Medicine without definitions is not Medicine
But, after all, what is Medicine? As Alexandre Valentim Lourenço emphasises in his recent chronicle in Público, Medicine is now not just a discipline; it is a set of sciences that interact in a multidisciplinary way to integrate areas from engineering to artificial intelligence, from robotics to communication technologies.
Medicine is no longer a science. In addition to the undeniable advantages that these multiple interactions imply, there is a growing need to provide doctors with management skills: the management of material resources that this plural interaction requires, the management of people who ineluctably cross these areas, and also the management of the expectations of these people, providing them with tools so as not to lose the focus on the patient as the main objective of Medicine.
And can a doctor be a good manager?
Just like the opposite question, the disparity of answers that may arise from these questions can only lead to a common conclusion: for Doctors and for Managers, people are the purpose of their profession. Today, and more and more, a Doctor, without even realising it, is a Manager. And with a more or less formal education, it is up to the Doctor to manage and interact. Just like a manager does.
From Anatomy to Excel sheets
When I enrolled in the Postgraduate Diploma in Management at Nova SBE Executive Education, I came across a definition of Management that was not part of my previous lexicon. From Finance to Marketing, from Human Resources to Operations, I could not help but notice that the multidisciplinarity that now encompasses Medicine is a concept acquired in the Management dictionary.
Curious for someone who, like me, has been following a path in a science that (I was convinced) was based on more concrete data than the current polyvalence of Medicine requires. And management as well. It is also curious that Medicine was born from people for people. I realised during post-graduation that so was Management. In fact, what would it be if, directly or indirectly, people were not part of the equation?
It's all about people
I think I have reached a conclusion. After a medical degree and the Postgraduate Diploma in Management, I cannot understate the ability of a doctor to be a good manager. Just as I cannot fail to emphasise that a (good) manager has the capacity to be a good doctor. Because, in the end, it all comes down to people.
From them and for them, good and bad doctors, just like managers, architects of relationships and curators of ailments of companies or people, in a more or less obvious way, approach those who seek them.
Given these multiple similarities, my summary of the Postgraduate Diploma in Management intersects with the culmination of 6 years studying Medicine and can be summed up in a few lines: in both these areas there is no one answer, but rather the ability to make it the most appropriate one in its context. To make the analogy with the well-known adage: in Medicine as in Management, neither always nor never.
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