“The Socially Conscious Physician” on leadership and taking control
“Very boldly.”
That was the way Pamela Ross says she took the leap to take more control of her life as an emergency physician. After more than two decades in emergency medicine, and 17 of those years at the University of Virginia Health System, Pamela felt she needed an expanded emergency medicine practice that was well-aligned with her values.
“Academic life was very comfortable in many ways and I am grateful for my time at UVA,” she recalls. “But for me, I needed more control over me, my life, my time. And this has done that for me.”
“This,” for Pamela, has been becoming a traveling emergency physician and the founding CEO of Holistic Medical Consultants, where she teaches and practices the ancient — but basic — tenets of medicine that acknowledge an unbreakable connection between the mind, body, and spirit.
The dawn of Ross’ medical career
Mild-mannered, humble, and expressive, Pamela grew up “a country girl” in Decatur, Tenn., just outside of Chattanooga. Her journey to medicine began when she was 11, when her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
“At that moment, when you see someone you love suffering, and you really want to do whatever you can to help,” she says. “You really want to fix it and make it better.”
She was determined to help her mother. Pre-Google, the young Ross began combing through the family’s Encyclopedia Britannica set and reading up on the brain, order and disorder in brain function. “It was fascinating,” she recalls,” and it was there – boom, just like that – where I set my path and determination to become a physician.”
Specifically, a psychiatrist.
A straight-A student and high school valedictorian, the teenager considered academic excellence with path set on becoming a doctor as a part of her personal healing and a defense mechanism against her mother’s disease. “Fortunately, I grew up in a home where I was taught to believe you can do anything you put your mind to,” she says. “Without limitation.”
The path to emergency medicine
Ross enrolled at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as a William E. Brock Scholar, a prestigious award given to incoming freshmen who have performed at the highest level of academic achievement. As a chemistry major at UTC, she excelled in her studies and had her honors thesis published in the Organic Journal of Chemistry.
But it was at medical school at Emory University in Atlanta where she realized her path in medicine required a diversion. Though there were many times she had heard the Serenity Prayer, written by a 19th Century theologian, it was a crossroads during her second year of medical school where it resonated:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
“This is the beauty of life and learning and coming to understand who you are as an individual and what really matters in your life,” she says. “The Serenity Prayer made me realize I would not necessarily be the one to ‘heal’ my mother, and maybe that part needed to be left to someone else. That maybe my job in this life is to love my mom, and to manifest the best possible life for me.”
Like many emergency physicians today, it took just one rotation in an emergency department to set her sights on the specialty. “It was at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis where I was in the ER. I did everything — psychiatry, cardiology, OB/GYN, pediatrics, gastroenterology – you name it. You never knew what was behind the next door,” she recalls. “Without a doubt, this was the specialty for me.”
After residency at St. Vincent Medical Center in Toledo, Ohio, she completed a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Northern Virginia. But it was at the University of Virginia Health System where Dr. Ross built her career, spending 17 years in the emergency department and the department of pediatrics where promoted from assistant to associate professor in both departments over the course of her career there.
She wore numerous hats at UVA: Division Director of the Pediatric Emergency Department; Director of the Child Abuse Program; Director of the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner’s Program; Director of Quality Improvement; Chair of the UVA Cancer Center Minority Recruitment Task Force; and a member of the UVA Compassionate Care Initiative, an innovative program grounded in compassionate action and empathic leadership.
“I’m very proud an honored to have been a part of UVA for all of those years,” she says.
But she felt more was out there.
“Life happens, things happen, and you start to pay attention to how you respond to the environment around you,” she says. “Burnout is a phenomenon that involves emotional exhaustion, de-personalization and reduced personal accomplishment. While I do not deny that burnout is a real phenomenon, I never felt ‘burnout’ applied to most of us. Emergency physicians are uber-resilient, but it is impossible to measure health as being well-adapted to a toxic environment. This is the everyday challenge that we all face: dealing with EMRs, regulatory paperwork, board certification, merit badge courses, regulatory compliance, increased patient loads, and decreasing clinical autonomy, to name a few. It is more fitting to describe what is happening to emergency physicians as ‘moral injury’ which has been set into motion by an overall imploding health care system.”
She wanted to slow down. Set her own schedule. Practice medicine and teach residents in different settings across the country. To expand on her vision of wellness and public health, and make more use of her fellowship in integrative medicine from the University of Arizona, which she completed in 2011.
She had a vision of becoming a “socially conscious physician and healer” committed to exceptional care, and affirm the importance of mental, physical, and spiritual well-being for optimal health.
For two years while still at UVA, she took the steps necessary to do what it takes to become a self-employed emergency physician: Filing with state agencies, licensing boards, opening bank accounts, and hiring attorneys and CPAs. And she had to change how she thought: She was not only going to be a physician, but her own human resources department and benefits provider.
And then, she leapt. It was October 2013.
Today, Dr. Ross is a locum tenens traveling emergency physician, licensed in five states as well as the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact. She works primarily in Virginia, Ohio, and Tennessee and this summer, is working for one week each month at a hospital in North Dakota. To become a locums physician requires being “bold and brave and daring to take charge of our lives and careers,” she says. A staffing agency places her, and “once you get to the facility, it’s on you. Do good work and work to your highest standards — it’s what keeps the opportunities coming. You may fill a hole for a season and move on to the next job, that is all a part of the process,” she says. “That’s not easy to do for everyone. I’m at a point in my life where I have that freedom and ability to travel. So it syncs in where I am in my life.”
Expanding her profession with ACEP
Dr. Ross has been an ACEP member since July 17, 1990 — “not always ‘out front or at the top,’ but present, knowledgeable and participating,” she says.
“Member engagement equals member voice. And the best way to lift the voices of members is through their presence and engagement in the organization,” she says. “VACEP, through its current, outstanding leadership, has implemented many initiatives that enhance member opportunities for involvement. From my own personal experience, I gain the ability to participate in something I am passionate about — and have an organization that supports me in return.”
Her service to the emergency medicine specialty began as a resident at St. Vincent back in Toledo, where she was elected to the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association Board of Directors as the representative to Academic Affairs. “That is all it took for me to understand the importance of getting involved with our professional leadership,” she says. Over the years, she has served many positions in ACEP, including a two-term president of VACEP. She even launched the state organization’s first website. She is currently the immediate past president of the Wellness Section.
“I’ve had a great journey. I love my life. I’m the self-actualized emergency physician of my dreams: Maybe not of someone else’s dream, but I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do. I am living my best life, right now and not waiting for things to get better,” Dr. Ross says. “I love what I do and have a lot of peace within myself. This makes it even easier for me to be of service to others.”
