Research Project Description:

The key to building high-quality healthcare lies with good medical leadership. Physicians play a critical role in the healthcare team and medical graduates are expected to “provide leadership skills that enhance team functioning, the learning environment, and/or the healthcare delivery system”, as described by The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Even though leadership and management skills are recognised as important areas in postgraduate medical education by a number of associations, including the UK National Health Service (NHS) and the General Medical Council (GMC), relevant training must start earlier in order for it to be effective. Despite this, there is lack of formal leadership, management and teamwork skills training at undergraduate level, with limited literature on how to incorporate these into the medical curriculum. In the proposed project, we will investigate the development of a leadership / management course tailored specifically to undergraduate medical students. The project will leverage inter-professional opportunities through partnering with the School of Management & MIS to develop a course that systematically strengthens the components of leadership currently found in our 6-year undergraduate Doctor of Medicine (MD) Programme curriculum with appropriately adapted material routinely taught to business students. The developed course will be delivered as a pilot to volunteer MD students. Participant opinions about the inclusion of such a course in the curriculum and course efficacy, as well as their opinions on the necessary knowledge and skills for leadership and management, and personality traits will be assessed through online questionnaires. The results are expected to inform the development of a course that could be incorporated as part of the MD programme curriculum reform. Such a novel and modern course will equip the MD programme students with necessary knowledge and skills required to work post-graduation as part of inter-professional teams, but also to take on leadership roles in healthcare.

Principal Investigator(s) and Coordinating Institution(s):

  • Prof Alexia Papageorgiou, University of Nicosia Medical School, Cyprus

Researchers at University of Nicosia Medical School:

  • Prof Alexia Papageorgiou
  • Dr Nicoletta Nicolaou
  • Dr Soulla Nicolaou
  • Dr Paola Nicolaides
  • Ms Cornelia Nicolaou (Research Assistant)

Research Project Acronym: LEADER

Funding Institution: University of Nicosia Medical School

Funding Programme: 2021 Call of the University of Nicosia Medical School Research Seed Fund

Research Project Status: Ongoing

Start and End Dates: November 2021 – January 2023