Teaching and learning the physician manager role: psychiatry residents' perspectives

Despite widespread consensus that additional training in administration is needed to prepare physicians for practice, little is known about how best to teach managerial competencies and how to integrate teaching into existing postgraduate curricula.

This study aimed to elicit resident perspectives on administrative curriculum development following exposure to a pilot physician manager curriculum at the University of Toronto.

The authors held five focus groups of psychiatry residents at the University of Toronto during 2008, engaging 40 trainees. Resident perspectives on barriers to teaching and learning administrative skills, preferred curriculum content and format and suggestions for integration of administrative training into the residency programme were elicited.

Identified barriers to learning include lack of physician manager role clarity, dearth of learning opportunities and multiple competing demands on residents' time. Residents value a formal administrative curriculum and propose additional opportunities for experiential learning such as elective rotations and mentorship opportunities. Suggested strategies for integrating administrative teaching into residency include faculty development, rotation-specific administrative objectives and end of rotation resident evaluations.

Our findings provide valuable learner input into an emerging educational framework aiming to address barriers to teaching administrative skills during residency and facilitate longitudinal reinforcement of learning.