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Familiarity with modern health management trends by West African Surgeons


AO Mahmoud
D Nkanga
AO Onakoya

Abstract

Objectives: To collate the self-reported assessment of familiarity with some aspects of managerial competencies on the part of some surgeons and their observations on the managerial environment of their health institutions and draw appropriate policy implications.
Design: Cross-sectional study using a structured questionnaire.
Setting: The study was conducted during the 50th Annual Scientific Conference of the West African College of Surgeons, which was held in Calabar, Nigeria, from 6th to It 12 th February 2010.
Subjects: One hundred and ten out of 150 surgeons who were attending the conference returned their filled questionnaires.
Results: Their familiarity with business and financial concepts was lacking on crucial ones related to marketing strategies. Respondent largely found the listed objections to advertisement of medical services as very appropriate. They preferred largely to interact with themselves in professional associations rather than with others in crosscultural
groupings. Funding (66.4%) and political/ethnic influences (43.9%) were rated as impacting very negatively on their health institutions, while the deployment of information communication technology to institutional processes was adjudged to be unsatisfactory.
Conclusions: Most of the indices of core competencies in modern health leadership and management appeared deficient among our study participants and their health institutions managerial environments were equally deficient. We recommend for a well-focussed short time duration health management course for all physicians particularly specialists.

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eISSN: 0012-835X