UH Ahuja Radiologist Rises to the Challenge of Leadership, With Impressive Results
June 13, 2023
UH Clinical Update | June 2023
Sometimes it takes a leader to perceive leadership skills in a physician that she might not be aware of.
Arezou Faraji, MDThat is how Arezou Faraji, MD, went from being a radiologist to becoming the Vice Chair of Regional Radiology at UH Ahuja Medical Center.
“I never was really interested in being more than a worker bee, but our leadership changed and our chairperson reached out and asked me to take on the medical directorship at UH Ahuja in 2019,” says Dr. Faraji. “I didn’t have the experience and wasn’t particularly interested in expanding my role, but she was pretty persistent.
“Once I did, though, and I got feedback and saw results in the department, I realized I enjoyed it.”
About a year later, Dr. Faraji was appointed Vice Chair, Regional Radiology Department – meaning the whole regional practice. That seemed overwhelming to her at first. “But when I saw the results of changes I was making, such as good changes in workflow, and saw that morale improved, I thought I had something to offer after all – and the skill to make positive changes.”
Making a Difference
Among her accomplishments, cited earlier this year by Donna Plecha, MD, Chair of the Department of Radiology and Ida and Irwin Haber and Wei-Shen Chin, MD, Chair in Radiology: Dr. Faraji worked with the committee for operations to decrease the unread list of studies from more than 1,000 a day to less than 50; the department met turnaround time targets with her group of ED cases being read in less than one hour more than 85 percent of the time; and routine cases began taking less than 36 hours more than 90 percent of the time.
Under her leadership, there also has been a significant improvement in the retention and recruitment of radiologists, with 15 recruited since Dr. Faraji began. She also worked with leadership to build a virtual radiologist group for better coverage, especially during the peak volume time from 3 to 7 p.m. Now, this is a national trend, but Dr. Faraji was ahead of the curve, says Dr. Plecha.
It was Dr. Plecha who nominated Dr. Faraji for the “Dinner with the Doc” award she received earlier this year, but noted, “It was her team of radiologists who encouraged and asked me to nominate her for this honor. She has changed a challenging culture into a group of physicians that now works as a team, respects each other and has increased job satisfaction.”
Love of the Field
As much as Dr. Faraji enjoys her position, she also remains enamored of the actual work of a radiologist. “It’s super-interesting, because I’m solving puzzles every day, with information about patients and then being able to tell the clinicians an answer they wouldn’t know otherwise,” she says.
“And in radiology we have patient interaction too, especially for certain procedures, every day. I find it so satisfying when I can help a patient, or tell them the results, and see the relief in their face.”
A Challenging Path
It’s not a career she would have thought of as a young teen. When she was 16, her parents and family moved to the U.S. from Iran. They had relatives in Northeast Ohio and she became a student at Orange High School. The transition wasn’t easy. While Dr. Faraji had learned English while in school in Iran, those studies were weighted toward grammar and vocabulary, not typical conversation.
“It wasn’t easy to pick up the language and it was hard to fit in, being from a different culture,” she says. “The kids were not that friendly and some made fun of me, so I tried to concentrate on my studies to get through it.”
And she excelled. She may not have been fluent in English, but other kids were soon glancing at the paper on her desk for answers to questions.
She majored in biology at Cleveland State University, and did so well that she was accepted to the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. Late in her cycle of rotations, she discovered radiology had become a strong interest. She did both her residency in radiology and a fellowship in Magnetic Resonance Imaging at UH Cleveland Medical Center.
Becoming a Leader
When she was promoted to a leadership position at UH Ahuja four years ago, Dr. Faraji looked closely at how she could help make things better for her colleagues, such as by streamlining schedules, fostering better communication and making decision-making more inclusive.
“It’s kind of cool – one of the main things people say I’ve done is change morale and our working relationships,” she says. “And that there is more enthusiasm and engagement. I was never in a leadership role before and it seems like it bloomed in me – Dr. Plecha saw some potential in me that I didn’t.
“Many women don’t give themselves enough credit, to know they could be in such a position or pursue a big goal. I think it is our job as leaders to encourage other women to go for it.”
Congratulations to Dr. Faraji for her “Dinner with the Doc” honor.