Leadership Pearls in Healthcare

This book brings together the insights of some of Australia’s most respected healthcare professionals and provides a resource for readers new to the concept of leadership and those currently in leadership or managerial positions.

Administrative (as opposed to clinical) leadership and the skills required to be good at it, are not well covered in the medical, nursing or allied health curricula. Despite this, healthcare workers are often required to take up leadership/managerial roles, often with little notice and minimal training. In contrast to the scientific nature of clinical medicine, leadership is a management concept and open to different interpretations. Clinicians who have the potential to be great leaders may shy away from administrative leadership positions because of limited understanding and training in what leadership entails. Unfortunately, not all great clinicians turn out to be great leaders/managers.

Leadership Pearls in Healthcare delves deep into the minds of eminent leaders across all disciplines within the Australian healthcare system and discover the most valuable lessons they have learnt during their leadership journey. To demonstrate how they can be applied in practice, each leadership pearl will be presented in a scenario/situation-based format, followed by a discussion with relevant references. Following this, authors will include closely related practical tips as ‘Other Gems’.

Designed in an engaging and user-friendly format, this book is accessible to a wide audience, including current and emerging leaders in healthcare, students in medical, nursing, allied health, recently graduated doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals, as well as current and emerging leaders outside of healthcare.

Dr Ralph Junckerstorff is a General (Internal) Medicine and Infectious Diseases physician at Monash Health in Melbourne, Victoria. He graduated from undergraduate medicine from the University of Western Australia in 2000 and became a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 2010. He also holds a Diploma of Tropical Medicine from the University of Liverpool (UK). He is a co-editor of the book Beyond Evidence-Based Medicine: Clinical Pearls from Experienced Physicians.            

Dr Junckerstorff has worked in a public teaching hospital his entire career. He has shared an office with former and current Directors of General Medicine and is married to a healthcare leader. He fully appreciates how difficult, time-consuming and at times, thankless a task being a leader is. He understands the complexities and challenges of the hospital environment and the significant impact effective leadership in healthcare can have.