February 7, 2025

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Introducing the AAMC’s new main communications and advertising officer

Introducing the AAMC’s new main communications and advertising officer

When Susan Cato joined the AAMC as senior director of electronic communications in January 2020, she experienced no strategy that her 30 many years of main digital approach and engagement attempts for many nonprofit associations would develop into so vital. Just a handful of shorter months later, the total earth was communicating just about, studying to leverage know-how to execute what previously experienced been carried out in-individual. 

Cato’s extensive working experience with utilizing electronic procedures to change the way associations communicate with their members enabled the AAMC to host a medical guidance repository for clinicians to learn about the novel coronavirus, established up a virtual local community for users to talk straight with each individual other, and host a assortment of on line gatherings, together with the well known Mask Me Anything party that captivated media and members.  

On January 19, Cato was named the main communications and advertising officer for the AAMC, wherever she will guide the progress, oversight, and implementation of a extensive communications and advertising system to aid the AAMC’s strategic priorities, model recognition, policy priorities, popularity, crisis communications, digital expertise, and marketing strategies.  

AAMCNews not too long ago sat down with Cato to examine the worries and possibilities she sees in her new purpose, as nicely as her priorities for the up coming yr.  

You labored for a range of associations leading digital method and stakeholder engagement. Can you converse about this get the job done and how you visualize making use of these abilities in your new function as AAMC Main Communications and Promoting Officer? 

I’ve labored for nonprofit associations for 30 yrs, including qualified societies, market associations, and membership businesses. There are two themes that have emerged from my journey, despite the fact that my full vocation very considerably has been in electronic. My target has been centered close to how we leverage electronic to make what we’re performing appear alive. How do we enhance engagement? How do we improve understanding? How do we develop mechanisms that empower us not just to do what we have always accomplished, but perhaps do matters in different ways? It is the digital transformation way of thinking. Several people imagine electronic transformation is getting what you have always completed and just placing it on the net. That is not it. Electronic transformation really is pinpointing options to use technological know-how to do some thing most likely entirely distinct, something pretty ground breaking, something even a lot more impactful … asking ourselves what the option for us is to interact far more, to husband or wife, to leverage technological innovation in techniques that address challenges, give folks tips, [and] encourage them. The other point is seriously all about what I call staying group centric. The beautiful detail about electronic technological innovation is it presents us the possibility to co-make activities, articles, and remedies with our associates, our constituents, our communities in methods that would not have been feasible if we did not have these technologies.  

You arrived to the AAMC suitable in advance of the pandemic as Senior Director, Digital Communications. This was an exceptionally hard time period for educational medication, as hospitals were being confused with clients, medical investigate was suspended and then refocused generally on COVID-19 therapies and vaccines, and healthcare education and learning was upended. What ended up your priorities as the leader of digital comms to support our users for the duration of this pretty hard time?  

Well, 1st and foremost, I experienced to make sure the crew was Okay, for the reason that if not, we wouldn’t be able to aid and aid our members in the means that they definitely, desperately necessary at the time. We quickly released some approaches to interact the electronic staff to make absolutely sure we remained linked, and to make sure we were being continuing to build relationships even while we were all remote. 2nd, communications is extra than messaging. Of training course, the messaging piece, the community relations piece, the crisis communications piece is genuinely crucial to continue to be on best of what was heading on and to converse about all those matters. There are other methods that are extremely critical, specially coming from a digital viewpoint. We asked ourselves what job could we perform as a communications team to assist assistance our constituents, assistance assistance the men and women on the entrance strains, no matter whether it be generating mechanisms for people to share best methods or protocols or rules, producing mechanisms for our constituents to truly chat to every single other and have discussion back and forth in genuine time through possibly digital community, or other mechanisms so that they were capable to master and go to each and every other for difficulty resolving. Again, this is actually all about the collective doing work with each other to solve major issues. 

When we were conversing about masking, we leveraged platforms like YouTube and other social channels to host are living activities like Mask Me Nearly anything to handle a lack of comprehension, and some of the misinformation. We partnered with our Health Care Affairs cluster [to create a clinical guidance repository], and we built it nimble so that we could consistently add new content material, paperwork, [and other] data quite, really speedily. In order to increase to the obstacle, we wanted it to be agile and nimble using the equipment and mechanisms at our disposal. And that was a vital, essential source. 

COVID-19 was new territory for all of us. We had been in a predicament that we experienced by no means been in and it was genuinely vital to master from the journey. We felt it was crucial to doc this journey equally to honor all those on the entrance lines and to remind us of how we taken care of the knowledge, so the team developed a shorter variety documentary referred to as This Is What We Do: Academic Medicine’s Soaring to the Problem of COVID-19, telling the tale of our journey as a community by COVID-19. We’re not completed [with COVID], of system, but I’m seriously very pleased of that piece mainly because it tells the story from the viewpoint of the professional medical facilities and the people who actually produced a big difference during the pandemic.  

