Fulfill Joon Lee, MD, Emory Healthcare’s new CEO

Joon Lee, MD, recently joined Emory as the new chief government officer for Emory Health care. He comes with an outstanding record of accomplishments as the two a physician, researcher and health and fitness treatment leader. Taking time out of his busy schedule, Dr. Lee shared a very little bit about the route he’s taken on the way to Emory, and where he wants to go following.

Q: So, let us start with an straightforward dilemma. Where by are you from at first and in which did you expand up?

I was born in Korea and when I was nine a long time previous my household emigrated to the compact town of Morganton, North Carolina in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. As you can think about, shifting from a town of 6 million persons in a third-world nation to a rural community in the United States was a quite exciting cultural change.

I did not know how to communicate English but acquired a lot of aid from the school system. I worked with a speech pathologist every single working day and that aided me a fantastic deal to conquer the preliminary culture shock.  

Q: Is there nearly anything about your upbringing, either in Korea or North Carolina, that sparked an interest in medication?

Effectively, my father is a medical professional, which tends to push you to and make you wary of medicine at the similar time. Although my father’s job had some impact, I was generally intrigued in science and felt I experienced a proclivity for that topic.

If you question me, drugs is the supreme utilized science mainly because it offers with us, human beings. I look at it the maximum kind of used science. So, it was truly the combination of utilized science and acquiring to deal with folks that was genuinely the lynchpin for my choice to review medicine.

Q: And what was your practical experience like in health care school? Why did you opt for to specialize in cardiology?

I was essentially fascinated in oncology to begin with in med faculty. But throughout coaching I was exposed to a significantly extra expansive working experience in cardiology. This was at a time when cardiology was rapidly modifying due to the fact of technological know-how. Catheter tactics in interventional cardiology were being supplying us numerous options to handle sickness and control heart attacks in a way that was hard to imagine just a couple years prior.

The swift alter and developing quantity of therapeutic selections had been extremely enjoyable to me as a health-related scholar. Plus, I cherished the truth that in the cardiology field you deal with a entire spectrum of clients – secure, nutritious sufferers needing preventive care all the way to everyday living-and-death cases.

Q: You expended 27 years at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Heart (UPMC) serving in a amount of roles in individual treatment, instruction, and hospital administration. How did you make your mind up that Emory was going to be your future vacation spot?

I joined UPMC in 1996, so I’m not another person who moves close to incredibly commonly. The conclusion to occur to Emory was each the most straightforward and most difficult expert final decision I’ve at any time experienced to make. Best in the feeling that Emory has a storied tradition of discovery and innovation. As an interventional cardiologist, I have normally identified of Emory as the birthplace of coronary interventions and angioplasty in this place. Of study course, that tradition of innovation spans other specialties as very well.

Emory is exclusive. It’s the only educational professional medical center in a top rated-10 town, serving a quickly expanding metropolitan spot, and I felt the chance to renovate and tap into Emory Healthcare’s limitless potential was far too great to move up. As I commenced conversing with leadership and other individuals at Emory Health care about using this role, the dedication to substantial top quality client treatment, the area, innovation, and schooling was noticeable and even more strengthened my choice.

The difficult component was that I experienced been a element of UPMC’s transformation from a 3-healthcare facility program to a 40-hospital method. I’m a romantic relationship-primarily based person and I definitely valued the personal and skilled interactions I had created about the years. It was really tough to depart the near friends and the men and women who have fundamentally built my occupation.

Q: What has your expertise been like consequently much?

It has been fantastic. My working experience has affirmed the aspects that made me come to a decision to appear right here.

I have been extremely amazed by Emory Healthcare’s workforce. Not just in phrases of skillset and competence (which there is a great deal), but I have satisfied so a lot of men and women with 20- or 30-12 months tenures who have professed a legitimate really like and passion for the group and a motivation to see it continuously evolve. And I have recognized this across departments, from medical practitioners and nurses, to visitor relations, and other healthcare facility workers. It is also apparent we have terrific clinical systems.  Lots of are ideal in course. The combination of the workforce and the fantastic packages are the foundation that helps make me so optimistic about our upcoming.

Q: What are you fired up about for the future of Emory Healthcare? And alternatively, what is it that keeps you up at night time?

To use an overused word, we’ve entered an unparalleled time in well being care. It commenced with the pandemic, the fantastic resignation, financial turmoil and all the things else that has gone on in this country. These are ordinarily at the time-in-a-technology form situations, but they’ve all come collectively at the exact time to threaten our potential to provide higher-high quality health and fitness care to our patients. And they’re not heading away.

Just about every academic health care middle in the region is struggling with these challenges, but I imagine at Emory Healthcare we have the talent and the basis in location to get over these problems.

At the exact time, I’m fired up for the long term. Emory is a centre for innovation. We have a incredible opportunity to continue to innovate how we produce care, how we arrange care, how we make care additional obtainable and in a more equitable trend. People are the issues we are extremely effectively poised to do.

Some of that will entail technology, but not indiscriminate use of technology.  With Alistair Erskine and his teams’ management, I am confident we will utilize technologies in a intelligent and strategic vogue. An case in point of this is our plans and dialogue to use artificial intelligence to permit us to provide superior care and offer a greater expertise for our individuals and our workforce.

Q: What do you take pleasure in carrying out in your free time?

I am fortuitous to have a pretty spouse Grace, who is a dermatologist and a few semi-adult (grownups in their thoughts, little ones in our thoughts) young children (29, 25 and 22). Our loved ones is all spread across diverse areas of the state, so we commit a ton of time striving to see each other and connect as a family.

Both of those my spouse and I are ‘foodies’. We like to take a look at foods activities. Atlanta is a terrific culinary city, and we’re excited about striving out all the distinct varieties of delicacies this city has to offer.