Leadership and management training for residents and fellows: a curriculum for future medical directors.

CONTEXT: Management of laboratories and pathology practices is increasingly complex. Residents and fellows in laboratory medicine and pathology need more structured curricula in leadership and management (L&M) training to function as medical and laboratory directors.

OBJECTIVE: To define a curriculum that provides basic competency in L&M for residents and fellows in pathology.

DESIGN: A year-long formal L&M course included didactic lectures, interactive sessions, case scenarios, team-building exercises, formal team presentations (capstone project), and precourse and postcourse assessment of L&M knowledge. The curriculum meets requirements of American College of Graduate Medical Education and supports goals for leadership training of the College of American Pathologists. Participants evaluated (5-point scale) the content and speakers of all sessions. Trainees were evaluated after considering postcourse examination results, quality of the capstone presentation, and a global assessment.

RESULTS: The 5 non-capstone sessions received evaluation scores ranging from 4.4 (informatics) to 5 (L&M basics). Postcourse test scores showed significant improvement when compared with the pretest scores for the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 trainee cohorts.

CONCLUSIONS: Short-term results indicate that the course described improves trainee knowledge of L&M issues.