About the Physician & Provider Executive Leadership Institute (PELI) Advanced Course

Hanley’s Physician & Provider Executive Leadership Institute (PELI) Advanced Course develops physician and senior level advanced practice provider leaders through intensive, national-caliber professional development coursework. This residential course meets six times at the beautiful Harraseeket Inn in Freeport, Maine, a classic New England coastal community.

Course Sessions Overview

Session 1: Leadership, Teamwork, and Adaptive Decision-Making for Physicians and Senior Providers
Facilitator: Carole Carlson

In this immersive session, you’ll tackle high-stakes decision-making through hands-on simulations and real-world case discussions. Explore what makes teams thrive and how to bring out the best in your people and learn how to maximize your impact in complex environments. Whether navigating survival scenarios or analyzing advanced healthcare systems, you’ll gain valuable insights into strategy, influence, and teamwork under pressure.

 Session 2:From Insight to Impact: Developing the Physician Leader
Facilitator: Sally Ourieff

Elevate your leadership capabilities with this immersive session on emotional intelligence, and transformational leadership. Through expert-led and peer discussions and hands-on exercises, you’ll gain insights into personality dynamics, communication strategies, and the psychology of change. Hands-on work with a team of peers will help you develop the self-knowledge, mindset and skills to lead with confidence in today’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape.

Session 3: Healthcare Policy & Economics
Facilitator: Michael Doonan

Master the art of influencing health policy and driving change in your organization with this comprehensive session. Explore key topics like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, the policy-making process at local, state and Federal levels, and the power of advocacy to shape the future of healthcare. Designed for physician leaders, this session empowers you to navigate the complexities of healthcare policy and make a lasting impact.

Session 4: Conflict Resolution & Negotiation in Healthcare
Facilitator: Joel Cutcher Gershenfeld

Master the art of negotiation and conflict resolution with this comprehensive session tailored for the healthcare industry. This interactive discussion, featuring engaging simulations and real-world case studies, will equip you with the skills to navigate complex stakeholder dynamics and foster collaborative solutions. Whether addressing workplace disputes or high-stakes institutional change, you’ll leave with practical strategies for success.

Session 5: Strategic Thinking & Business Acumen
Facilitator: Carole Carlson and Brad Morrison

Deepen your strategic acumen with this intensive session covering core business principles, decision-making, and market dynamics. We will start with a simulation designed to illuminate strategic choices by visualizing and testing the long-term, systemic impacts of health policy decisions. Then, we will step back and discuss the fundamentals of strategy and apply our learnings to health care situations. We will explore how to drive innovation and execute effective strategies in complex and dynamic environments. Learn how to position your organization for long-term success through insightful discussions and hands-on exercises.

Session 6: High Performance Healthcare & Managing Change in Complex Environments.  Poster Presentations and Graduation
Facilitator: Carole Carlson and Jody Hoffer Gittell

During this session, you will learn how effective teamwork is the key to organizational success, and relational coordination is the secret ingredient. This session delves into how strong communication, shared goals, and mutual respect drive both performance and worker well-being. Using real-world case studies and interactive exercises, you’ll learn how to assess and improve collaboration within your own organization, leading to better outcomes, less burnout, and a culture of continuous improvement. The second part of the session will focus on strategy execution in complex health care environments.

On our final morning together, participants will present capstone poster presentations where they will demonstrate how lessons learned in the program have been put into practice to solve pressing problems in their organizations. A graduation ceremony with invited speakers will acknowledge participant contributions and we will provide completion certificates.

Capstone and Graduation

Participants will present capstone poster presentations where they will demonstrate how lessons learned in the program have been put into practice to solve pressing problems in their organizations.  The course concludes with a graduation ceremony with invited Maine speakers.

• CME Certificate for 80 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)^TM awarded to MDs and DOs.
• Certificate of Completions for 80 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)^TM awarded to all others.

The Hanley Center for Health Leadership and Education designates this regularly scheduled series. for a maximum of 80.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

The Hanley Center for Health Leadership and Education is accredited by the Maine Medical Association’s Committee on Continuing Medical Education and Accreditation to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Program Dates

Each session listed below takes place over three consecutive days—Thursday through Saturday. Participants have the opportunity to book a complimentary hotel room for the duration of the session if they choose.

Thursday sessions are 5:30-9pm, Fridays are 8:00am-6:00pm, and Saturdays are 7:30am-11:30am.

