Staying Engaged and Strengthening the Physician Voice
For Daniel Ryan, MD, involvement in organized medicine is about more than staying informed. It is about ensuring physicians continue to have a meaningful voice in the decisions shaping their profession.
Doctor Ryan is a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician at the Center for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and serves as chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Henry Ford Warren Hospital. He discovered the specialty during an elective in his first year of internal medicine training.
“I liked the positive approach of physical medicine and rehabilitation and the opportunity to give patients who had been affected by illness or trauma a positive outlook and a plan for how we could help them improve,” Doctor Ryan said.
The breadth of physical medicine and rehabilitation also appealed to him and remains a defining part of his career. Today, his work includes leading a polio clinic, directing and managing an inpatient rehabilitation program for patients with conditions such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease, treating patients with pain, performing medical-legal evaluations, and serving as a team physician.
Finding a Voice Through Organized Medicine
Doctor Ryan’s involvement with his specialty and county medical societies eventually led him to the Michigan State Medical Society (MSMS) and service on its Board of Directors.
Organized medicine has helped him stay informed about issues affecting physicians while giving him an opportunity to share that knowledge with colleagues and the next generation.
“It has given me the opportunity to explain to the students and residents I teach how these issues will affect their future practices,” he said.
His experiences have also reinforced the importance of physician engagement. Doctor Ryan notes that physicians, hospitals, insurers, and other health care organizations do not always share the same interests, making an independent physician voice increasingly important.
That perspective has been shaped by leadership experiences throughout his career, including serving as medical staff president.
“Everyone wants to be liked, but leadership sometimes requires making difficult decisions,” Doctor Ryan said. “I have been both blamed and celebrated for the same outcome, depending on the perspective of the person involved. The important thing is to make the decision you believe is right and to be willing to stand behind it.”
Engaging the Next Generation
Looking ahead, Doctor Ryan believes one of the biggest opportunities for MSMS and organized medicine is engaging younger physicians in a rapidly changing health care environment.
As more physicians practice within employed models, he believes some may not immediately recognize the need for independent advocacy. However, circumstances can change, particularly when decisions made by health systems, insurers, or other organizations directly affect physicians and their ability to practice medicine.
Maintaining different models of medical practice is also personally important to Doctor Ryan. As an independent private practice physician who is neither employed by a hospital nor affiliated with private equity, he understands the increasing financial and operational pressures facing independent practices.
Despite those challenges, he believes preserving physician choice in how and where they practice remains important to the future of medicine.
Get Involved and Stay Involved
Outside of medicine, Doctor Ryan practices much of what he encourages through physical medicine and rehabilitation by staying active. He participates in sports and exercise, regularly attends workout classes, and enjoys relaxing at the beach, traveling, reading history and politics, and spending time with his family. His interest in policy also has deep roots, having studied political science and health science as an undergraduate.
His advice to future physicians and emerging physician leaders is straightforward: Get involved and stay involved.
“Don’t assume that someone else will advocate for you,” Doctor Ryan said. “Get involved early, understand the issues affecting medicine, and help educate the physicians who come after you.”
For Doctor Ryan, maintaining a strong physician voice requires participation at every career stage.
“The challenges facing medicine are significant,” he said, “and the profession needs physicians who are willing to participate and lead.”
For further information on the MSMS Board of Directors or how to get involved with MSMS, please contact MSMS Chief Operating Officer, Rebecca J. Blake at 517-336-5729 or rblake@msms.org.