Non-traditional skills in undergraduate medical education – the development of a teaching programme

Abstract

As a junior doctor in what is an increasingly struggling healthcare system, I am concerned to see that many of my junior and senior colleagues have opted not to continue onto the next stage of training. Whilst entrepreneurship, leadership and management are now accepted as important skills for doctors to be exposed to, this is clearly not filtering through to medical education at the undergraduate level. We have surveyed final year medical students regarding this and used these results to develop a national teaching programme which aims to provide junior doctors with skills such as management, leadership and enterprise which they would otherwise not be exposed to.