Leadership training in medicine is often framed around titles and administrative skills, preparing students to one day manage teams or step into academic or hospital leadership roles. While these skills are important, they miss the deeper, more urgent need in medical education: helping future physicians understand themselves, navigate complex health care systems, and make intentional career decisions aligned with their values.

Why traditional leadership training falls short

Countless physicians enter practice only to realize medicine doesn’t feel like they imagined in medical school. They discover too late that they weren’t prepared for the business realities of health care, didn’t fully understand different practice models, and lacked mentors to help them make confident, informed career decisions. This misalignment contributes to high rates of burnout and dissatisfaction across the profession.

Burnout doesn’t just affect doctors. It affects patients. As patients, we want physicians who are present, fulfilled, and passionate about their work. But too often, doctors feel trapped in settings that don’t align with who they are because they lacked the guidance and tools to choose intentionally.

Introducing LEAD+: a program created to change the path

I founded the LEAD+ program to address this gap. LEAD stands for Leveraging your degree, Embodying your identity, Activating leadership skills to Drive systemic impact. This is not another leadership course about management or titles.

LEAD+ was specifically designed for trainees who want to lead their own careers with clarity and purpose. The program helps trainees discover who they are and what they value most, learn the business and operational realities of health care to make informed career decisions, while developing leadership skills and systems thinking. Partnership with hospital executives and diverse physician leaders gives trainees diversity in perspectives.

This program was created not just to develop more administrators, but to prepare happier, more fulfilled doctors—physicians who know themselves, understand their options, and feel empowered to choose paths that let them thrive.

Happier physicians, better patient care

Although health care is shifting towards a more holistic approach, medical training still often neglects the trainee as a whole human being. To truly transform patient care, we must first prepare doctors to care for themselves and their well-being, understand the forces shaping medicine beyond the bedside, and lead intentionally within increasingly complex health care environments.

LEAD+ does more than teach leadership. It aims to cultivate physicians who feel confident in their career choices, experience less burnout and greater professional satisfaction, and deliver more compassionate care because they want to be doing the work they’ve chosen. Because ultimately, we all want the same thing: physicians who are not just competent, but happy, thriving, and fully aligned with the work of caring for our sick loved ones.

Amelie Oshikoya is an internal medicine physician.