Soft skills and competences in continuing education and personal development : What we need them for

Abstract

In addition to the content of orthopedic and trauma surgery training, which is recorded in the logbook in black and white, there seems to be more content for being agood physician. The so-called soft skills are currently discussed regularly but the perspective of the younger generation is rarely presented. Do soft skills and communication techniques support us in the continuing education and development to agood leader? Competence is defined as the combination of cognitive abilities and skills required to perform aspecific task or role. These are modifiable and, more importantly, learnable. Successful leadership competence consists of motivating members of the team to achieve common goals and giving them the space to evolve and develop themselves. This requires well thought out, respectful and structured teamwork. Agood error culture, open and appreciative communication within the team and in this respect the requirement to be informed about various social, societal and political issues are important. In addition, creativity and independence as well as critical questioning should already be trained during the medical studies through participatory teaching; however, intergenerational dialogue is particularly important in order to share perspectives and competencies and to jointly develop effective future perspectives and plans. The substantive values and competencies attributed to aleader are not static but dynamic and should therefore be redefined taking into account political, societal, social, infrastructural aspects and current developments.