Psychologists’ Opportunities for Fostering Leadership Skills in Academic Medicine: The Rothenberger Leadership Academy

Healthcare leaders must increasingly attend to the monumental challenges facing their organizations (Angood and Falcone, American Association for Physician Leadership, 2023). As such, leadership in healthcare settings demands new skills sets amongst healthcare professionals that transcend the technical skills of any given profession. Academic health center psychologists are well-positioned to contribute to the leadership of academic health centers due to knowledge, skills, and attitudes fostered in doctoral psychology education, practice, and research through the focus on Profession-Wide Competencies. This article calls for psychologists to pursue more leadership opportunities within academic health centers. The article starts by identifying parallels between psychology’s Profession-Wide Competencies and needed leadership skills/concepts for healthcare leaders. An example of an academic health center psychologist’s leadership in a cohort-based physician leadership program illustrates how Profession-Wide Competencies were used in three structural elements of the leadership program. The article identifies particular leadership opportunities for psychologists within academic health centers.