TY - JOUR AU - Abbas, Syed Muslim AU - Ashar, Abid PY - 2021/10/31 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - ESSENTIAL LEADERSHIP DOMAINS AND STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE LEADERSHIP SKILLS AMONG UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL STUDENTS: A MIXED METHODS STUDY: Leadership Skills among Undergraduate Students JF - Pakistan Armed Forces Medical Journal JA - PAFMJ VL - 71 IS - 5 SE - Original Articles DO - 10.51253/pafmj.v71i5.3760 UR - https://pafmj.org/PAFMJ/article/view/3760 SP - 1791-96 AB - <p><strong>Objective:</strong> To explore medical undergraduate students’ perceptions pertaining to the key domains of leadership and highlight strategies to enhance leadership skills in undergraduate studies.</p><p><strong>Study Design:</strong> Mixed methods study.</p><p><strong>Place and Duration of Study:</strong> Fatima Memorial Hospital College of Medicine &amp; Dentistry, Lahore, from Sep to Oct 2019.</p><p><strong>Methodology:</strong> A total of 207 medical students were recruited from the first and final year by purposive sampling to fill out a structured questionnaire. Three focus group discussions were conducted comprising of twelve students in each group. All focus groups were audio-recorded, anonymized and transcribed verbatim before the analysis by framework analysis technique.</p><p><strong>Results:</strong> Total fifty percent of the first-year students were of the view that ensuring patient safety was an important component of the leadership domain of improving services whereas only 11% responded as critically evaluating as a component of this domain. The themes that emerged pertaining to the strategies to enhance leadership skills included increasing awareness, role models depicting change, cultural challenges, and supplementing existing practices.</p><p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> The validated essential domains of leadership and its associated competencies should be streamlined strategically and prioritized in accordance with the level of training of the undergraduate medical students. A multicentre study is suggested to gather data at the national level which could inform further development of inclusion of leadership domains within undergraduate MBBS curriculum.</p> ER -