Chair of Surgical Specialties

Sutter Health • San Francisco, CA

22h • $400,000 - $550,000

About The Position

The Chair of Surgical Specialties is the medical group physician leader responsible for the clinical vision, service line performance, and physician leadership across surgical specialties. The Chair establishes how surgical services are organized, resourced, and optimized to deliver safe, timely, high-quality procedural care while advancing access, operational efficiency, and financial sustainability.

Working in a dyad leadership model, the Chair drives perioperative performance, surgical access, quality and safety outcomes, workforce strategy, and growth. The role ensures consistent standards, strong physician engagement, and alignment with enterprise strategy. It oversees surgical services across ambulatory surgery, inpatient care, and procedural settings, and partners with clinical, administrative, anesthesia, hospital, and perioperative leaders.

The Chair leads the physician leadership structure and supports surgeon recruitment, retention, succession planning, onboarding, mentoring, leadership development, and performance feedback. The role also sponsors service expansions and procedural innovation, supports care transformation and post-acute integration, and serves as a visible advocate and escalation point for complex surgeon performance and professionalism issues.

The position is with Sutter West Bay Medical Group, a multi-specialty group of nearly 500 clinicians serving the greater San Francisco area. Its physician partners work with Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation, which provides administrative infrastructure. The organization describes a collaborative, physician-aligned environment focused on innovation, investment, and patient care.

Requirements

• MD or DO degree.
• Board certification in a surgical specialty.
• Significant clinical experience in surgical practice.
• Demonstrated senior physician leadership experience.
• Experience with perioperative operations, quality improvement, and service line performance.
• Familiarity with value-based care, bundled payments, and utilization management.
• Experience working in dyad leadership models.
• Strong strategic, communication, and change management skills.

Responsibilities

• Define and operationalize the Surgical Specialties service line strategy across ambulatory surgery, inpatient surgical services, and procedural care in hospitals and ASCs.
• Establish service segmentation and align care models with case mix, patient acuity, site of care, and perioperative capacity.
• Set clinical expectations for staffing models, block utilization, call coverage, procedural templates, and team-based perioperative workflows.
• Lead long-range planning for operating room and ASC capacity, workforce needs, service mix, and market growth.
• Integrate Surgical Specialties with Primary Care, Medical Specialties, anesthesia, hospital operations, and perioperative services.
• Ensure evidence-based surgical care, patient safety, and regulatory compliance.
• Champion quality improvement in outcomes, complications, readmissions, and length of stay; standardize perioperative pathways and enhanced recovery protocols.
• Promote a culture of safety, reliability, and accountability across surgical teams.
• Set standards for timely surgical access, referral-to-procedure timelines, and case scheduling.
• Optimize OR and ASC utilization, block management, turnover times, throughput, staffing, scheduling, and capacity in partnership with anesthesia and perioperative leaders.
• Reduce variation, delays, and inefficiencies across the surgical continuum.
• Champion Surgical Specialties’ role in value-based and bundled payment models, including quality, utilization, and cost management.
• Partner with payer strategy, finance, and population health leaders on bundled, episode-based, and risk-based arrangements.
• Define physician leadership expectations for case selection, site of care, and resource utilization; align compensation and incentives with quality, efficiency, and financial goals.
• Lead the physician leadership structure for Surgical Specialties and oversee surgeon recruitment, retention, and succession planning with Chiefs and enterprise recruitment teams.
• Ensure surgeon onboarding, mentoring, and leadership development; provide timely performance feedback through the annual evaluation process.
• Drive physician engagement, retention, accountability, and collaboration; address complex surgeon performance, professionalism, or practice pattern issues as an escalation point.
• Partner with the administrative dyad leader on access, staffing models, productivity, and financial performance across surgical services.
• Review performance dashboards, KPIs, and utilization trends, and act to align surgical practice patterns with operational, quality, and financial objectives.
• Support sustainable surgical operating models across hospital and ambulatory settings.
• Identify and sponsor new surgical programs, service expansions, and procedural innovations.
• Champion minimally invasive surgery, outpatient migration, and new site-of-care strategies.
• Support integration of care management, rehabilitation, and post-acute services to improve outcomes and patient experience.
• Ensure clear communication across Surgical Specialty physicians and leaders; align Chiefs, Medical Directors, and frontline surgeons to strategic priorities.
• Serve as a visible, trusted leader and advocate for Surgical Specialties.

Benefits

• Medical coverage beginning on day one, with multiple plan options starting at $0–$50 per month and coverage for domestic partners.
• Dental and vision coverage that is 100% employer-paid.
• 8% employer-funded profit-sharing retirement contribution up to IRS maximums, with no employee contribution required.
• Malpractice insurance with tail coverage included.
• $6,000 annual continuing medical education allowance.
• Relocation assistance.
• Access to professional development resources and opportunities for teaching, research, innovation, mentorship, leadership, and community engagement.
• Fully integrated EPIC EMR across clinic and hospital settings.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree