Do physicians need leadership skills to be good doctors? Johns Hopkins professors Dr. Peter Pronovost and Dr. Chris Myers make an excellent case that the leadership elements of management should be a mandatory part not only of physician training, but of continuing education.

Here’s how and why management skills can make you a better doc.

What motivated you to research the need for management skills in clinical medicine? [1:46]

Dr. Pronovost: Doctors increasingly are expected to lead teams growing in complexity. These teams are expanding in numbers and geography, but the skills physicians need to do that are not formally taught, and as a result we often see disastrous outcomes. We know that teamwork and communication failures are one of the major causes of preventable harm - 120-160K deaths per year. We’ve seen change management programs stall because people don’t practice basic management skills. Good management matters, and is absent from many healthcare organizations. We need to make sure that medical students are ready when they come onto teams to utilize these skills.

Dr. Myers: Adding this training for medical students is critical. People think management skills are only needed later in their career, but when we think about frontlines it is often junior people making decisions. Medical students who have just graduated and are starting internships will be put in charge of small teams of providers and coordinate increasingly complex care. They need to learn leadership skills early in the process instead of playing catch-up.

What skills do you feel are important for physicians? [5:39]

Dr. M: We focus on leadership and hands-on management skills. While it’s important to understand finance, there are specialized people working in those areas. Every type of practice environment needs to be managing interpersonal dynamics, creating good relationships, motivating team members, coordinating information sharing between groups and units, and being attentive to processes of change and aspects of broader organizational culture.

Dr. P: As we thought about where best to focus efforts and what are the best skills and competencies that physicians need every day – influencing interpersonal relationships, information sharing, sense making came to the fore. We focus on things physicians need to do every day, and if they don’t do them well, organizations and physicians themselves suffer.

Where and how should management education be integrated in medical school curriculum? [10:01]

Dr. P: The training for med students is so chock full and every minute is precious. Getting anything added is a struggle. Part of the challenge is the curriculum hasn’t evolved from facts to theory – schools are cramming facts down students’ throats to remember them. Most facts will be outdated and maybe wrong by the time they graduate. We need to accept we’ve lost the facts race – teach theory and concepts so you can build upon facts and frameworks to learn. That is an opportunity to guide where we train.

The second opportunity is navigating curriculum where gaps will cause the most harm. In areas where doctors are suffering because of a lack of these skills, how can you not fit management in is our argument.

Dr: M: It’s a lot easier to Google the right dosage of a drug, rather than Google “How do I motivate a team?” We have an opportunity as medical education has evolved. Before, you’d have to have a whole career’s worth of experience to understand how to approach a management problem. The rise of high fidelity simulation can be used for clinical scenarios but also for interpersonal management competencies.