To be a physician is to lead but medical schools neither train doctors on how to lead nor reward doctors for good leadership claims a Harvard Business Review article. However, the profession requires significant leadership responsibilities!
Doctors spend years learning physiology, anatomy, and biochemistry but receive no training in fundamental leadership skills such as LEADING A TEAM, CONFRONTING DIFFICULT EMPLOYEES, COACHING AND DEVELOPING OTHERS, CONFLICT RESOLUTION and more.
Indeed, evidence supports that leadership skills and management practices have a DIRECT and POSITIVE IMPACT on PATIENT and HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION outcomes. According to the authors, “Hospitals with higher rated management practices and more highly rated boards of directors have been shown to deliver higher quality care and have better clinical outcomes, including lower mortality.”
That said, it is increasingly obvious that leadership training needs to be formally included in medical residency and training curricula. Leadership skills development needs to be included at all levels of medical training. It also needed to be rigorously trained amongst doctors just like the development of clinical reasoning or procedural skills.
Leadership curricula must focus on two key sets of skills:
INTERPERSONAL LITERACY
-Which values COORDINATING TEAMS, COACHING AND GIVING FEEDBACK, INTERPROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, and DISPLAYING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.
SYSTEMS LITERACY
-The quality of healthcare being prized by the market; physicians now need to understand the business of healthcare organization and this includes knowing INSURANCE STRUCTURE and COSTS that patients encounter.
-Increasingly physicians are becoming responsible for understanding and acting on QUALITY AND SAFETY PRINCIPLES to correct and enhance the SYSTEMS they work in.
-Given the sensitive nature of their work, physicians must be comfortable with RECOGNIZING, DISCLOSING, AND ADDRESSING SYSTEMIC ERRORS and TRAINING their teams to do so as well.
-Formal education on these topics could take the form of DEDICATED DIDACTICS during medical school and residency training, orientation sessions, and skill-building retreats, which are common in other occupations that require managerial development.
-At least some teaching should be delivered LONGITUDINALLY OVER A NUMBER OF YEARS.
Read more of this insightful and timely article here:
https://hbr.org/2018/10/why-doctors-need-leadership-training
