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Dr. Thom Mayer

Medical Director for the NFL Players Association
Sports Personality
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About

Gender: Male
Languages: English
Travels from: United States

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Biography Highlights

Disaster Leadership- Pentagon on 9/11, Inhalation Anthrax at the US Capitol in 2001 Managing NFL Concussion and Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis New book “Leadership is Worthless…But Leading is Priceless”

Biography

Meet Dr. Thom Mayer

Dr. Thom Mayer is the Medical Director for the NFL Players Association, Executive Vice President of Leadership for LogixHealth, Founder of BestPractices, Inc., and Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at George Washington University and Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University. He was named the 2018 winner of the James D. Mills Outstanding Contribution to Emergency Medicine Award, which is the highest honor of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He was recently nominated to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. USA Today named him one of the “100 Most Important People in the NFL.” Tom Peters, the internationally acclaimed leadership guru, referred to his work as “gaspworthy.”

When asked about these awards, Dr. Mayer simply says, “I have only one talent. I know how to hire people who are not only better than me, but much better than me. They won the awards, not me.” Dr. Mayer has been the founder, CEO, and principal shareholder of physician leadership, staffing, and management and ambulance transport companies with revenues in excess of $100 million, which were then sold with an average IRR in excess of 38%. He continues to hold intellectual property rights to all the content developed by these companies.

He is one of the most widely sought speakers on healthcare patient experience, leadership and management, hardwiring flow, trauma and emergency care, pediatric emergency care, EMS/disaster medicine, and sports medicine. His work in each of these areas has resulted in changing the very fabric of patient care.

On September 11, 2001 Dr. Mayer served as the Command Physician at the Pentagon Rescue Operation and has served on 3 Defense Science Board Task Forces, advising the Secretary of Defense. Most recently, in 2022, Dr. Mayer helped lead a mobile team to Ukraine treating almost 350 patients and training over 1,700 Ukrainian medical staffers.

He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, over 100 book chapters, and has edited or written 20 textbooks, including:

  • Leadership for Great Customer Service: Satisfied Employees, Satisfied Patients: 2nd Edition
  • Leadership for Smooth Patient Flow
  • Hardwiring Flow
  • The Patient Flow Advantage
  • Strauss and Mayer’s Emergency Department Management.
  • Battling Healthcare Burnout

Dr. Mayer was named the ACEP Outstanding Speaker of the Year and has been named ACEP’s “Over-the-Top” award winner 3 times. Battling Healthcare Burnout won the ACHE’s James Hamilton Award for the best healthcare leadership book in 2022 and Leadership for Smooth Patient Flow won the ACHE’s James Hamilton Award for the best healthcare leadership book in 2008. In sports medicine, his work at the forefront of changing concussion diagnosis and management in the NFL has changed the way in which these athletes are diagnosed and treated.

Dr. Mayer was the originator of the entire NFL Concussion Guidelines program, and thus has changed the nature of concussion diagnosis and management worldwide. He gives many examples of his NFL experiences in his talks.

Videos

Topics

Dr. Thom Mayer has led a life at the forefront of leading through some of the most prominent crises of our generation, including serving as the Command Physician at the Pentagon on 9/11, Incident Commander for the US’s first bioterrorism incident, Medical Director of the NFL Players Association, and leading a Mobile Emergency Team during the Ukraine invasion. This keynote is a contrarian approach to leadership, which is: Leadership is worthless…because it is a noun – something you say. But Leading is priceless…because it is a verb – the things you do, all day, every day, in every walk of life.

Dr. Mayer challenges his audiences to ask the right question – “How will I lead myself and my team today?” By helping them to embrace that leading occurs – no matter what job you do – in everything you do, he inspires others to lead themselves, their teams, and their families

Filled with stories and examples from Dr. Mayer’s career as “The Master of Disaster,” leading at the forefront of crises on the world stage, this presentation challenges but also inspires new and practical approaches to leading your life in times of crisis.

In his book “Leadership is Worthless…But Leading is Priceless” Dr. Thom Mayer presents many actionable yet contrarian concepts. One of the most intriguing of these is the idea of “Making Failure Your Fuel,” which builds upon the idea that innovation, which is an essential skill in these turbulent times, occurs not at the speed of genius, creativity, or intelligence, but rather at the speed of…trust. And the only way we can trust ourselves and our teams to innovate is to develop and perfect the talent of making failure our fuel.

Using stories and personal experiences from the NFL, the US Women’s’ National Soccer Team (including Mia Hamm and Abby Wambach), 9/11 at the Pentagon, Ukraine, Capital One, and world history and literature, this talk examines the details of using failure to motivate success, including:

  • Failure is not the opposite of success-it is an integral part of success
  • Failure motivates-Tom Brady and the NFL Draft
  • Developing Your Failure Muscles-11 ways to use failure as fuel
  • The Healing Power of Failure
  • Limits Begin Where Vision Ends
  • Taking ourselves lightly-and failure as our fuel

As Senator Mark Warner said in his comments on Dr. Mayer’s book, “Perhaps the greatest lesson Dr. Mayer has to offer is not to be discouraged by failure, but rather to use it as fuel-to take risks and get yourself back in the game. Leaders of all stripes can learn much from reading this book.” You can learn much from this talk.

