Leadership and management training for residents and fellows: a curriculum for future medical directors.

Abstract

Management of laboratories and pathology practices is increasingly complex. Residents and fellows in laboratory medicine and pathology need more structured curricula in leadership and management (L&M) training to function as medical and laboratory directors. To define a curriculum that provides basic competency in L&M for residents and fellows in pathology. A year-long formal L&M course included didactic lectures, interactive sessions, case scenarios, team-building exercises, formal team presentations (capstone project), and precourse and postcourse assessment of L&M knowledge. The curriculum meets requirements of American College of Graduate Medical Education and supports goals for leadership training of the College of American Pathologists. Participants evaluated (5-point scale) the content and speakers of all sessions. Trainees were evaluated after considering postcourse examination results, quality of the capstone presentation, and a global assessment. The 5 non-capstone sessions received evaluation scores ranging from 4.4 (informatics) to 5 (L&M basics). Postcourse test scores showed significant improvement when compared with the pretest scores for the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 trainee cohorts. Short-term results indicate that the course described improves trainee knowledge of L&M issues.