Last week I received an interesting call from a recruiter seeking to fill a Midwest hospital position in Clinical Informatics. Though personally uninterested in relocating, I spent some time discussing the position just to see what hospitals are looking for in candidates. Little surprised me in regard to experience or technical knowledge, still there was one surprise, the hospital insisted that the candidate had a graduate degree.
As it turned out, this recruiter had been struggling with this facility and others in their desire for graduate degrees as a necessary condition for various position. The challenge with this approach is that there is no evidence that a graduate degree, though certainly wonderful to have, is a necessary condition for success. That is, there are no outcomes studies connecting graduate education to improved performance and outcomes, so why the requirement? By this criteria alone, people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jane Goodall all of whom have successful, highly innovative careers and none with even an undergraduate degree, would have no place in healthcare. Today we have Richard Davis, the highly successful President and CEO of US Bank with a BA in Economics, and Clay Shirky, Professor of New Media at Hunter College and now at New York University with his BA in Fine Arts; just how is that possible?
It’s difficult to imagine a robust industry of innovation if hospitals insist on outsourcing their hiring decisions to university admissions departments. Stunning as it is, an industry priding itself upon the rigor of science place upon itself entirely untested requirements in filling important position. Forward thinking hospitals desiring to be innovative, quickly need to be thinking differently about the getting the talent they need for success.
