BMJ  2007;335:317-318 (18 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.39303.671481.3A

Letters

Rise of the doctor-manager

Management skills need to be systematically learnt

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

I share Nicholson's belief that NHS organisations will have an improved chance of dealing successfully with the complex challenges they face if led by people who have substantial personal experience of providing clinical care to patients.¹

However, management skills are not necessarily intuitive. Currently, too many clinicians with management roles rely on innate instinct and gut feeling, honed by variable experience on the job, when dealing with issues and situations that require more than this. Those clinicians who really wish to provide high quality leadership to NHS organisations need to become more familiar with the existing body of management evidence and theory at both operational and strategic levels.

Having been directly involved with healthcare management for the last dozen years, in the United Kingdom and United States, my experience has been that, until becoming formally acquainted with current management thinking by undertaking an MSc in strategic management, my approach was . . . [Full text of this article]

Northern Devon Healthcare Trust, Barnstaple, Devon EX31 4JB

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The rise of the doctor-manager

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