Dr. Akram Boutros joined The MetroHealth System as President\u00a0and Chief Executive Officer in June 2013.\u00a0He serves as the leader of The MetroHealth System and is its primary\u00a0public representative, reporting to the MetroHealth Board\u00a0of Trustees. He works in partnership with the Board to ensure that the organization fulfills its mission and creates\u00a0strategies that ensure its future success.<\/p>\n
Dr. Boutros has more than 20 years of leadership experience in large community hospitals, specialty hospitals\u00a0and academic medical centers. Most recently, he was President of BusinessFirst Healthcare Solutions, a health\u00a0care advisory firm focused on clinical \u00a0transformation, operational turnarounds and emerging health delivery\u00a0and reimbursement models. Dr. Boutros previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative\u00a0Officer of St. Francis Hospital \u2013 The Heart Center in Roslyn, New York, and as \u00a0executive Vice President,\u00a0Chief Medical Officer and Chief Operating Officer of South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, New York.\u00a0An internist, Dr. Boutros received his Doctor of Medicine from the State University of New York Health Sciences\u00a0Center at Brooklyn. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School\u2019s Advanced Management Program and\u00a0is a recognized thought leader in management systems.<\/p>\n
Dr. Boutros also serves on the boards of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, United Way of Greater Cleveland,\u00a0the Cuyahoga Community College Foundation and the Cleveland Ballet. Most recently, he served as Chair of\u00a0the American Heart Association 2015 Cleveland Heart Ball, the most successful in the city\u2019s history. He has\u00a0been named to Power 150 by Crain\u2019s Cleveland Business, Power 100 by Inside Business Magazine and EY 2015\u00a0Entrepreneur of the Year for Community Impact in Northeast Ohio.<\/p>\n
Twenty-eight years ago, I sat where you sat, thought what you thought, and asked myself, is medical\u00a0school really over?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Will I be a good doctor? My answer to each of those questions was the\u00a0same: I don\u2019t know. No one knows. But I do know a\u00a0few things after nearly 30 years in this crazy profession\u00a0that you are a \u201cflip of a tassel\u201d away from entering.\u00a0I learned the first one when I was a little older\u00a0than most of you.<\/p>\n I was in my second year of residency, near the\u00a0end of one of my every-third-night ICU rotations.\u00a0Exhausted, I had fallen into a deep sleep when a nurse\u00a0woke me to tell me a patient who was septic \u2013 filled\u00a0with infection \u2013 had become acidotic \u2013 possessing a\u00a0level of acid in bodily fluids so high, it can kill you.\u00a0Still foggy, I sat up in bed and said, \u201cGive her an amp\u00a0of bicarb.\u201d It was a reflexive response. I knew bicarbonate,\u00a0a base, would correct the acidosis. And as\u00a0soon as I said it, I laid my head down and fell back\u00a0asleep.<\/em><\/p>\n Five minutes later I woke again, covered in\u00a0cold sweat. I\u2019m not just using that phrase here. I was\u00a0in a cold sweat. Somewhere in my subconscious, I remembered\u00a0that this woman, this septic patient, also\u00a0had end-stage renal disease. Her kidneys had failed.\u00a0And she was retaining so much fluid it was straining\u00a0her heart. As many of you know, bicarb is short for\u00a0sodium bicarbonate and sodium is salt and that salt\u00a0would make her retain even more fluid. I had just\u00a0ordered a remedy that could kill her.<\/p>\n Fully awake, heart racing, I ran to her room. I\u00a0was too late. The nurse had followed my orders. What\u00a0I experienced next was panic. My stomach churned.\u00a0My heart raced even harder. Will she die? God, I hope\u00a0not. How am I going to fix this? Who should I tell? What\u00a0should I do? Is this the end of my career? What the hell is\u00a0wrong with me?<\/em><\/p>\n No one likes to risk their reputation, to claim\u00a0they made a mistake, especially a potentially deadly\u00a0one. But at 2 a.m., I called my ICU attending. I called\u00a0the patient\u2019s attending. I called the nursing supervisor.\u00a0I called the renal fellow. And I told them all the same\u00a0thing: \u201cI screwed up.