Rainier Milante, MD | Leadership in Medicine: Southeast Asia
Rainier Milante, MD, is an ophthalmologist and ocular surgeon based in the Bicol Region of the Philippines. He earned his medical degree at the University of Santo Tomas and specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of common conditions such as refractive errors, dry eye syndrome, eye trauma, and glaucoma. Milante serves as both a clinician and an administrator at his family’s private surgical eye practice, Legazpi Eye Center, which has been treating patients throughout the Philippines since 1995. He graduated from Harvard Medical School’s Leadership in Medicine: Southeast Asia certificate program in February 2024 and served as the nominated class speaker at the graduation ceremony in Boston. Milante plans to pursue a glaucoma fellowship in Singapore in August 2024.
Complementing Clinical Decisions with Leadership Training
Legazpi Eye Center was founded in 1995 by Milante’s parents, Rollo and Rosita Milante, a practicing ophthalmologist and an optometrist, respectively. The practice is equipped with operating rooms, a pharmacy, and clinics and is the largest eye care facility in the Bicol Region, located about 10 hours south of Manila.
The business has grown over the past 30 years, especially since Milante joined as both a practicing ophthalmologist and chief medical officer for growth in 2021. Treating patients and investigating avenues of innovation and expansion of patient reach requires a multifaceted skillset, which led Milante to seek continuing education at Harvard Medical School.
Anticipating a gap between his ophthalmology training and plans to pursue a glaucoma fellowship, Milante was motivated by his managerial role at Legazpi Eye Center to broaden his education beyond the technical skills of an ocular surgeon. “As doctors, we are exposed to clinical decisions but not to many business-related decisions. Administrative strategy, streamlining processes, and management best practices were not covered in my clinical training,” he reflects.
Career demands and time constraints steered him away from considering intensive MBA programs. When Milante discovered Harvard Medical School’s Leadership in Medicine: Southeast Asia—a one-year certificate program that offers a blended learning model of virtual and in-person components—he applied and was accepted.
The program is designed for clinical and non-clinical professionals in the health care industry who want to enhance their skill sets in health care leadership, finance, human resources management, faculty development, and executive decision-making. In an effort to understand how practitioners in different areas of health care problem solve, Milante found the most value in his interactions with learners from completely different backgrounds, such as nursing professionals, pharmacists, and human resources managers.
“Doctors tend to have reactive approaches in that we wait for the patient to come to us with problematic symptoms. After participating in the Leadership in Medicine: Southeast Asia program, I found myself thinking more proactively, trying to identify sources of problems and inefficiencies even before a problem is presented.”
Implementing the Capstone Project at Home
Learners in the program develop a proposal for a capstone project that they will implement at their organization. Harvard Medical School faculty and peers provide feedback on the proposal to ensure success after graduation. This curricular aspect provided an ideal opportunity for Milante to utilize his training for the advancement of Legazpi Eye Center.
Through his capstone project, Milante developed a patient concierge service at Legazpi Eye Center with the goal of increasing the number of surgical procedures performed. Many patients are diagnosed with a condition that requires surgical intervention, he explains, but they may not proceed with the procedure due to fear and anxiety, insufficient understanding, or the lack of a support system.
The patient concierge service includes additional health care personnel support, such as a nurse or social worker, to put the patient at ease, answer questions, and provide targeted care. Patients can often feel intimidated when asking their surgeon questions about their diagnosis, and Milante’s proposal improves both the patient experience and returns to the practice.
Applied knowledge from the Leadership in Medicine: Southeast Asia program informed the capstone proposal in areas such as training concierge support staff to answer procedure-related questions, budgeting for such an endeavor, and strategic planning. “We have slowly been implementing the project, and I do see that more patients are returning with a better understanding of their surgeries,” Milante says.
Legazpi Eye Center plans to continue implementing the patient concierge center, integrating feedback from both the Harvard Medical School community and the Leadership in Medicine: Southeast Asia faculty.