Growing up in a place named Swift Current might be a predictor of going fast and far in life.

 

Certainly it set Ravi S. Chari, MD, MBA, on the right path.

 

Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Chari grew up in Swift Current, a town of 14,000 in Canada’s Saskatchewan province, in a medical family — his father was a general surgeon and his mother a pediatrician.

 

He graduated valedictorian of his high school class and attended the University of Saskatchewan on an Alumni Association Scholarship. He went on to study at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine and, at graduation, was awarded the W. S. Lindsay Gold Medal for finishing first in his class.

 

Chari completed a surgical residency at Duke University Medical Center where he met his wife, Sharon E. Albers, MD, who was an internal medicine resident at the time. She now practices dermatology at Meharry Metro General Hospital and pediatric dermatology with Pediatric Specialists of Nashville.

 

Following his residency, Chari entered fellowship training at the University of Toronto in hepatobiliary surgery and abdominal organ transplantation.

 

He was assistant professor of surgery and cell biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and served as chief of Gastrointestinal Surgery at UMass Memorial Health Center before moving to Nashville to accept a position at Vanderbilt University Medical Center as associate professor of surgery. In 2005, Chari was named chief of Vanderbilt’s Division of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Liver Transplantation and tenured professor of surgery and cancer biology.

 

While at Vanderbilt, Chari enrolled in the Executive MBA Program at the Owen School of Business at the suggestion of mentor C. Wright Pinson, MD, deputy vice chancellor for health affairs at VUMC and CEO of its hospitals and clinics. 

 

“I had a great time at Owen,” Chari said. “It was fun and very enlightening. Both transplant medicine and the business of healthcare are studies of how to deal with precious resources.” 

 

He found that a number of learning approaches in business have direct applications to medicine. “I was fascinated with the study of operations, and by the classes on the management of human capital especially when we discussed alignment and motivation — basically how to get people on board and moving in the same direction.”

 

He added, “I really enjoyed economics and found the study of both macro and micro models fascinating. We learned decision analysis in micro boiled down to three questions: who’s making the decision; what information do they have; and what’s their incentive?

 

“The leadership courses can be directly applied to medical practice, and so can strategy,” he continued. “In strategy, you are developing a long term plan that will provide value to every stakeholder. In the case of medicine, it should have the patient at the fulcrum.”

 

Chari noted, “From where I am now, almost everything I learned at Owen has relevance in the practice of medicine. Owen Business School was an opportunity to step outside the physician’s traditional role with a patient and look at systems more broadly and to use that knowledge — whether it is running a transplant division or helping lead a major tertiary care hospital.”

 

True to form, Chari was honored with the Dean’s Award for finishing first in his class at Owen.

 

In October 2008, after a national search, Centennial Medical Center CEO Tom L. Herron offered Chari the position of chief medical officer for Centennial, HCA TriStar’s flagship hospital. In October 2009, Herron appointed him interim administrator of The Sarah Cannon Cancer Center Network and director of Breast Cancer Research.

 

In his role at SCCC, Chari has been involved in articulating policy in response to the recent guidelines regarding mammography announced by the U. S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a government sponsored expert panel that evaluates preventive tests.

 

In November 2009, the USPSTF released a recommendation that women begin having annual mammogram screenings at age 50, instead of age 40, and that mammograms be given every two years rather than annually. The study also discounted the efficacy of monthly breast self-exams.

 

In response to the USPSTF recommendation, The Sarah Cannon Cancer Center announced it will continue to support and recommend its patients follow the guidelines for early detection of breast cancer established by the American Cancer Society, which calls for yearly mammograms beginning at age 40.

 

“The data itself is the data,” Chari said, “and … while mammography is a not a perfect tool and does produce some false positive results … it is currently the best tool we have in our arsenal for early detection of breast cancer. And certainly our patients who are now breast cancer survivors credit it as lifesaving, regardless of its imperfections.”

 

Chari said that working in a “great organization” with the size and scope of HCA has given him an opportunity to study pressure points in the healthcare system and to move from the perspective of the individual practitioner to study system practices and implement meaningful work at the policy level. Annually more babies are born in the HCA system than are born in all of Australia, and 5 percent of all hospital care in this country is given at HCA hospitals.

 

Chari is interested in the work of The Leapfrog Group, an initiative whose membership represents many of the nation’s largest corporations and public agencies that buy health benefits on behalf of their enrollees and represent more than 34 million Americans. Leapfrog is a member-supported program aimed at mobilizing employer purchasing power to alert America’s health industry that big leaps in healthcare safety, quality and customer value will be recognized and rewarded.

 

Away from work, Chari’s favorite activity is spending time with his family, and jogging and biking. He and his wife live in Nashville with their two children, Tristan 14, and Danielle, 10.