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Nobody yelled. And nobody fired me. Instead,\u00a0together, we agreed to assemble a team to perform\u00a0ultrafiltration to draw off the fluid \u2013 before it\u00a0did its damage. It worked. The patient made it. She\u00a0survived. Not because of me. Because of the team that\u00a0gathered around me. They all wanted her to live. And\u00a0they all wanted me to succeed.<\/p>\n Everybody wants you to succeed, too. That\u2019s\u00a0the first thing I want to leave you with today, one\u00a0of the things I hope you\u2019ll never forget: We are ALL\u00a0rooting for you. Your teachers are rooting for you.\u00a0Your bosses are rooting for you. The institution you\u00a0work for is rooting for you. So are your patients, your\u00a0family, your friends, and your spouse. ALL of us. We\u00a0love you. We need you. We want you to be happy,\u00a0confident, good at what you do, and in love with it.\u00a0We want that for all kinds of reasons.<\/p>\n One of those is that someday we may need\u00a0you to take our pain away, to help us walk again, to\u00a0give us back enough energy to play with our kids or\u00a0grandkids, to save our lives. Close your eyes now, for\u00a0just a minute, and picture in your mind, the world\u00a0of people who are behind you. So many of them are\u00a0here today. Imagine them, in the stands, on their feet,\u00a0cheering you on. And whenever you find yourself in\u00a0a tough situation, come back to that image. Imagine\u00a0everyone who cares about you cheering you on. Because\u00a0we are.<\/p>\n I have another message today. This one comes\u00a0from a different moment early in my career, another\u00a0one I\u2019ll never forget. It was July 1, 1988: the first day\u00a0of my internship, and my first day as a doctor. I was\u00a0on call and because my last name begins with B, I\u00a0got the first admission to internal medicine: a transfer\u00a0from another hospital. When I walked into the room\u00a0in the ED, a middle-aged woman was sitting up in\u00a0bed, dressed in a hospital gown, looking very anxious.\u00a0I began with the textbook question: \u201cWhat brought\u00a0you to the hospital?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThey think I have Churg-Strauss vasculitis,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n I remembered that I\u2019d studied the disease\u00a0awhile back. I remembered that it was serious. But\u00a0I couldn\u2019t remember what it was or what organ system\u00a0it affected. In fact, I couldn\u2019t remember anything\u00a0else about it. I felt unprepared, like I had nothing to\u00a0offer, that I was useless.<\/p>\n But I kept going. I thought, alright Akram,\u00a0just keep asking questions \u2013 as many questions as\u00a0possible \u2013 and maybe you\u2019ll get a clue. If that doesn\u2019t\u00a0work, try the \u2018fake it \u2018til you make it\u2019 method. Maybe\u00a0that works for doctors, too. I took a detailed history,\u00a0asking questions about diseases in her family and\u00a0what medications she was on.\u00a0As I was wrapping up, she looked at me and\u00a0said \u201cSo what do you think, Doc?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I stopped and thought for a few seconds. I\u00a0thought about saying \u201cOh, we\u2019ll have to see,\u201d<\/em> or \u201cWe\u00a0need to run some tests\u201d<\/em> or something else that would\u00a0make me sound like I really knew what was going on.\u00a0But when I looked at her again, I saw how concerned\u00a0she was. And different words popped out of my\u00a0mouth.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I\u00a0was embarrassed to admit it. But, to my\u00a0surprise, she wasn\u2019t angry or afraid. She chose understanding\u00a0instead. Immediately, I promised her that I\u00a0would learn as much as I could about Churg-Strauss\u00a0before the next day. I told her that every day she was\u00a0there, in the hospital, I would do my very best to gain\u00a0the knowledge I needed to take good care of her.<\/p>\n She died. But it was 13 years later. And every\u00a0one of those 13 years, she was my patient. During\u00a0those years, she told me, more than once, that the\u00a0reason she trusted me with her life was because I had\u00a0been honest with her. That honesty humanized me.\u00a0Those three little words \u2013 \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d \u2013 made her\u00a0believe in me.<\/p>\n I kept my promise to her. I sought out those\u00a0who knew more about her deadly vasculitis than I\u00a0did. And I asked them to teach me what they knew,\u00a0to be my partners in her care. Together, we gave her\u00a013 years she might never have had.