MCHB Conference Webcasts
The Future of Maternal and Child Health Leadership Training Conference - Seattle WA April 19-20, 2004

ROZ PARRISH: In light of time, I just have a few comments. We had decided to let Bruce do most of the time and just kind of reinforce some things that he said, and as I remember back, one of the things about the '87 conference that was such a challenge was that it was the first time that MCHB had brought together all its' training programs in one together. And it, that conference, I think the first one, I would say the majority of time was a process of learning about one another. Because although we were all MCHB training programs, we really didn't know what each other did. We talked a different language. It's almost like those of you who are in interdisciplinary settings when we work with our students, we have to first develop a common body of knowledge, common vocabulary, those kinds of things to move on. And similarly, it was with us. And I think we felt good by the end of the first conference that we had achieved that, that we had moved beyond that to address the leadership areas. So as a result of that, as Bruce indicated, there was a second conference after the first conference we established many work groups to begin working on specific areas. So we could bring back to the total group some pre-work we could develop. The other thing I think that conference did was indeed extend the concept of leadership beyond a job description title, or a job title.

I think one of the things I remember most at the point in time thinking is, well, I had to produce a state director of maternal and child health to have a leader because that was the way it was being interpreted is as a position. And I think it was the first attempt to expand it, to look at leaders also involved research, academia of a variety of areas, and I think that's a long I've already said it, long-lasting. The other thing I think I still toil with that we had talked about at that point in time is how do you integrate leadership training into a clinical program?  As LENS, we're very clinically oriented. And I still find it a challenge to look at how do I change students who are individually focused in terms of their clinical practice to look at a population-based, broader environmental kind of approach. And I think, unfortunately, I know what I tell them to for many years, was having a leadership on Tuesday, one to three. And that just doesn't work, because that's the way students saw it. Leadership wasn't part of their every day work. It was Tuesday, one to three. So it's beginning to take a whole look at how we're implementing things. Again, to integrate that shift in individual thinking to environment population-based thinking in everything they do. Mary?