The AAMC is identified for the MCAT and AMCAS and ERAS, but in point, the affiliation does a large amount of other get the job done with the group. How do you system to converse that worth to the associates?  

A single of our tasks is to make certain that our audiences understand the depth and breadth of what we do. We have been really superior about climbing to the troubles in the instant and responding to issues that may well impact our clinical centers and our constituents from a societal and political perspective. There are a full host of other things that we do that I assume we want to do a much better work of speaking … [including] increasing the visibility and recognition of the important perform that this corporation is accomplishing on the ground, almost everything from The Rules of Trustworthiness, to partnerships to handle vaccine hesitancy and accessibility to care, to elevating the importance and need to have for funding for clinical investigate. A large amount of men and women in our group do not know this. Sure viewers teams, such as policymakers and learners, never seriously fully grasp the depth and breadth of what we do and the effect that we have on the health and perfectly-getting of clients, family members, and the group. We are regarded for MCAT examinations and ERAS, and that is only a little piece. 

The AAMC has for several years been doing the job to grow to be an antiracist, inclusive, a lot more varied firm. Additional not too long ago, the AAMC has written DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] competencies, launched the Center for Health Justice, and unveiled statements in help of DEI problems. As the affiliation has turn into far more vocal, it has gotten some criticism for becoming “too woke.” What role does the communications division at the AAMC perform in responding to this criticism — and is there far more it should really or could do?  

I consider we have been performing a great occupation of responding to each individual issue that will come up as it comes about. I am of the feeling that [we have] to do a much better task, selection just one, of telling the tales of affect when we employ these initiatives. We converse details, we clearly show figures, we share details and resources all the time. If we want to enhance understanding about these concerns, we have to do a better job at the storytelling piece. AAMCNews does a terrific work of storytelling in the composed structure. I do feel we have to do a lot more with distinctive mediums, irrespective of whether it be movie, situation studies, on-the-ground views of the men and women who are involved or impacted. Secondly, I do feel we need to have to begin rounding out how we are chatting about these matters and problems. If our North Star is “better well being for all” and we have knowledge that demonstrate the favourable impression of utilizing items like the DEI competencies, how race-acutely aware admissions is essential, or the relevance of obtain to reproductive care, we need to be telling that tale in a way that helps join our audiences to that concept. Is this going to change everybody’s mind? No, but it is essential to target on escalating knowledge. We are right here to exhibit from a facts-pushed perspective why these things are crucial to reaching greater overall health for all. 

What are your top a few or four priorities for the coming calendar year from a communications standpoint? 

The breadth and depth of what we do as a communications workforce is broad. Not only do we [the AAMC] have Strategic Communications, which contains media relations, general public relations, AAMCNews, crisis communications, [and] advocacy communications. … We also have promoting assignments, systems, and providers alongside with creative style groups, consumer knowledge, the multimedia team, social media, and digital communities. My 1st priority is back to the group, since if the crew isn’t set up in a way that allows them to be agile, innovative, and effective, we would not be in a position to rise to these problems in meaningful and creative approaches, and we won’t be as powerful. So my quantity a person precedence is obtaining our staff to a place where by we can do those things properly and that’s an ongoing journey.

Another priority would be … raising the visibility of the breadth and depth of what the corporation does and particularly with sure audiences. I do imagine [we need to] grow to be a minor little bit a lot more group centric and lover with our members and constituents. For us to deal with and address significant troubles, we are likely to have to do it with each other with our community, with our constituents. … Our fourth mission is local community collaboration. If we can keep house in a way that will allow individuals of distinct perspectives to arrive in and contribute, I believe that will be a gain for the communications crew, for the firm, and for the group at substantial. 

Will our constituents recognize just about anything diverse in the coming yr?  

We, as an firm, since of all the points we’ve just talked about, [are] developing and evolving. … We are a pretty happy organization that has accomplished wonderful factors more than the yrs, and we will continue to evolve. From a brand standpoint, it’s genuinely essential to honor that and to be extremely clear and authentic with how we exhibit up and how we chat about who we are. Our manufacturer as an organization is going to be a little something we’re heading to be wanting at to make positive it signifies who we are today and exactly where we’re heading. Secondly, how we engage online, on social channels will be centered on bringing persons into conversations that are meaningful and helpful for every person involved. How do we share third-occasion information and methods from other men and women who are inspiring or helpful? So we’re likely to see a little bit of a distinction in how we’re interacting on the social channels as properly. Finally, we are creating sure that our general electronic user knowledge is the finest doable version that it can be at any specified time — giving a useful on the web household that supports our constituents in impactful and significant means.