To be or not to be a clinical director?

Abstract

Objective: This article is designed to raise the interest of psychiatrists in the position of clinical director.

Conclusions: The clinical director can improve the recovery of large numbers of mental health consumers by influencing the direction of local mental health policy, planning and funding. The effective clinical director will be an experienced psychiatrist with clinical credibility, who is present and available, leads by example, is flexible, energetic, delegates, can “manage up” and has probably undergone management training.

Key words::

• career
• clinical director
• psychiatry

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Michelle Gonzalvez from the RANZCP secretariat for her assistance. A version of this paper was presented at the 45th RANZCP Congress in Auckland 2010 as part of three joint sessions organized by the Network of Public Sector Psychiatrists and Special Interest Group in Leadership and Management.

DISCLOSURE

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.