Books

Leadership Is Worthless…But Leading Is Priceless: What I Learned from 9/11, the NFL, and Ukraine

Practical leadership for difficult times, from a crisis management expert who has led response teams through the 9/11 Pentagon attack, NFL on-field medical emergencies, and the war in Ukraine. Dr. Thom Mayer knows first-hand that true leadership stems from our actions, not our positions, especially in times of crisis. Drawing on his experiences heading the 9/11 Pentagon rescue efforts, dealing with on-field emergencies in the NFL (he was at Damar Hamlin’s bedside after his injury), training mobile response medical teams in Ukraine, and more, Mayer covers such topics as: Why trust is vital for innovation • The critical role of failure in devising new ways of leading • How questions fuel innovative action • Why every leader should have the title Chief Story Teller • The importance of distinguishing between data, knowledge, and wisdom Each chapter begins with a provocative and seemingly contradictory statement, like the book’s title, and includes stories, historical examples, and literary lessons selected to guide pragmatic and practical solutions. Leadership is worthless because it is something you say, a noun. But leading is priceless because it is a verb—it is the things we do that make a difference. From Pentagon generals to corporate CEOs to football players on the field to parents driving their kids to school, Mayer shows how leaders ensure that their actions will help others to succeed.
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Battling Healthcare Burnout: Learning to Love the Job You Have, While Creating the Job You Love

When physicians and nurses suffer from burnout, patients suffer as well. This book pinpoints the how and why and shows what healthcare providers and their organizations can do. Burnout is among the most critical topics in healthcare as it deprives us of our most important resource—the talents and passion of those who perform the difficult work of caring for patients and their families. The purpose of this book is to provide not only a taxonomy of burnout within the landscape of healthcare but also to provide pathways for healthcare professionals to guide themselves and their organizations toward changing the culture and systems of their organization. The work of battling burnout begins from within. Thom Mayer views every healthcare team member as both a leader and performance athlete, engaged in a cycle of performance, training, and recovery. In these roles, they must both lead and protect themselves and their teams. Battling Healthcare Burnout looks at individuals’ role in promoting change within themselves and their organization and addresses solutions to change the culture and systems of work. Both are presented with a pragmatic focusand a liberal use of examples and case studies, including those from several nationally recognized healthcare systems.
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Hardwiring Flow: Systems and Processes for Seamless Patient Care

You know you have great healthcare providers. But are your systems and processes letting them maximize the time they spend with patients? It’s a deeply important question. Even the best, most talented, most compassionate healthcare providers are only as good as the context in which they practice. Organizations must set them up to do their best possible work. Only when patients flow smoothly through the care process can physicians, nurses, and other care providers execute their tasks efficiently and effectively. Hardwiring Flow: Systems and Processes for Seamless Patient Care, by Drs. Thom Mayer and Kirk Jensen, delves into one of the most critical issues facing healthcare leaders today. Patient flow. Essentially, it means patients spend exactly the right amount of time at every juncture in their journey through an organization—just enough time to maximize their clinical outcomes in the most cost-effective manner. The authors’ first book, Leadership for Smooth Patient Flow, won the 2008 James A. Hamilton Award from the American College of Healthcare Executives. Hardwiring Flow extends and updates the principles of this work and integrates its concepts with Studer Group principles. Drs. Mayer and Jensen bring the industry’s richest experience to this subject—a subject that, historically, has not been as clearly defined as healthcare leaders might wish. Readers will learn: Why patient flow helps organizations maximize the “Three Es”: Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Execution How to implement a proven methodology for improving patient flow Insights for improving flow’s “teammates”—patient safety, customer service, risk management, and more Why it’s important to engage physicians in the flow process (and how to do so) How to apply the principles of better patient flow to emergency departments, inpatient experiences, and surgical processes What the future of patient flow will look like—and how to start preparing for it right now Of course, better clinical outcomes must be at front and center of all change. But leaders cannot ignore financial impact, either (especially these days). And as the authors of this book assert, organizations that master flow not only provide better care and reduce the likelihood of litigation, they also attract and retain the best possible talent. In short, they enjoy a decided competitive advantage in the healthcare market.
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Buy the book

Leadership Is Worthless…But Leading Is Priceless: What I Learned from 9/11, the NFL, and Ukraine

Practical leadership for difficult times, from a crisis management expert who has led response teams through the 9/11 Pentagon attack, NFL on-field medical emergencies, and the war in Ukraine. Dr. Thom Mayer knows first-hand that true leadership stems from our actions, not our positions, especially in times of crisis. Drawing on his experiences heading the 9/11 Pentagon rescue efforts, dealing with on-field emergencies in the NFL (he was at Damar Hamlin’s bedside after his injury), training mobile response medical teams in Ukraine, and more, Mayer covers such topics as: Why trust is vital for innovation • The critical role of failure in devising new ways of leading • How questions fuel innovative action • Why every leader should have the title Chief Story Teller • The importance of distinguishing between data, knowledge, and wisdom Each chapter begins with a provocative and seemingly contradictory statement, like the book’s title, and includes stories, historical examples, and literary lessons selected to guide pragmatic and practical solutions. Leadership is worthless because it is something you say, a noun. But leading is priceless because it is a verb—it is the things we do that make a difference. From Pentagon generals to corporate CEOs to football players on the field to parents driving their kids to school, Mayer shows how leaders ensure that their actions will help others to succeed.