RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Developing medical leadership in India: A mission impossible?
JF BMJ Leader
JO BMJ Leader
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 247
OP 251
DO 10.1136/leader-2020-000217
VO 5
IS 4
A1 Kamal Gulati
A1 Ian Kirkpatrick
YR 2021
UL http://bmjleader.bmj.com/content/5/4/247.abstract
AB Purpose Globally, there have been calls to enhance medical leadership in healthcare, although we know little about how this objective has been pursued in low-income middle-income contexts such as India. This paper highlights the opportunities to strengthen leadership in this context, while also considering the obstacles to this change and how they might be overcome.Methods The paper draws on a review of available secondary sources including published journal articles in the academic and grey literature, reports published by the Indian government and transnational organisations. The search focused specifically on medical leadership, clinical leadership, management and governance in the Indian healthcare system.Findings India is currently in the throes of the world’s biggest experiment in universal healthcare popularly known as ‘Modicare’. However, these reforms have been criticised with regard to the lack of solid healthcare management framework in the country. The current National Health Policy highlights the need for specialised ‘public health management cadre, human resource governance and leadership development’. Nevertheless, the available research highlights a gap in the research on this topic, specifically about the development of medical leadership competencies. Our findings highlight not only the opportunities to develop medical leadership but also the obstacles to this process. Inadequate training and education, spiralling workloads, low salaries in the public sector and a growing culture of kickbacks have all stifled attempts to engage more doctors in leadership roles.Conclusions While the Indian government is now focusing more on the need to strengthen medical leadership, there are significant barriers to change. In future, building leadership capabilities will require deeper reforms in training, regulation and remuneration of doctors to generate sufficient incentives especially in the public sector.Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this research paper. The paper draws on a review of available secondary sources including published journal articles in the academic and grey literature, reports published by the Indian government, research bodies and transnational organisations.