Oh, that's really great. So anesthesia and what is, what do you think it takes to succeed in that role? Who makes a great anesthesiologist?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: To me, I think not just a great anesthesiologist. I think a great physician because you genuinely care. You have to care about your patients. It's a selfless job. If you get into it for selfish reasons, it's not going to work out well. I'm there for my patients. I truly care about each and every one. I always tell them you're my family member when you're in a room with me because I truly feel that.

So it's an honor to take care of everyone.

Meg Escobosa: And people are so vulnerable in that moment. I'm sure it's very comforting to hear that.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Yeah. You're letting go of complete control. And you're putting yourself in someone's hands and you do not know this person. When they meet me, that's the first, the morning of surgery, they, that's the first time they've ever met me before.

So how I sit and talk to them and communicate, how I listen to them and comfort them, just within those first 10 minutes of discussing what our anesthesia plan is crucial to them. Feeling more at ease before they get into the operating room. And so to me, I think if anything, the most important quality is just that you care.

Meg Escobosa: Beautiful, and I know that there are some disheartening trends that there's fewer and fewer women going into anesthesia. Do you have any ideas why that is? And if there's just some inherent structural barriers preventing it, or is it a lifestyle issue, being able to raise a family and be an anesthesiologist?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: I do think that anesthesia provides great options for lifestyle. I can say right here with USAP, we offer so much flexibility in terms of what you choose. You can be all gung ho and crazy like me and be a physician partner and work all the time. But it's my passion or you can work seven to three, the choice is yours.

And so I think we do offer lots of flexibility in terms of scheduling. I don't think it's that. I do think, I think we need to see ourselves more in this profession. Again, that mentorship, Felicia Daniels was vital to me even thinking of this as an option. And I wonder what if I didn't meet her and what if she didn't take the time to talk to me and even introduce this to me as an option.

Would I have chosen anesthesia, would I have chosen something that most females do and that's primary care or something else that you see more females being involved in. I think that's important, so representation matters.

Meg Escobosa: Yes. It's true. What do you feel you have learned about yourself as you have grown in the role and as your responsibilities have expanded?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Oh gosh, I've been so honored to be a part of the organization that I'm in before we were USAP, when we were GHA, and even more so now. I've been fortunate enough to have so many people believe and support me and also have amazing role models. Another shero of mine is Cindy Calder, who was one of the first physician partners in GHA, who has been an amazing mentor, again, female physician who juggled raising children, and she's a partner, and she's a site leader, and she showed me that it's possible.

Yeah. So understanding that, that I'm capable, nd also able to do all of these things and then giving me a roadmap into what that looks like has been absolutely, it's been so important for me. So I guess seeing or understanding that I can do so much more than I even thought that I could. And when you have people pushing and inspiring you and challenging you to expand what you even think that you're capable of doing, even in those uncomfortable moments, uncomfortable means growing.

Meg Escobosa: True.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: It does, right, but it's not fun sometimes.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah. Do you have any stories of things that you have overcome?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Oh gosh, yes. As an example, I was, again, Cindy Calder, she, again, my shero, there's an orthopedic hospital here called Texas Orthopedic Hospital. And so I worked there with her. And so little by little, she gave me more and more leadership responsibilities.

And then finally one day, there was a need at Houston Methodist Baytown for a new site leader. Definitely, a change was needed and requested by our administration, which is great. And she looked at me, she said, “It's your turn,” and I said, “No.” She said, “You're ready.” And I never considered it. I never considered being a site leader. I saw her challenges. I think I saw myself more doing like HR things or being maybe a sub-site chief, where I've had experience. But the takeover, a challenge site, in addition to just being a site leader, was, I looked at her like, “Are you sure?”

But again, just the type of organization I work for and the type of mentor she was, not only did they provide all the support I needed to be successful, she actually came with me for two months and helped set me up to say, this is what you need. Let me help you, and then now you're ready.

And that was that. And so, it just took off, and just her believing in me, saying, “Okay, it's time to get off the pot and go do it.” And then me doing it, then provided so many other opportunities. From that, I got a chance to be elected on our Clinical Governance Board, which is that physician-led board that governs how we operate our practice here in Houston to being selected as a medical staff officer and Methodist Baytown being only the second female president they've ever had of their medical staff. And then that also led to the opportunity to, for me to be on the Clinical Operations Committee, which is the national clinical governance board.

And then also being able to be the chair of the Culture Committee here in Houston. And then also chair it for our national platform.

Meg Escobosa: It's like you don't sleep.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: I don't. But thank goodness. The reason why I can do all this is because I am an empty nester. All of my kids are grown and I just graduated the last one from college.

Meg Escobosa: Oh my gosh. Congratulations.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Thank you.

