Kevin Kirkpatrick
Founder, Avery Professional Group. More than twenty years placing physician leaders in hospitals and healthcare-services organizations, on both sides of the table.
Most people in search chase whatever role is open. I went the other way and stayed in one field long enough to actually know it.
For more than 20 years I have worked in physician workforce and executive search. What makes my read on a hire different is that I have sat on both sides of it. I have led recruiting inside hospitals and I have advised health systems from the outside, so I know the pressure a vacant leadership role creates from experience, not from a brochure.
Inside the hospital
Where I learned what these decisions cost.
My career started inside healthcare organizations. I led physician and staff recruitment at St. Michael’s Hospital, a 700-bed academic center, and at Humber River Hospital in Toronto, where I built the physician workforce dashboards leaders used to see vacancies and risk before they turned into crises. At Peterborough Regional Health Centre I helped plan the workforce for an expansion from 340 to 484 beds, chaired the Physician Recruitment Committee, and reported physician workforce risks directly to the Medical Advisory Committee and the Board.
On the search and advisory side
Two decades close to the work.
I have also spent years in search and advisory. As Vice President of Search Services at Optimum Talent and Gallagher, I closed $250,000 in hospital search work in five months. At TELUS Health I recruited 16 physicians in twelve months while advising on medical director succession and leadership continuity. Through Avery Professional Group, which I founded in 2008, I have advised organizations across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, with representative engagements including Kaiser Permanente, VillageMD, Nimbus Health, and Health PEI.
Why I know who the next leaders are
Relationships, not a database.
Because I have spent those years recruiting physicians, not only executives, I know which ones are ready to become the next Chief Medical Officer, Chief of Staff, Chief Nursing Officer, or VP of Nursing before the role is ever posted. That is not a database. It is two decades of relationships. I place 18 to 24 physicians a year, and I have done that for 18 years. About half go into leadership roles.
Why the placements hold
A placement is not done when the contract signs. The first six months decide whether a strong leader settles in or quietly comes apart, and most firms are gone by then. So every leadership and executive placement I make comes with six months of independent executive coaching, built into the fee, and I stand behind the hire for a full year. When the leader is supported through the transition, the leader stays.