A new pathway to leadership accreditation for international medical leaders
By Professor Dirk Pickuth, FMLM Lead for Europe and Honorary Senior Fellow of FMLM
Over the past quarter century, I have combined an active career as a practising radiologist with high-profile leadership roles. My work has been devoted to promoting the highest possible standard of care for patients. I have had the privilege of working, lecturing and consulting in several countries around the globe, and with many distinguished executives and clinicians from public and private healthcare organisations. I am a passionate advocate for medical leadership, its importance and potential to transform the safety and quality of healthcare and the happiness and wellbeing of staff.
In 2019 I was appointed Lead for the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management (FMLM) in Europe. I am the overseas ambassador of our vibrant community of medical leaders. I act as liaison between international members and FMLM, facilitate new partnerships and collaborative initiatives and make proposals for discussion by FMLM executives. My objective is to enhance international interest and participation in FMLM and for the Faculty to become the common professional home and united voice for international medical leaders.
FMLM represents a wide group of healthcare leaders, managers and clinicians across international boundaries and offers a starting point for raising the profile and mainstreaming medical leadership within global healthcare.
We are now taking the next great step for our international members by introducing international fellowship of FMLM. This has been a particular quest of mine and it marks a milestone in the development of FMLM.
FMLM International Fellowship is available to those senior individuals who have made exceptional contributions to, and promoted the interests of, medical leadership and management at an international level. Applicants will have to prove that they have an outstanding and unblemished track record of excellent performance as healthcare leaders. FMLM International Fellowship will be a highly prestigious award and one of the most outstanding qualifications in global healthcare.
We want to attract those doctors and dentists who do not have the national or regional opportunity to have their leadership knowledge recognised as a qualification. However, FMLM International Fellowship will not be appropriate for all international doctors and dentists. It is, in some ways, FMLM’s most stringent qualification, with an interview (conducted virtually) among other additional measures being required in addition to the usual FMLM Fellowship process.
Today’s healthcare executives can take enormous benefit from a broad understanding of the way healthcare operates, particularly best practice, beyond their own borders. They should be familiar with the norms and behaviours of multiple cultures, and they need cross-cultural abilities. Creative processes and productivity gains are driven by different backgrounds, different personalities, different experiences and different viewpoints. International diversity improves the creativity and productivity of home talent. International vibrancy and entrepreneurial spirit are an asset for healthcare organisations and their workforces.
We strongly encourage applicants from every part of the world and from every background. As a result, we are very happy to extend the FMLM team’s time to help any potential applicants understand the process and be supported in pulling their application together.
Applications will open on 15 July, and those who wish to have a conversation about FMLM International Fellowship can email fellowship [at] fmlm.ac.uk at any time. Applicants will be assessed on their experience and, crucially, how that experience relates to the FMLM Leadership and Management Standards for Medical Professionals.
You will be hearing more about international fellowship in the coming weeks, including on our launch day of 15 July and beyond. We welcome your thoughts on this initiative, and hope that you encourage exceptional individuals, who are not registered with the GMC and therefore ineligible for FMLM Fellowship currently, to consider applying.
This is an exciting step for the Faculty, and we hope you will join us on this journey as we look to engage with and learn from our peers across the world of medical leadership.
Email fellowship [at] fmlm.ac.uk to find out more.