Q&A: Lessons in Leadership from LEADderm 2026, With Kristina Duffin, MD

Dermatologists increasingly step into administrative and health system leadership roles despite limited formal leadership training during residency or fellowship.

LEADderm, founded and chaired by Jennifer Soung, MD, was built to close this gap, prioritizing skills such as mentorship, negotiation, and practice building over traditional clinical programming.¹ The 2026 meeting convened dermatologists, physician associates, and nurse practitioners in Newport Beach, California, for 2 days of leadership-focused sessions.¹

Kristina Duffin, MD, MS, is professor of dermatology and dean of the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah. She built her session, "Lessons in Leadership: Elements & Experiments," around the framework from the book Total Leadership.² She examined what qualities and behaviors leaders bring to four areas of life: work, home, spiritual or personal life, and community.

She described physician leaders taking on new roles beyond clinical care, including chief problem solver, chief vision setter, and chief cultural attaché. Duffin outlined a three-question framework for delegation: whether a task belongs only to the leader, whether someone else would benefit from solving it as sponsorship or mentorship, or whether it falls outside the leader's role.

She pointed to professional coaching and leadership courses, including programs from the American Academy of Dermatology and Intermountain Health, as ways to build these relational skills. "You cannot do CPR and run the code at the same time," said Duffin, describing how leaders must learn which problems are truly theirs to solve.

In the following Q&A discussion, Duffin sat down with HCPLive at LEADderm 2026 in Newport Beach, California, to discuss the elements and experiments behind her leadership journey:

HCPLive: Why did you choose ‘Lessons in Leadership: Elements and Experiments’ as your LEADderm topic?

Kristina Duffin, MD: I wanted to share a little of my story about my journey to leadership, because I think there are misconceptions about how people become leaders. Sometimes it's not that intentional, and you have to learn a lot about your own skills and strengths as you move into it. I wanted to knit together some of the elements I found valuable in leadership, as well as the experiments that resulted from that.

HCPLive: What were the main takeaways from your session?

Kristina Duffin, MD: A lot of what we've been talking about today at LEADderm has been about personal resilience, well-being, building community, and how to speak in a way that commands a room, many different individual skills. What I felt I needed to start with was what qualities, traits, or elements are necessary for my own thriving in leadership. I've read many books about leadership, and one of my favorites is called Total Leadership, which asks what qualities, traits, or behaviors you should bring to all four aspects of your life: work life, home life, spiritual or self life, and community. That's an exploration for every leader to have. From there, I looked at how to deploy those things in being a leader: being the chief problem solver, the chief vision setter, and the chief cultural attaché.

HCPLive: What's one tip from the talk that's most worthwhile for clinicians to take away?

Kristina Duffin, MD: Health care providers are leaders in their own right. They're leading their teams, and they're leading their patients toward better health decisions, so leaders are always made in health care. As you move up, whether you become a vice chair, a chair, or a dean, you're going to be asked to solve problems, and the most important thing you can do at that point is ask: is this my problem to solve? Define that as carefully as you can. The slogan I brought was a quote from a colleague of mine from many years ago: you cannot do CPR and run the code at the same time. As a leader, the things you were doing before change. You might not see as many patients, or you might do supervision and education to help people become better physicians.

HCPLive: Is knowing when to take charge versus delegate key for budding leaders in dermatology?

Kristina Duffin, MD: Absolutely. There are three questions to ask: Is this something only I can do in my current role? If so, that's your job. Or is this something someone else would be better at solving? Maybe they're becoming a leader themselves, and giving them that problem helps them; that's sponsorship. Or you help them solve it; that's mentorship. The last option is that it's not your job at all. The risk of doing someone else's job is that you're taking time you shouldn't be devoting to it anymore, and you might damage the relationship. People generally don't want you to do their job for them.

HCPLive: What tips do you have for clinicians who want to step into leadership roles but aren't there yet?

Kristina Duffin, MD: The most critical activity I did early on, when I was moving toward leadership, was coaching. Having a professional coach who's good at pointing out your blind spots helps you understand how to be individualistic and yet still be part of a community and a team. Those skills aren't necessarily things you're born with; they can be learned, taught, and absorbed. I recommend individual coaches, or leadership courses like this one at LEADderm, as well as courses offered by the American Academy of Dermatology and other organizations. Intermountain Health, for example, offers one focused on exploring the personal qualities and traits of leadership rather than how to balance a spreadsheet or understand health care economics. It's about relational leadership traits, and those are very valuable.

Editor's Note: This transcript has been edited for grammar and clarity using artificial intelligence tools. Duffin had no relevant financial disclosures of note.

References

1. Smith T. Conference Preview: 2026 LEADderm Conference in Newport Beach, CA. HCPLive. Published August 27, 2026. Accessed September 11, 2026. https://www.hcplive.com/view/conference-preview-2026-leadderm-conference-newport-beach-ca.

2. University of Utah Health. Kristina Callis Duffin, MD, MS, Named Dean of the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah. Published April 1, 2026. Accessed September 11, 2026. https://healthcare.utah.edu/press-releases/2026/04/kristina-callis-duffin-md-ms-named-dean-of-spencer-fox-eccles-school-of.