Story by Dwain Hebda
Ryan Solomon (’20) didn’t know he was getting a glimpse of his future when as a youth he watched his mother endure her third back surgery, bringing the family from Covington, La., to Little Rock where family could help her convalesce.
Now, 35 years later, the Clinton School of Public Service graduate is advocating similarly on behalf Arkansas’ smallest and most vulnerable patients. Recently promoted to senior vice president of hospital operations for Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, Solomon is at the rudder of the acclaimed hospital as it navigates the changing tides of medicine and the nature of institutional health care.
“Health care, particularly for pediatrics, requires recognizing all the different stakeholders – patients, providers and families – and figuring out how to form and make authentic connections with people in a way that actually creates a positive path forward for everybody involved,” he said.
“The things I learned at the Clinton School I use on a daily basis when I think about making connections with humans, and how I think about driving conversations with empathy and transparency. The Clinton School really elevated my thinking, focusing on authentic connection.”
Solomon’s professional and educational path is as notable for what he didn’t want to do as where he ultimately wound up. After graduating from Catholic High School for Boys in Little Rock, he earned a degree in political science from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville without a clear direction as to what was next.
“I was vacillating between going to Washington, D.C. and working on the Hill right after my undergrad, but decided I would go to law school, recognizing that that was a path that could open a lot of different doors,” he said. “I loved law school; it taught me a different way to think and I loved the way it helped me problem solve and process through tough and difficult situations.”
After graduation, Solomon joined the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock and while he ultimately made partner, something kept tugging at him to make a change.
“I really loved my time when I was at Rose Law Firm, but I did feel this pull to try to do something different,” he said. “I got an opportunity to work in health care at [Arkansas] Children’s when they were hiring a director of ERM. I didn’t know what [enterprise risk management] was; I had to Google it.”
Solomon proved a quick study, landing the director’s position and subsequently receiving several promotions in the years to come. To all outward appearances, he was an accomplished and highly successful executive but just like in private legal practice, something kept nagging at him.
“Ever since I was a young kid, I always envisioned myself as a lifelong learner and always thought that I would go back to school in some form or fashion,” he said.
Solomon returned to the classroom via the Clinton School of Public Service, following a decade in the private sector. He said the prospect of completing his master’s degree in public service online represented a departure from what he was used to in his educational journey, but one which he came to appreciate.
“Here I am with a full-time career and a family by that point, and the reality of me being able to go to class every day and participate was not practical,” he said. “The online option was a great intersection to me of balancing a career and continued education at a high level in a really, really immersive way.”
In fact, Solomon’s “day job” and his Clinton School education were never far apart from each other, especially as it applied to his Capstone project. He developed the health system’s CANDOR program, which stands for communication and optimal resolution, which focuses on how hospital and medical personnel communicate with patients and their families through all kinds of situations.
“We’ve trained over 200 clinical, administrative and medical staff members on what we call empathic communication, meaning they really lean in with empathy,” he said. “Oftentimes, health care providers walk into a situation and tell the patient or the family all the clinical things that happened without knowing for certain what actually happened. What we want to walk in and do is have a conversation and say, ‘Hey, we have some really hard information that we have to share with you and we want to make sure you’re ready to hear that.’ Then we go at the pace at which the family is ready to hear it.”
“That demands a shift in how we think about communicating with families following an unanticipated outcome. Now, instead of having a transactional disclosure-type conversation, we’re engaging in radical transparency, telling people what we know, what we don’t know and what we’re going to do find out what we don’t know.”
Solomon said the lessons of the Clinton school dramatically improved his ability to forge a different way to communicate and coach others on what are often very difficult messages, and do so in ways that are clear and direct while still maintaining emotional intelligence.
“The Clinton School provided structure and a process to be part of the big ideas that are needed to solve the biggest problems that our communities face at a micro level, or even our world faces at a macro level,” he said. “It is set up and designed to help you navigate that and teach you how to think about a framework that includes how to connect with government, nonprofit, for-profit and business sectors. It was enormously helpful to me and as a result, I’m really very proud of the work we’re able to do at Arkansas Children’s.”
Ryan Solomon a 2020 graduate of the Clinton School of Public Service, is the senior vice president of hospital operations for Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock.
I am so proud of my son! I am glad my bad back brought so much success to him!