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/em> Don\u2019t ever be afraid of those\u00a0words. They are the start of something beautiful. And\u00a0they\u2019re a reminder, every day, that we are doctors, not\u00a0Supermen or Superwomen.<\/p>\n In America, we celebrate the Lone Ranger.\u00a0And what we really need to celebrate is the Fantastic\u00a0Four, no The Justice League. Sometimes \u2013 no, often\u00a0\u2013 you need the Elongated Man, the Red Tornado and\u00a0Wonder Woman to get the job done. Having Martian Remember: You don\u2019t have to be able to do it\u00a0all or know everything. Your teachers don\u2019t expect you\u00a0to. Your colleagues don\u2019t expect you to. And your patients\u00a0don\u2019t expect you to. The only person who insists\u00a0that you have all the answers is you.<\/p>\n Say \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/em> It\u2019s one of the smartest,\u00a0bravest things you can say. It will take the pressure\u00a0off. People will trust you. Nobody believes a know-it-all.\u00a0Amazing things will happen when you say \u201cI don\u2019t\u00a0know.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I think the late poet Wislawa Szymborska said\u00a0it best. In her 1997 speech accepting the Nobel Prize\u00a0for literature, she talked about why she loved that\u00a0three-word phrase:<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s small,\u201d she said, \u201cbut it flies on mighty\u00a0wings. It expands our lives to include the\u00a0spaces within us as well as those outer\u00a0expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs\u00a0suspended. If Isaac Newton had never\u00a0said to himself \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d the apples\u00a0in his little orchard might have dropped\u00a0to the ground like hailstones and at best\u00a0he would have stooped to pick them up\u00a0and gobble them with gusto. Had my\u00a0compatriot Marie Sklodowska-Curie\u00a0never said to herself \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she\u00a0probably would have wound up teaching\u00a0chemistry at some private high school\u00a0for young ladies from good families, and\u00a0would have ended her days performing\u00a0this otherwise perfectly \u00a0respectable job.\u00a0But she kept on saying \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d\u00a0and these words led her, not just once\u00a0but twice, to Stockholm, where restless, Be restless, questing spirits. Explore, always.\u00a0Exploring leads to discovery, and discovery to whole\u00a0new worlds. And those worlds to the theory of radioactivity,\u00a0the laws of motion and great things we never\u00a0imagined were possible, things that make the world a\u00a0better place.<\/p>\n That is why you \u2013 with this beautiful knowledge\u00a0you\u2019ve spent years acquiring \u2013 are here. You are\u00a0here to make your patients better, your communities\u00a0better, and the world better. And you do that by being\u00a0restless, questing spirits. You do that by saying \u201cI don\u2019t <\/p>\n Akram Boutros, MD The Medical Commencement Archive\u00a0Volume 3, 2016<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dr. Akram Boutros joined The MetroHealth System as President\u00a0and Chief Executive Officer in June 2013.\u00a0He serves as the leader of The MetroHealth System and is its primary\u00a0public representative, reporting to the MetroHealth Board\u00a0of Trustees. He works in partnership with the Board to ensure that the organization fulfills its mission and creates\u00a0strategies that ensure its future […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[212,366],"tags":[389,391,390],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1415"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1437,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415\/revisions\/1437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em>What will the future of health care look like?<\/em>
\nWhere do I fit into that future?<\/em>
\nWill I survive those coming changes?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nManhunter with his genius intellect and regenerative\u00a0healing helps, too.<\/p>\n
\nquesting spirits are occasionally rewarded\u00a0with the Nobel Prize.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nknow.\u201d Those three words are the start of something\u00a0beautiful. THAT is one thing I know for sure.<\/p>\n
\nNortheast Ohio Medical University
\nCommencement Address<\/p>\n