Published online June 1, 2005
PEDIATRICS Vol. 115 No. 6 June 2005, pp. 1791 (doi:10.1542/peds.2005-0613)

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Leadership in Pediatrics

Chi-Cheng Huang, MD
Pediatric Inpatient Service

Jean Raphael, MD
Boston Combined Residency Program
Boston Medical Center
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston, MA 02118

To the Editor.—

We applaud the efforts of Leslie et al and the Pediatric Leadership Alliance¹ for placing the importance of leadership on the academic agenda (Pediatrics, March 2005). Historically, medical schools and residency programs have fallen short in training physicians to become great managers and leaders for the 21st century. In contrast, other industries, particularly the business world, place high value in this area of professional development. Leaders alter operational systems and make definitive decisions that set their vision in place. Health care in academia should not be any different; in fact, some may argue that is even more important. We at the department of pediatrics at Boston Medical Center feel strongly that leadership is an important skill in caring and advocating for children. It is part of our primary mission to affect change and policy on the local, national, and international levels.

We disagree with the anachronistic cliche that "leaders are born." Very few people have innate leadership, and even fewer do not have more to learn. Leadership can and should be taught. We believe that this training should start even earlier than stated in the article. Our Leadership Seminar Series is a weekly noon-time conference for supervising residents at our institution. It is an opportune time to implement such a curriculum when the housestaff is managing teams and placed in positions of greater responsibilities. The seminar is divided into 4 modules consisting of self-awareness, conflict resolution, vision-entrepreneurship, and success-balanced life. It is a discussion-focused conference with supporting material from some of the best thinkers in the business world. Residents are expected to actively reflect on their leadership styles and deficiencies with a goal toward attaining specific competencies in leadership skills. These sessions are facilitated by a chief resident and faculty members, with periodic participation by well-known leaders such as politicians, heads of public health departments, and members of the local community.

Overall, this model has demonstrated to residents that there is a core set of leadership skills applicable to all professions. In terms of our future endeavors, we have 5 main goals: (1) increase the number of topics; (2) test the efficacy of our program on resident behavior/attitudes as they relate to leadership; (3) expand the leadership training within our institution; (4) develop a validated medicine-based curriculum for leadership training, because few exist; and (5) structure our curriculum so that it can be implemented at other institutions.

We encourage other pediatric resident programs and institutions to work collaboratively in making leadership a priority.

REFERENCE

1. Leslie LK, Miotto MB, Liu GC, et al. Training young pediatricians as leaders for the 21st century. Pediatrics. 2005;115 :765 –773[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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PEDIATRICS (ISSN 1098-4275). ©2005 by the American Academy of Pediatrics

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This Article Extract Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services E-mail this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to My File Cabinet Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Huang, C.-C. Articles by Raphael, J. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Huang, C.-C. Articles by Raphael, J. Related Collections Office Practice Social Bookmarking                         What's this?