Adrian Moran, MD, MBA currently serves as the Chief Medical and Transformation Officer of MaineHealth, a not-for-profit, integrated health system with over 2000 providers and 23,000 care team members serving patients across Maine and New Hampshire.

Dr Moran joined me to talk about his views on transformational leadership and his professional journey from a pediatric cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital to executive organizational leadership roles.

I’m excited to share his story with you because we don’t talk enough about how to transition from being specialized clinicians to working in healthcare leadership.

I asked Dr Moran to join me for this interview given his unique vantage point and journey to executive leadership. MaineHealth’s flagship level 1 trauma center, Maine Medical Center, is where I serve as the Director supporting the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine. Over the last decade, I’ve watched Dr Moran move from his clinical role as a pediatric cardiologist to MaineHealth board member to Associate Chief Medical Officer. I then saw him leave MaineHealth to take on a system level CMO role for a large health system in Wisconsin and then back to MaineHealth as the Chief Medical and Transformation Officer.

Over the years, I’ve seen his leadership style in action and recently heard him describe how the principles of high reliability organizing and servant leadership inform his work, which are ideas we’ve talked about here on the podcast over the last year or so.

In this conversation, we talk about:

• the challenges facing healthcare organizations today and what leaders can do to be effective in supporting their teams
• what transformational leadership looks like
• the value of gaining practical experience and credibility as a healthcare leader
• when and why additional education, like an MBA, might make sense for leaders
• what motivates Dr Moran and what he sees as his core purpose

In full transparency, this interview was imbedded in a qualitative research course I’m taking as part of the PhD in Leadership & Organizational Develop at the University of Southern Maine. My goal was to explore the narrative arc of Dr Moran’s professional story and hear more about his leadership philosophy and work with MaineHealth.

I think yall are really going to enjoy this episode. Dr Moran is a remarkable leader, a pretty good story teller and incredibly generous for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with me and share a bit of his story.

With that… let’s get to the show!

MaineHealth Announces Adrian Moran, MD, MBA as Chief Medical and Transformation Officer

This is part 3 of a 3 part series titled The Pressure is On: Enhancing Anesthesia Care for Parturients with Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy.

In the first episode, Joe Navarrete walked us through the baseline physiologic changes of pregnancy. In the last episode, David Barksdale covered the pathophysiology of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. And in this episode, Isabella Sosa is here to tell us what to do about it.

Isabella, Joe & David are each SRNAs at Yale New Have Hospital’s Nurse Anesthesia program and are completing this 3-part series as their doctoral project for anesthesia school.

Isabella was a nurse in the cardiac-surgical ICU at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY. She decided to pursue anesthesia because she saw what a positive difference anesthesia providers can make on what is the hardest day of many patient’s lives. When she did her OB rotation, she saw the direct impact CRNAs make in the delivery process and how we impact outcomes in these high risk patients. She was inspired by how we can improve the quality of care and birthing experience for patients.

Her and her colleagues who produced this series, Joe Navarrete and David Barksdale, are all advocates of women’s health and through this doctoral project hope to empower other providers to cultivate excellence at their facilities when caring for patients with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

This three part series will equip anesthesia residents and providers alike with the core knowledge to effectively manage hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Many thanks to Joe, David & Isabella for putting this series together!

Please see below for full show notes and references.

This is part 2 of a 3 part series on hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Part one with Joe Navarrete covered the baseline physiologic changes with pregnancy. In this episode, David Barksdale is going to walk us through the pathophysiology of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. And in the next episode, Isabella Sosa joins us to walk through how to manage hypertensive disorders of pregnancy as anesthesia providers.

David Barksdale is a Nurse Anesthesia Resident at Yale New Haven Hospital School of Nurse Anesthesia and Central Connecticut State University. Before CRNA school, he worked for three years as a Surgical Intensive Care Unit nurse at Rhode Island Hospital and is a combat veteran. He served in the United States Army from 2012-2015 as a combat engineer. In 2013, he deployed to East Paktika Province, Afghanistan, conducting route clearance operations to provide freedom of movement to the infantry and local populations.

David framed his doctoral project around this topic to deepen his understanding of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and to explore how podcasting can support learning for anesthesia providers.

This three part series will equip anesthesia residents and providers alike with the core knowledge to effectively manage hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Many thanks to Joe, David & Isabella for putting this series together!

References:

1. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Gestational hypertension and preeclampsia: ACOG Practice Bulletin, Number 222. Obstet Gynecol. 2020;135(6):e237-e260. doi:10.1097/AOG.0000000000003891

2. Dimitriadis E, Rolnik DL, Zhou W, et al. Pre-eclampsia. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2023;9(1):8. doi:10.1038/s41572-023-00417-6

3. Torres-Torres J, Espino-Y-Sosa S, Martinez-Portilla R, et al. A narrative review on the pathophysiology of preeclampsia. Int J Mol Sci. 2024;25(14):7569. doi:10.3390/ijms25147569

4. Sibai BM, Dekker G, Kupferminc M. Pre-eclampsia. Lancet. 2005;365(9461):785-799. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)17987-2

5. Hall JE. Guyton and Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology. 14th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2020.\Chestnut DH, Wong CA, Tsen LC, et al. Chestnut’s Obstetric Anesthesia: Principles and Practice. 6th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2019.