EDITORIAL: No cookie cutter approach to leadership

Sharron Spicer, MD

As a health care leader, I have recently reflected on the fact that my leadership journey has been eclectic, not with a clear destination in mind, and not with any sort of cookie-cutter approach. In fact, my early leadership experiences were not even professionally directed. I certainly never set out on a path to be a leader in a large health care organization. Now that I find myself here, I appreciate opportunities I’ve had along the way to learn how to lead. Read article

Development of an institutional “good practices” policy for resident and attending-physician on-call responsibilities

Matthew Lipinski, MD, Shahbaz Syed, MD, and Jerry M. Maniate, MD

On-call coverage by resident physicians is common in academic hospitals, but the interaction between residents and supervising attending physicians varies. Responsibilities are often not clearly defined, which contributes to unclear expectations on the part of both. We developed an institutional “on-call responsibilities” guideline for both residents and attending physicians using a nominal group technique to gain consensus with multiple institutional stakeholders. Three focus groups engaged 31 clinical stakeholders in the development of concise guidelines that include 12 resident responsibilities and 12 attending-physician responsibilities that can be implemented while on-call. Using the nominal group technique allowed us to engage a large number of stakeholders and generate a robust guideline that could be easily operationalized to create a consistent expectation of responsibilities while on call, promote patient safety. Read article

Strategies for enabling physician leadership and involvement in quality improvement: a scoping review

Pamela Mathura, PhD student, Tarek Turk, Liz Dennett, MLIS, Karen Spalding, PhD, Lenora Duhn, PhD, Narmin Kassam, MD, and Jennifer Medves, PhD

Background: The importance of physician advocacy and leadership in quality improvement (QI) in health care is well recognized, but achieving physician involvement is challenging. The purpose of this scoping review was to describe strategies used in physician-led QI models/approaches that include learning about the science of improvement and may enable physician QI capability, participation, and leadership.

Methods: Articles were identified through electronic searches of MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and Scopus, and reference lists were reviewed. For each model/approach, descriptions of strategies were extracted and the frequency of each strategy was determined. Thematic analysis was conducted. Read article

Teaching negotiation skills to medical trainees enhances their leadership development

Praniya Elangainesan, BSc, Apurva Dixit, BHSc, and Abi Sriharan, PhD

In health care, negotiation is a crucial skill that physicians apply in many contexts, from delegating clinical duties to navigating work terms. Various strategies and approaches can improve the efficacy of these interactions, and it is increasingly important for medical curricula to be adapted in a way that fosters the development of certain skill sets centred around leadership. Negotiation falls into this category and is crucial in developing both management and clinical capacities. Read article

ONLINE EDUCATION REVIEW: SimuLEADerShip

Reviewed by Serena Siow, MD

A simulation-based learning activity developed by the Canadian Society of Physician Leaders and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, in collaboration with Global LEADs*  Read article

BOOK REVIEW

The Power of Teamwork

How We Can All Work Better Together

Brian Goldman, MD

Collins, 2022

Reviewed by Sena Gok, MD Read review

BOOK REVIEW

Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health-care Crisis

Susan D. Martinuk

Frontier Centre for Public Policy, 2021

Reviewed by Johny Van Aerde, MD, PhD

Read review