Australasian Anaesthesia 2011 - Australian and New Zealand ...

212 Australasian Anaesthesia 2011The modern health system needs anaesthetic leaders to apply their skills to the wider medical community tohelp us all meet the challenges of the National Health and Hospital Reforms, the medicolegal milieu and thecomplexities of maintaining evidence-based safe practice in an increasingly commoditised operating environment.It is clear that this battle needs to be fought not just at the macroeconomic and macropolitical level, but even moreimportantly, on the micro, every day level. We are all leaders in our own environment. We can choose to take themantle or to discard it, but that does not deny nor negate our natural role. Doing the latter simply results indisappointment and defeat.To paraphrase Professor Malcolm Fisher’s definition of anaesthesia, we now need, more than ever, the halfasleep who attempt to keep the half awake from being half killed by the half witted to take a half interest in medicalleadership.REFERENCES1. Mets, B et al. Leadership of United States Academic Anesthesiology Programs 2006: Chairperson Characteristicsand Accomplishments. Vol. 105, No. 5, 1338-1245, November 2007.2. EOWA Australian Census of Women in Leadership (2008-2010), available at http://www.eowa.gov.au/Information_Centres/Resource_Centre/EOWA_Publications/EOWA_Census/2010_Census/2010_ Census_Report.asp TheCensus is conducted every two years.3. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/E6CAF670D550F646CA25747700074A51/$File/Our%20surgery.pdf.4. Final Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Acute Care Services in NSW Public Hospitals,Commissioner Peter Garling SC, 2008, p11, 1.73.5. Working Conditions of Doctors and Nurses in NSW Public Hospitals. Survey for submission to the GarlingInquiry, submitted to Australian Medical Association (NSW), Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation(NSW), NSW Nurses’ Association. 20th March 2008. Centre for Workplace Research, University Of Sydney.6. Final Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Acute Care Services in NSW Public Hospitals,Commissioner Peter Garling SC, 2008, p1076, 31.200.7. Weber, Max. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Translated by A.M. Henderson and TalcottParsons. London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1947.8. Northcote Parkinson, C. Parkinsons Law. The Economist, Nov 19th, 1955.9. Wills, G. What Makes a Good Leader? The Atlantic Monthly, 1994.10. Hogan, R and Kaiser, R B. What We Know About Leadership. Review of General Psychology, Vol 9(2),Jun 2005, 169-180.