Medical leadership: An important and required competency for medical students

Abstract

Good medical leadership is the key to building high-quality healthcare. However, in the development of medical careers, the teaching of leadership has traditionally not equaled that of technical and academic competencies. As a result of changes in personal standards, the quality of medical leadership has led to variations between different organizations, as well as occasional catastrophic failure in the standard of care provided for patients. Leaders in the medical profession have called for reform in healthcare in response to challenges in the system and improvements in public health. Furthermore, there has been an increased drive to see leadership education for doctors starting earlier, and continuing throughout their careers so that they can take on more important leadership roles throughout the healthcare system. Being a physician requires not only management and leadership but also the need to transfer competencies to communication and critical thinking. These attributes can be obtained through experience in teamwork under the supervision of teaching staff. Therefore, medical students are expected to develop skills to deal with and resolve conflicts, learn to share leadership, prepare others to help and replace them, take mutual responsibility and discuss their performance.

Keywords: Future physicians; Leadership; Medical education; Mentoring.