Meg Escobosa: But seriously, your even description of your mentor taking the time to work with you to set yourself up for success. Like that's peeling back the layers and revealing the truth. The truth is nobody can do all these great things alone. And I love that you shared that.

So with all the other responsibilities you have, how do you make yourself effective across all those areas? Obviously you have a great team, I assume, who you rely to get everything done.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: I do. I, oh my gosh, just like at my site alone, I have a chief CRNA who is, I always call him my brother from another mother.

He's my right hand. And when I say true partnership, I could not do it without him and just my team there, our whole anesthesia department. We work together. We look out for each other. We support each other. We check on each other. We celebrate each other. And then, of course, that trickles out to our perioperative team, our surgeons, our administrators. Our administrators truly see that and see how much value we add because of the way we perform.

Meg Escobosa: And it sounds like you also put a lot of thought into culture. I know that's an area of passion, but can you tell me more about the intention behind that? Like what's the vision for the culture and how do you make it show up in real life?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: I firmly believe that when you're a leader, you have to lead by example. And so to create good culture, I have to demonstrate it. And so again, I think being that selfless leader is important. If I'm going to lead my team, I have to put them first. at all times. So unfortunately, sometimes I do have to sacrifice myself and my time, but they need to see that and know that.

I think they need to know that I'm always there for them and I go to bat for them and they trust me. They know that I am there. I'm their advocate. I'm their voice. If they don't have one, they do with me. And so that's very important. Also, I think it's very important for them to know that they're seen and heard, and so if there it is. a need or a concern that there is always an open door policy. And not only do I hear them, but I act on what they say.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah, yeah, which, is actually an interesting kind of flow back to this survey work that you've done. You understand the importance of showing that we heard you and taking action.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Exactly. And we have to be honest. People are going to tell you, look, I need you to hire 50 people so that I can get my breaks at 10, 12 and three. And I'm like, I would love that myself. I think part of being a leader is being honest and transparent and sharing what is possible and what may not be possible now, but what something we're working on.

So I am always being honest with what can be accomplished and also what we can do collectively to maybe work on getting to that point.

Meg Escobosa: Absolutely. Just on this theme earlier about not as many black women in medicine as there are in society, what do you think needs to be done to attract and retain more women in the field? Do you have any opinions or thoughts about that?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: More women or more African American women?
Meg Escobosa: We're both really both, but I was seeking because you're African American from your perspective, like based on your journey, your experience, what are the barriers and then what can we do about it to make it easier for black women to pursue medicine?

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: To be honest, the greatest barriers, our educational system. That's our greatest barrier, providing any minority a good education to get them into college, to prepare them to take that MCAT and to get accepted into medical school. And we know getting accepted into medical school is not easy. That's the greatest barrier that we have, nd we know that the budgets for our school systems across the country just do not meet the needs of our students,. What we pay our teachers to do the, I think, the most important job that we have in this country. And we just do not pay it. It's not at all, and it's not just for minorities, it's for all of our kids.

But I think it's particularly critical for minorities because the majority of them depend on public education. And so to me, I think that's the greatest challenge. Other than that, I think mentorship. I think seeing yourself being reflected in this discipline is very important. And I'm so grateful to be here because I don't know who's going to see this.

So if there is someone who aspires to be a physician and if I can help them or if my story helps them, that's the need, that meets the need, that's important because they need to know that, yeah, if you're a young black female raised in a single parent home in the hood of West Philadelphia, you can do it. You just have to work hard and believe in yourself. And so I think that's what's missing.

Meg Escobosa: Wow. Kelly, thank you for making time to talk to us and share your story and your example, and give us some ideas about what we can do to make it better for the next generation. And honestly, I will be looking for opportunities to help promote this idea and I thank you for bringing it to us, and sharing your example.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Thanks Meg so much for allowing me to be here and just share things that are so important to me and my experiences and also the opportunity to shout out those she-roes that have inspired me and created the path to allow me to get to where I am.

And I just pray that I can be that same person for others who continue to want to get into anesthesia or medicine, or just to challenge anyone to create more opportunities to think greater and. to have greater aspirations beyond what they could even dream.

Meg Escobosa: Awesome. Thank you so much.

Dr. Kelly LeBlanc: Thank you, Meg. I appreciate you.

Meg Escobosa: Thanks for joining us for the Game Changing Women of Healthcare, a production of The Krinsky Company. Today's episode was produced by Calvin Marty, Chelsea Ho Medina Sabich, Wendy Nielsen, and me, Meg Escobosa. This podcast is engineered, edited, mixed and scored by Calvin Marty. If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. It really does make a difference and share the show with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions, comments, or guest suggestions, please email us at podcast@thekrinskyco.com and visit us on the web at www.thekrinskyco.com.

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