Dear friends and colleagues,

We are thrilled to announce Physician LEADS WV 2025, following two years of learning and camaraderie.

LEADS, our Leadership, Enhancement, Advancement and Development Series, is our state-wide physician leadership development program, built in West Virginia, by West Virginians, for West Virginians.

LEADS is built on the idea that the physicians should have the opportunity to lead, engage, advance, and develop, right here in our state, all over our state, across various practice models, and irrespective of medical specialty or system affiliation. It is meant to fulfil our needs to meet fellow physicians, build networks, and form relations with diverse leaders and stakeholders, in our pursuit to a better future in West Virginia and was a response to the monumental shift in the practice of medicine that our physician community witnessed over so many years and led some of us to restrict themselves to the clinical aspect of medicine and others to wonder why things are the way they are and what we can do about them.

Many of us seek experience, knowledge, and opportunities to be part of the healthcare formula, an active player rather than an input variable as we do have a lot more to offer beyond direct patient care and want to be valued for. While a few of us learn by observation without structured guidance, leadership can be acquired as a set of skills that can be explored, learned, refined and expanded. Physician LEADS West Virginia was born- to find the leader in you and nurture it to become the effective, influential physician leader that guides our West Virginia communities towards better healthcare.

Physician LEADS WV keeps the multitude physician commitments in mind, thus limiting burden and maximizing value through collegiality, education, and shared experiences. It evolves over a series of four weekends per year, each hosted at different WV location and include a variety of instruction styles as we proceed with a WV road trip and meet local leaders we may not get to know otherwise. It gradually grows with our emerging leaders along four tracks that introduce us to the basics of effective leadership and serve as a springboard for those who are about to or have already taken their first step along their leader paths or may be just curious to know and are looking for a jumpstart.

We look at the leader inside us to refine it and ‘upgrade’ it on a personal level. We reflect on our skills and how we use those around us and influence them to follow a common path. We then proceed into looking at the environment we work in and the complexities that constrain what we can do and explore ways to identify and manage change around us and build agility as we handle challenges that come our way at various stages and in different forms.

These four tracks of leadership training run in parallel every weekend and progress from one level to another in a well-knit series that collectively form Physician LEADS WV. During our time together, we will have opportunities to engage with a variety of keynote speakers, participate in several interactive group exercises and a variety of fireside chat discussions with thought leaders in our state and beyond.

None of this would have become a reality without the shared vision and collective efforts of a variety of champions and sponsors who saw the need and opportunity to develop our own leaders. Physician LEADS WV is proudly the first and only state-wide physician leadership development program and is open to all physicians and physicians in training who care for our communities.

I am excited to welcome our 2025 class and look forward to an engaging and worthwhile experience. The application forms are available online. I am thankful to all those who were part of the planning taskforce, and program development committee and to our staff and consultants without which none of this would have materialized. Please reach out to me if you have any questions, requests, or concerns.

Thank you.

Shafic Sraj, MD, MBA

Program Director

Physician LEADS West Virginia

Phone 304 925 0342

Email physicianleadswv@wvsma.org