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Preparing health professions students to lead change

Lisa Rotenstein (Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA)
Katherine Perez (Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA)
Diana Wohler (Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Department of Family Medicine, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA)
Samantha Sanders (Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA)
Dana Im (Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA)
Alexander Kazberouk (Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, USA)
Russell S. Phillips (Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Department of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA)

Leadership in Health Services

ISSN: 1751-1879

Article publication date: 31 October 2018

Issue publication date: 4 April 2019

693

Abstract

Purpose

Health care systems increasingly demand health professionals who can lead interdisciplinary teams. While physicians recognize the importance of leadership skills, few receive formal instruction in this area. This paper aims to describe how the Student Leadership Committee (SLC) at the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care responded to this need by creating a leadership curriculum for health professions students.

Design/methodology/approach

The SLC designed an applied longitudinal leadership curriculum and taught it to medical, dentistry, nursing, public health and business students during monthly meetings over two academic years. The perceptions of the curriculum were assessed via a retrospective survey and an assessment of team functioning.

Findings

Most teams met their project goals and students felt that their teams were effective. The participants reported increased confidence that they could create change in healthcare and an enhanced desire to hold leadership positions. The sessions that focused on operational skills were especially valued by the students.

Practical implications

This case study presents an effective approach to delivering leadership training to health professions students, which can be replicated by other institutions.

Social implications

Applied leadership training empowers health professions students to improve the health-care system and prepares them to be more effective leaders of the future health-care teams. The potential benefits of improved health-care leadership are numerous, including better patient care and improved job satisfaction among health-care workers.

Originality/value

Leadership skills are often taught as abstract didactics. In contrast, the approach described here is applied to ongoing projects in an interdisciplinary setting, thereby preparing students for real-world leadership positions.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Center for Primary Care at HMS for its support of this work, as well as to Dr Erin Sullivan for her editorial advice.

Citation

Rotenstein, L., Perez, K., Wohler, D., Sanders, S., Im, D., Kazberouk, A. and Phillips, R.S. (2019), "Preparing health professions students to lead change", Leadership in Health Services, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 182-194. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHS-02-2018-0011

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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