gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Physician leadership is an important precondition for good, safe and efficient health care [1]. According to the “Medical leadership Competency Framework” (MLCF), every physician should be competent in the following leadership domains;

1.

developing personal qualities,

2.

working with others,

3.

managing services,

4.

approving services,

5.

setting directions [2].

However, leadership is not yet mentioned as an explicit role in the CANMEDS framework. We studied whether leadership competencies are nonetheless addressed in written feedback on CANMEDS competencies. If so, we examined which themes are addressed and how they relate to the MLCF

Methods: We received 591 feedback forms of internal medicine residents from training hospitals of University of Groningen, the Netherlands. On these forms, residents received feedback on CANMEDs competencies. We performed a framework analysis on all feedback comments regarding leadership and identified a thematic framework for coding leadership feedback. Subsequently, we piloted leadership feedback on the framework. In the next step we charted all the feedback on the framework. Concluding, we interpreted the data with the MLFC in mind.

Results: 77 forms contained leadership feedback. A total of 120 comments were analyzed. The framework analysis resulted in five themes:

1.

personal leadership; taking charge of professional growth,

2.

multidisciplinary collaboration

3.

management of staff and time. These themes fitted into the first three of the five domains of the MLCF.

We found two additional themes

4.

vision and

5.

directions for patient care that did not fit into the MLCF.

Discussion: Residents receive feedback on three leadership competency domains of the MLCF. Feedback was lacking in the domains approving services and setting directions. We wondered whether this was due to the feedback situation or whether these competencies do not fit the work situation of residents. We studied written feedback and now wonder whether and how an observational study would be of added value to the current study.