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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · J Neuroanaesth Crit Care 2016; 03(04): S53-S55
DOI: 10.4103/2348-0548.174736
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Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Private Ltd.

Leadership in anaesthesia: A brief review

Arpan Guha
1   Postgraduate School of Medicine, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
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Publication Date:
05 May 2018 (online)

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INTRODUCTION

Medical curricula and training syllabi are full of clinical knowledge and skills lists that must be acquired for advancing in the profession. At a practical level, every clinician has to take on a leadership responsibility on a daily basis. However, there seems to be a paucity of declared intent in training programmes regarding leadership. Even if there is a mention of ‘leadership’ as a desirable attribute, in curricula, there can be a lack of guidance on how this may be delivered, or indeed what a competency framework for leadership might look like.

For this discussion, leadership in health care may be artificially divided into two categories, although in reality this is a graded attribute. One is a form of leadership that is seen at the board level in most hospitals where leaders can be clearly identified by their designation, e.g. Medical Director. However, while only a few doctors may aspire for these kinds of organisational leadership roles, it is an inescapable fact that leadership demonstrated daily in the clinical workplace is also vitally important, especially when patient safety is paramount. The latter is the form of leadership skill that must be acquired by every clinician; however, many training schemes lack this focus. For example, the National Board of Examinations of India in its anaesthesiology syllabus mentions the word ‘leadership’ only once and in passing.[1]

This article aims to review briefly the framework that may support development attributes such as medical leadership, with a reference to anaesthesiology, where this non-technical skill assumes even greater importance.