2025: 

Session 1: September 11-13
Session 2: November 13-15

2026:
Session 3: January 29-31
Session 4: March 12-14
Session 5: May 14-16
Session 6: June 11-13

All sessions will be held at the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport, ME.

Tuition

Tuition costs $9,595.

Tuition includes coursework, most meals, overnight accommodations, and all educational materials. Tuition does not cover travel and personal expenses incurred by participants at each session.

Brandeis Faculty

CAROLE CARLSON, PHD

Carole Carlson is the Director of the Brandeis University MBA Program, she teaches Heller courses in Strategic Management, Social Entrepreneurship, and Team Consulting. She is the Concentration Chair for the Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Management concentration in the Heller MBA program. She also coaches mid-career executives participating in executive education programs at the Harvard Business School and is currently engaged with HBS in delivering online education programs to leading companies worldwide. She was the 2013 recipient of the Heller Teaching Award, and a 2014 recipient of the Davis Teaching and Learning Fellowship.

SALLY OURIEFF, PHD

Sally Ourieff is an adjunct faculty member at The Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University where she teaches in their MBA for mid-career physicians. Sally has over 30 years of experience as a physician, health care leader, and executive advisor and consultant. She partners with C-suite executives and senior leaders to ensure their leadership has impact and to help their team and systems drive strategic and operational goals. Sally also works with founders to navigate the critical early phase of startups from ideation to scaling growth. Her clients range from early ventures to Fortune 50 companies in multiple industries including pharmaceuticals, biotech, health care, finance, private equity, retail, and sports. Sally brings to her work deep expertise in strategic thinking, leadership, organizational systems, team dynamics, and behavior change. She graduated from Stanford University with an B.A. in Human Biology and a minor in Journalism and received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School.

MICHAEL DOONAN, PHD

Michael Doonan is an associate professor at the Heller Graduate School at Brandeis University. He is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Health Policy Forum, and Director of the Council for Health Care Economics and Policy.  Michael worked as a program specialist for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), in the area of Medicaid managed care and state health care reform. He served as a member of President Clinton’s Health Care Taskforce working primarily on the Low-Income and Working Families work group, and as a member of the Taskforce Speakers Bureau. Michael also worked as a fellow for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee as they considered national reform in 1994. He began his career as a legislative aide for Senator John Kerry where he worked on health and environmental issues.

JOEL CUTCHER-GERSHENFELD, PHD

Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld is a professor in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, where he leads research on agile institutions and teaches classes on strategy and operations. Previously he served as a professor and dean in the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois. Joel is editor for the Negotiation Journal at the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School and is past president of the Labor and Employment Relations Association. He holds a PhD in industrial relations from MIT and a BS in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University.

JODY HOFFER GITTELL, PHD

The author of “High Performance Healthcare,” Dr. Gittell is a Visiting Scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Associate Professor of Management and former MBA Program Director at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Gittell’s research explores how coordination by front-line workers contributes to quality and efficiency outcomes in service settings, with a particular focus on the airline and healthcare industries.

BRAD MORRISON, PHD

Brad Morrison is an Associate Professor of Management in the Brandeis International Business School. Brad has previously taught at the Sloan School at M.I.T. and in executive education in a variety of settings. He has been a partner at a leading global management consulting firm and has more than 15 years of consulting experience in the retail and consumer products and healthcare industries. He has extensive experience in Asia where he has worked in 11 countries for his clients from North America, Asia, and Europe. In 2012, he was recognized for his work on dynamic problem solving as the recipient of the Jay W. Forrester Award from the System Dynamics Society for the best published work in the field for the preceding five years.

The PELI Advanced Course will be a good fit for physicians and senior level advanced practice providers who:

• Have at least 5 years of leadership experience (strong leaders with slightly less experience will be considered)
• Seek to build your leadership skills and confidence, particularly in areas such as systems thinking, strategic planning, finance and the development of public policy
• Want the opportunity to build a larger network of trusted colleagues
• Want to prepare to take on greater leadership responsibilities within their own organization or to lead initiatives that will improve care in the community
• Are looking for new ideas, colleagues to challenge their thinking, and to grow professionally in a positive environment
• Are able to attend six, 2-day sessions over the course of the year in Freeport, including overnights

To enroll in the PELI advanced course, please fill out the enrollment form. 

To nominate someone for the PELI advanced course, please fill out the nomination form.

American Disabilities Act (ADA)
If special arrangements are required for an individual with a disability to attend this course, please contact Janell Lewis