(1074) Promoting Leadership Skills in Critical Care Fellows: Establishing a Fellowship Leadership Academy

Introduction: Tremendous changes in healthcare organizations, particularly critical care, require strong physician leaders. Leadership training has proven useful for improving teamwork and communication across disciplines. Formal Physician Leadership Academies have been established for attending physicians, but no standardized multidisciplinary leadership program has been described for critical care fellows.

Methods: Multispecialty critical care fellows (cardiac, surgery, medical/pulmonary) at our institution (n=29) were sent a survey exploring their leadership experience, needs and interest in relation to specific leader training. Responses were analyzed using frequency and contingency tables. Fisher’s exact test was used for statistical analysis.

Results: Response rate for survey was 76% (n=22). 55% (n=12) reported a prior major leadership position but only 41% (n=9) received leadership training in medical school/residency. All respondents believed leadership skills would be important in future careers as intensivists and 82% (n=18) expressed interest in having leadership training during their fellowship. Twenty topics were selected for possible inclusion into a Fellowship Leadership Academy. Most common topics chosen were health care finance/accounting, coding/regulatory issues, negotiating employment, managing conflicts, team communication skills, wellness/life balance (55%, 45%, 41%, 41%, 32%, 32% respectively). Those without prior training were less likely to have held a major leadership position (31% v 89%, p=0.012) and more interested in leadership training during fellowship than those with prior leadership training (100% v 56%, p=0.017). Health finance/accounting, and coding/regulatory issues were ranked high by those with and without prior leadership training. Those with no prior leadership training showed more interest in communication skills and managing conflicts, and those with prior training showed more interest in building organizational capacity and problem solving.

Conclusions: Multispecialty critical care fellows identified a need for leadership training that has not been met during their prior training. Specific topics of interest in leadership training have been identified. A formal Fellow Leadership Academy offers significant training opportunities and should be encouraged.