What individual doctors can do to counter the leadership crises in medical profession?

Dear Editor,

The editorial[1] on the leadership crisis of medical profession made an interesting reading. It is an eye-opener both for the public in general and the medical fraternity in particular.

The health sector requires more clinicians to get into leadership and management roles, still doctors shy away from these. They rarely enter the health services with the intent to manage and lead but most do so to help patients and to render advice as trusted healthcare professionals. This is an age-old truth; however, changes are taking place in the healthcare system though many are not happy with these changes. Yet only a few lead us to affect that change. Many of us feel that we have lost control of our profession and are being ruled according to others’ whims and fancies.

The main barriers preventing doctors from taking leadership roles have been manifold and persistent and include most importantly time constraints to meet basic clinical commitments; a lack of confidence in our own non-medical skills; a lack of leadership opportunities; poor relations with non-medical managers and fear of venturing out of a clinical comfort zone.

Medical residents are known to perform “scut work” during their early years of residency because from the beginning of our careers we are trained to follow what others instruct us. However, this mentality is resulting in physical and/or mental collapse due to overwork and stress. We just cannot afford to sit back while non-physician executives and politicians dictate healthcare.

Steps which may be taken by doctors to take back the lead:

Holding and attending regular meetings in our hospital. Speaking up at hospital committees and demand change

Becoming active with local medical associations. Many members of the medical fraternity feel that the larger ones have sold us out to politicians and do not truly represent the majority. We have more of a chance to make change on a smaller, local level first

Interacting with the local elected representative and letting them know of our needs and requirements

Connecting and communicating with other physicians in our community. We have become used to being isolated, in the process of caring for our patients, unaware of the fact that many other doctors feel the same stresses we do. We need to come together and determine our true issues and goals. No one, outside of physicians, truly understands the degree of our dissatisfaction

Joining the voices on social media. There are several doctors who are speaking out. There is a need to support them and add our voices. The need of the hour is to come together and find a way to get our common voice and to leverage that voice.

There is severe paucity of leaders with medical background in medicine and there has never been a time when we need physician leaders more. Stepping into management and leadership will allow doctors to take a more strategic and empathetic view of how we can improve care for large populations including ourselves, rather than treating one patient at a time.