Background: Career success as an Internal Medicine (IM) physician requires more than exceptional medical knowledge and patient care. In professional practice, IM physicians hold leadership positions in multidisciplinary patient care groups, spearhead change management initiatives and lead quality improvement projects1,2. Despite the documented importance of physician leadership skills3,4, there is little time devoted to leadership training during residency. Starting in 2016, McGovern Medical School’s IM Residency program implemented an elective Leadership in Medicine (LiM) curriculum track focused on teaching relevant skills with the goal of cultivating more effective leaders.We aimed to see if participation in LiM expanded opportunities for professional leadership development and if that in turn led to more confident and effective physician leaders.
Methods: We surveyed current PGY2 and PGY3 residents of McGovern IM Residency and recent graduates from 2017 to 2019. The survey anonymously assessed participants’ perception of their leadership abilities and opportunities for leadership development during residency using a Likert scale. We used a 2 Sample T-Test to compare mean responses among respondents who had participated in the LiM track to residents without any involvement in LiM.
Results: We distributed the survey to 241 residents and graduates and received 52 (21.6%) responses. Among respondents, 37 (71.2%) had not participated in LiM while 15 (28.8%) were LiM participants. Compared to non LiM participants, respondents who participated in LiM had higher mean score on self-assessments of their ability to effectively manage a team (4.93± 0.25 vs 4.54 ± 0.55; p=0.0033), succinctly describe their career goals (4.73 ± 0.44 vs 4.24 ± 0.79; p=0.0130), effectively communicate with colleagues (4.93 ± 0.25 vs 4.51 ± 0.64; p=0.0043), and lead the implementation of a project (4.73 ± 0.57 vs 3.94 ± 1.03; p=0.0036). Residents who participated in LiM also noted greater satisfaction with training on tools for effective communication of ideas (4.40 ± 0.80 vs 2.89 ± 1.37; p=0.0002) and professional development outside of patient care (4.47 ± 0.62 vs 3.16 ± 1.37; p=0.0003) when compared to non LiM participants. A greater proportion of graduate respondents who had participated in LiM were involved in leadership roles (60% vs 40%) and workplace committees (70% vs 36%) compared to their non LiM counterparts.
Conclusions: Dedicated leadership curriculum during Internal Medicine residency provided participants with greater opportunities for professional growth and development of leadership skills. Residents who received such training reported greater confidence in numerous domains of leadership abilities including effective communication, team management and project implementation. These findings have broad implications for graduate medical education. Given the demand for physician leaders, further research is needed to assess long term career benefits of leadership training programs during residency.