Incorporating medical leadership and management into the UK undergraduate medical curriculum

Elliott Yann Ah-kee,1 Aamir Asif Khan21Monklands Hospital, Airdrie, 2Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, UKWe read with high interest the letter by Singh et al1 which advocates a mandatory year studying for a BSc in management, within the UK undergraduate medical curriculum. The authors have supported their proposition with compelling figures from a recent National Health Service (NHS) report, which is expecting a £30 billion funding gap by 2020/2021.We strongly believe that nowadays, leadership and management skills are crucial within the NHS and have been shown to positively impact the overall performance of doctors appointed to hospital boards of directors and clinical outcomes.2 Furthermore, we agree with the authors that a lack of knowledge of the NHS structure can be efficiently addressed by incorporating medical leadership and management (MLM) early during undergraduate training.However, we believe that a mandatory year studying management within an already overcrowded undergraduate curriculum is not realistic and feasible. Moreover, several identified barriers to the implementation of such education, including negative attitudes held by both doctors and students toward MLM still need to be addressed.2Previous letter has been published