In my last post I described my journey to taking the decision to become a medical director. I know that many of my colleagues, whilst being extremely generous in their congratulations and sincere in their wishes of good luck and fortune – may well be thinking along the lines “why would you do that?”. I know that is what I thought for quite some time, and a bit of me still does…

The Cost

The loss of clinical practice is the first barrier – it has direct cost to the individual doctor. Earning opportunities for supplementing ones basic NHS salary as a practicing clinician are legion, waiting list initiatives and private practice if pursued with dedication and vigour can easily surpass even a medical directors salary. As one becomes more and more embroiled in the maelstrom of medical leadership the loss of time (and vigour!) gradually closes off these opportunities – the arcane pay structures of the NHS are peculiarly bad at rewarding those that do choose to take that path; and when they do it results in a wholesale pillaging of ones pension by the tax man (that alone is enough to put many off).

Most doctors though are not wholly motivated by money (fortunately) – but there is a deeper and more personal cost to moving away from clinical practice and that is the less tangible but very real issue of status. The status of medical practitioner is hard earned but once achieved is gratifyingly well rewarded. Doctors are accorded a great deal of authority and privilege both within and outside the work place – with that comes much expectation and responsibility. One’s status as a trained practitioner in your chosen specialty, the time and effort put in to achieving it and the rewards it brings through the gratitude and respect of patients, colleagues and society results in it becoming an embedded part of one’s identity – giving it up is giving up a part of yourself and replacing it with….management (why would you do that?).

Now I’m not saying that becoming a medical director will result in a wholesale loss of status nor for that matter will I be impoverished by the move. Nevertheless I am giving up part of my identity (in my case I am giving up intensive care medicine), I am stopping doing something that on a good day is actually good fun, I am leaving behind colleagues and friends (who no doubt think me very disloyal) and replacing it all with a new and different status – one with uncertain benefits and certain risks.

Certain Risks

There is no doubt the climate is harsher the higher you climb the leadership pyramid (for the record I’m not a fan of hierarchical metaphors for leadership structures with all the value laden implications of rank – common usage though makes them hard to avoid…). Scrutiny is more direct, more personal and less forgiving. Failure is overt, public and consequential to one’s job. The safety net of return to clinical practice gets thinner and the holes bigger the more time you spend away from it. Exit strategies are unclear, career paths poorly defined, training and support hard to find (expensive when you find them). These are realities faced by almost anyone in positions of responsibility both in public and private sector organisations. The wind only feels chillier to a doctor because of the remarkably secure, well rewarded and unassailable position that being a consultant is.

Uncertain Benefits

You are paid more – though the pathway through clinical directorship and associate medical directorship on your way there is hardly littered with gold. Most Trusts struggle to release the time let alone the money to encourage doctors down the path – certainly insufficient to compensate for the opportunity costs outlined above. Your salary is a matter of public record and subject to scrutiny in a way no other consultant has to endure. Should this discourage you? – Absolutely not, the money is good enough that for the vast majority of us it is a non-issue, it’s ‘off the table’. The role brings a level of autonomy, self determination, sense of purpose and opportunity for personal development that no other leading to it can – for me this is the motivation.

So would you do it?

It doesn’t stack up well – and there are lots of things we could do to make it stack up better. Many outlined in this report. I am certain there are many doctors out there with the leadership skills that are needed that are reluctant to put themselves forward. My advice is take the plunge, change is good.

On the 1st of August 2012 I will be taking up the post of Medical Director at a large NHS Trust in the Midlands UK.

This blog is an outline of my journey to this critical juncture of my career and I intend to use it to share my experiences in this role and I hope to help others – either actual or aspiring medical directors – in their journeys too.

It is my belief that too few doctors put themselves forward for leadership and management positions in healthcare in general and the NHS in particular. Having made the plunge – I understand why and want to use my insight to support others in following me. My motivation is that I genuinely believe that without active engagement of and leadership by doctors the quality and safety of the service we provide is significantly threatened by the current and ongoing funding crisis. Only doctors have the insight and knowledge that equips them with the skills to make the really hard choices involved in balancing cost and benefit. However to put themselves in a position where they can make those choices in a way that makes a significant difference to large numbers of patients at a scale that also makes a significant difference to the cost of delivering healthcare to the economy requires individuals to make real sacrifices.

My Journey

I am by training an anaesthetist and intensivist. I became a consultant in 2002 and within 2 years found myself clinical director of critical care services in one the of the largest acute trusts in the NHS – operating out of three acute hospitals. This wasn’t because I was ambitious to do so, or even envisaged myself doing that role when I was appointed, it was simply because no one else wanted or was ready to do it (neither was I). My first year as CD I had no directorate manager, I had no training but I did have a fantastic team of senior nurses and consultant colleagues willing to work together as a team. Over the subsequent 5 years I had 6 different directorate managers working with me, some excellent others less so – and therein lies one reason why we should not leave radical reform of services to non-clinicians; only doctors and nurses are in it for the long haul, managers by their nature move on, and don’t always witness the consequences of their actions.

I am lucky to have trained and worked in a truly modern specialty – one that recognises the necessity of team working, that sees doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals as equal partners in that team delivering an outcome for the patient – one that recognises the need to take control of the whole cycle of care including the pathway to the door of the ICU (through MEWS and critical care outreach) – one that recognises the need to codify and simplify the process of care delivery in order to improve reliability (through care bundles – checklists by another name) – one that recognises the need to measure risk adjusted outcome and use it to continuously improve the service (through ICNARC). Ten years or more of this approach has resulted in an un-sung triumph of healthcare – the virtual elimination of central venous catheter related sepsis, the placing of sepsis in general at the top of the emergency medical agenda, year on year reductions in mortality (our SMR has fallen from 1.3 to a low of 0.73 just before ICNARC re-calibrated the risk model). This is not a unique success, it has been replicated in intensive care units across the country and the world.

I recognised that there are some generalisable principles in the critical care story that if applied across a healthcare economy could bring about radical improvements in the quality of care delivered at the same time as reductions in the cost of care. This belief motivated me to not only learn more about models of healthcare delivery and their practical implementation but also to put myself in a position where I could influence – rather than remain a frustrated observer. It struck me that not only is this an area of fulminant intellectual activity, it is also an area where as an individual one can make more difference to more patients in a shorter space of time than any area of academic medicine (I am after all an archetypal anaesthetist – an impatient physician!).

These thoughts (not necessarily as well formed at the time) led me to apply for the position of associate medical director at my Trust (in 2009), and also to the hallowed halls of Harvard Business School (in 2010/11) where I was exposed to the global cutting edge of thinking in healthcare delivery. This experience has been transformational for me personally, affirmed my belief that this is the right career path for me, and equipped me with knowledge and insights that I am impatient (again) to see put into practice. Many of the ideas will be themes I will draw out in future posts. The time is right – new ideas are becoming established in the thinking of policy makers – integrated care, outcomes frame works, value based competition, improvement science – and the need has never been more urgent.

And so here I am in 2012 about to take up MD post at another large trust. In my next post I will talk about why many wouldn’t do what I have done and why I nearly didn’t…