It was indeed a proud moment when Embark College invited Dr. Sunil K Sharma Dhakal, Medical Director of Centre of Digestive Disease, Nepal Mediciti in an informative and thought-provoking session regarding the same topic, which was successfully structured, organized or named, and structured as, From Surgical Leadership to Effective Management. It was a special masterclass that united students, faculty, and the fans of health management with a thought-provoking discussion in which the technical accuracy of the surgery was coupled with the strategic ability of the leaders and managers.

Being the most reverential medical doctor of Nepal, Dr. Dhakal has successfully incorporated his experiences as a top gastrointestinal surgeon and multimethod hospital administrator in the riveting lecture. Based on many decades of experience in clinical practice and leadership in one of the leading medical facilities in Nepal, he offered students a first-hand experience of the complex world healthcare leadership, clinical decision-making and the transition of a practicing surgeon into a healthcare manager.

Operating Room and Beyond: Being an Effective Leader

It opened with a solid personal story. Dr. Dhakal talked about his initial experience in the medical field- how he underwent painful training to be a GI surgeon to his growing role with hospital management and clinical governance. He pointed to the fact that oftentimes the profession of a surgeon requires rapid responsiveness, risky decision-making, and accuracy at a crucial moment, which also cannot be ignored or underestimated in the field of leadership.

He stressed the point that leadership in caring is not about the administrative rule, but rather about the development of systems that pay attention to patient safety, sustain the clinical ethics, and promote the continuous improvement.

His encounters with medical crisis, surgical emergency, and his advocacy to patients turned into effective learning experiences. He emphasized the role of collaborations in interdisciplinary and how surgeons tend to be the connection between the patient, care team and the hospital system.

Making the move to Healthcare Management
Shifting gears outside OR, Dr. Dhakal was in an open-hearted conversation of his metamorphosis into management. He is currently the Medical Director at Nepal Mediciti, which means he maintains strategic initiatives, guarantees the quality of clinical care, and/or manages the response to policies on an extremely specialized facility. He showed how this role required a new skill-set-organizational conduct, operational plan, human resource management and even marketing.

Noteworthy was the fact that he expressed the struggles with managing highly skilled professionals, the nature of dealing with conflict, the most effective workflow, and the implementation of innovation into a clinical environment. His experience about the system oriented balance between clinical practice and administration gave the student an overall perspective of the healthcare industry.
Inspiring upcoming leaders
The most exciting moment of the session was that Dr. Dhakal was able to relate with the students. He talked especially to the next generation of health care providers, health care administrators, and health care entrepreneurs– urging them to avoid titles and technical competence. He challenged them to develop a serving culture, systems-thinking and lifelong learning mindsets.

His tip was mostly explicit: leadership is not a position, it is a procedure. No matter what your title is (as a doctor, manager or student), it will be the way you listen and respond, the way you lead with integrity that makes all the difference.”

Managing the gap between Medicine, Management and Meaning
The session of Dr. Dhakal was a vivid example of the mission of the Embark College to transfer the real world experience into the academic environment and to encourage students to think critically and take a purposeful action. It showed that a leader who is passionate with a sense of compassion and vision can create change not only in hospitals but also in all types of industries.

We would like to thank Dr. Sunil K Sharma Dhakal with all our heart in sharing with us his story and reminding us that great leadership is not at the end of precision but at the point of precision and purpose. His comments will reverberate in the ears of our students as they plot their course into the ever-changing career of healthcare and the world at large.