Effective physician leadership at the front lines is critical to our health care system as it grapples with worsening workforce shortages, burnout, and attrition associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The national workforce deficit is projected to be more than 45,000 for primary care and 87,000 for specialty care physicians (Bhardwaj, 2022), and the annual cost of one physician vacancy per year is up to $1 million or 2-3 times a physician’s annual salary (Shanafelt et al., 2017). Health care organizations are investing more in senior physician leadership development but not in early-career physician, who are appointed leadership positions based on clinical skills and willingness to help but do not feel prepared for these roles (Shanafelt et. al., 2021).

I interviewed 27 physicians to understand what they needed to feel prepared for their clinical leadership roles. When asked about desired leadership development opportunities, 80% of their responses referred to training programs; opportunities to gain experience from others; and coaching, mentorship, and sponsorship (Liang et. al., 2023). My landscape analysis of leadership programs for UCSF physicians early in their administrative leadership careers revealed a lack of viable options based on scope, cost, and effect on retention.

To address this gap, I decided to work towards building a leadership development program at UCSF for early-