Abstract
Leadership, and more specifically medical leadership, is an unmeasured potential that has the power to influence every aspect of a person’s professional life and its challenges and is more evident in times of emergency. Medical leadership is receiving increasing recognition especially in discussing actions to be taken in times of stress and emergency. We propose a comprehensive conceptual model that examines the elements that build successful medical leadership, especially during emergency scenarios. The model is based on two sets of medical leadership capabilities and skills, while the first set is more relevant to everyday challenges, the second set represents abilities and characteristics that arise mostly during emergencies. The model gathers together the characteristics and abilities of the medical leader based on our unique personal experiences during conflicts, terror, civilian challenges and numerous humanitarian missions. This article suggests a framework for the foundations on which the medical leader’s education should be built and describes our perception of how to establish medical leadership, its unique elements and the processes leading to outstanding performance in times of emergency.
Highlights
Being at the center of clinical service delivery, physicians are the ideal leaders for health care in the twentyfirst century [1]
This article aims to present a comprehensive conceptual model based both on theoretical knowledge and Hershkovich et al Disaster and Mil Med (2016) 2:4 our practical leadership experience in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Medical Corps with regards local emergencies, numerous humanitarian efforts and disaster management around the world [4,5,6,7,8]
Certain parameters discussed in our model are generic and might apply to leadership in emergency situation not medical ones; medical leadership has its own uniqueness and complexity as discussed above
Summary
Being at the center of clinical service delivery, physicians are the ideal leaders for health care in the twentyfirst century [1]. As medical education evolves with the passage of time and adapts itself to an ever-increasing knowledge base, the area of physician leadership remains underdeveloped [2]. Physicians are trained in the diagnostic, therapeutic and administrative aspects of patient care, but not in the theoretical and practical aspects of assuming and delivering leadership. The medical curricula in many medical schools fail to incorporate an organized leadership training (designated courses or practice) as part of both graduate and post-graduate studies and this stems from a lack of recognition of the critical role physicians must play as leaders. Nowhere is the lack of a leadership role more evident than in times of emergency. Effective administration of healthcare in an emergency setting is considerably more complex than the regular patient–doctor interactions characteristic of routine
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