At a recent social policy conference - Recovering Together? Fiscal Pressures, Federalism and Social Policy, hosted by Queen's International Institute on Social Policy - there was much discussion of "healthcare's crowding out" of others of the determinants of health, education and income security being the predominant examples. I was struck by the loose language, four words/phrases in particular, used to describe reality - healthcare, system, single-payer and publicly funded. Physicians are increasingly moving beyond their already-demanding clinical roles to become chief executive officers (CEOs), chiefs of staff, clinical leaders, board members, deans and directors. Is this a good thing, and should physician leadership be encouraged? Or as Ron Liepert (2009, August), minister of Alberta Health and Wellness, asserts, are physicians better at diagnosing and treating people than running $8 billion organizations?