This concise textbook seeks to introduce medical students to leadership concepts and support the development of leadership and teamwork skills. Its international authorship seeks to make the book relevant to a global audience. Divided into three sections – Self Mastery, Teamwork and Residency Applications, the book introduces key leadership concepts before taking a more targeted and practical approach. This review is a collaboration between Sabrina Hersi, 3rd Year Medical Student and Dr Alice Deasy, GP and Senior Clinical Teacher at the University of Sheffield.
Medical Student Perspective – Sabrina Hersi
From what I’ve encountered as a third-year medical student, leadership skills are rarely taught formally. They are presumed to be innate rather than nurtured, something that is expected to seep in “by some sort of osmosis”, as the foreword to this book states.
Written in a voice reflecting that of medical students and junior doctors, with pop-culture references littered throughout, the book was visually engaging, vibrant and easy to follow. The sheer relatability of it kept me turning the pages. I found some of the final sections of the book on residency training less relevant.
As the first doctor in my family, medicine initially felt like a system I had to decode alone, making the transition to clinical years particularly difficult. Was it really just about passing exams? Portfolios, networking, conferences; there’s so much expected of you that no one actually explains. The book gave my experience a name: the “hidden curriculum,”which encapsulates all the unwritten rules, cultural norms, and social hierarchies that are taught implicitly rather than explicitly. It was a term I hadn’t come across before, but recognised immediately.
In a world of unspoken hierarchies, it’s tempting to think deference beats visibility. That was certainly my instinct on my first surgical placement. Seniors would vanish into theatres without a word, and I quickly learned to stay quiet and follow rather than risk being in the wrong place. The chapter on effective communication speaks directly to this, equipping readers with strategies for concise, conscientious, and goal-oriented communication regardless of role or seniority.The topic recurs in the chapter on confident humility, stressing the importance of psychological safety in avoiding both mistakes and overconfidence. Using these communication strategies relies partly on supportive hospital cultures, and the book suggests that culture can shift through microenvironments of like-minded peers, although it can be difficult to set culture from the middle or bottom of a hierarchy. However, the book doesn’t fully engage with the wider lack of psychological safety across all medical institutions. The underlying question remains: do we need systemic change to cultivate more leaders?
What I particularly liked about this book is the focus on navigating relationships with colleagues and other healthcare professionals, which is lacking in my medical school curriculum. The book introduces the concept of positionless leadership, demonstrating how one can lead upwards and downwards regardless of position. I found this especially profound, as it shifted my perspective on how I could lead as a medical student.
I found the chapter on recognising and managing burnout valuable and relevant to medical students. However, I felt it could have gone further in recognising that students do not experience these pressures from an equal starting point. The risk of burnout may be unevenly distributed, as students enter medical school with different financial, social and personal resources with which to manage the demands of training. Greater consideration could have been given to students from widening-participation programmes or lower socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as disabled and neurodivergent students.
The idea of finding your ‘why’ and the emphasis on intrinsic motivation particularly struck me. It encouraged me to be more intentional rather than strategic about getting involved in societies and extracurricular activities that aligned with my values and interests.
I would recommend this book to medical students, particularly those transitioning into their clinical years. Having recently made this transition myself, I recognise how daunting it can feel, and the book provided a practical guide to navigating it with greater confidence. It came at the right time for me; by the end, I found myself not only understanding leadership differently, but envisioning myself as a leader.
Medical Educator perspective – Dr Alice Deasy
I first came across this book when it was presented at a medical education conference in the UK. It was presented as an accessible, relatable and practical text book covering an important area on which there is very little published material to date. As a medical educator working in an undergraduate university setting, with an interest in developing leadership skills in medical students I eagerly awaited its publication.
I wasn’t disappointed. It is an inspiring and highly engaging text book written with clarity and sensitivity. Rather than a hefty tome of many leadership text books it is a manageable read. It convincingly presents the case for developing leadership skills as a medical student, going on to support students in developing ‘self’, considering how they work in a ‘team’, before addressing more situation specific considerations in the final section.
I was concerned about how the authors would ensure the book’s relevance to the wide global audience at which it is targeted. This challenge is acknowledged and sensitively managed, drawing comparisons in the experience between different countries. However, UK students may struggle to connect with some parts of the book, particularly some of the vignettes at the start of the chapters pertaining to clinical placements, and some of the latter parts of the book relating to applications for residency. These sections do not translate well to the experience of UK medical students. Despite this challenge I think overall the book is highly relevant to a UK context, and even where relevance is looser, learning can be gained from the experiences of our international colleagues.
The true testament to the success of this book comes from the words of Sabrina who has reviewed this book with me. In a recent reflection about her election to the role of president within a student society she commented ‘ I stepped up, and stepped out of my comfort zone, I found my Why, it’s all in that book’.
Book Reviewers
Sabrina Hersi
Sabirna Hersi is a third-year medical student at the University of Sheffield. She is President of the African and Caribbean Medical Society and Research Lead for Student FairHealth, a student-led initiative engaging students in health equity. Reading this book inspired her to stop waiting for permission to apply for roles she might otherwise have talked herself out of.
Alice Deasy
Dr Alice Deasy is a GP and a medical educator. As a medical educator her interests centre on the professional identity formation of our future doctors, nurturing the emotional intelligence, professional behaviours and leadership capabilities essential for future practice. She is a GP at Page Hall Medical Centre in Sheffield. Through her work in this vibrant multiethnic community, in an area of deprivation, she continues her long standing interest in how to support patients who face barriers to achieving good health.
Declarations of Interest
We have no conflicts of interest.