A call for transforming physicians-as-administrators into professional hybrid medical leaders: insights from northern India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the non-clinical challenges of physicians in northern India and to re-imagine an alternative scenario of hybrid professional medical management and leadership where physicians enact roles as strategic boundary spanners.Design/methodology/approachIn this qualitative study, 30 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with men and women physicians and thematically analysed.FindingsPhysicians reported that they were unprepared formally for mainly ad hoc non-clinical responsibilities. Findings identified a range of six types of aspirational, willing, incidental, ambivalent, agnostic and actively resistant behaviours among physicians who were expected to undertake administrative, rather than strategic leadership tasks.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this study makes a novel theoretical contribution to the dearth of literature on medical leadership in a low-middle income South Asian country. By examining physicians' views on their non-clinical responsibilities, this study highlights the strategic potential for developing physicians formally as professional hybrid managers and leaders who effectively bridge medical and managerial domains beyond the current scenario of physicians operating as untrained administrators.