What are the Leadership and Management Positions inMedical Education? A Scoping Review

Abstract

eadership can be defined as a combination of position, responsibilities, attitude, skills, andbehaviours contributing to sustainable success. Despite extensive research on the representation ofvarious groups, including genders and personal qualities, in leadership and managementpositions in medical education, there remains a lack of clarity regarding what these positionsexactly are. In this scoping review, we aimed to determine these positions by following Levac etal.'s framework. We searched four databases; PubMed, ERIC, Scopus, and Web of Science untilMarch 23, 2023, resulting in 558 records for screening after removing duplicates and applyingsome exclusions. The review included 266 studies for data extraction and synthesis. In addition tothe leadership positions, we revealed the studies’ countries, main context, discipline, and year. Weidentified 396 leadership and management positions in medical education under four categories:academic, administrative, journal-related, and society-related positions. Additionally, the majorityof the studies (59.77%) were on gender-related topics, followed by those focusing onunderrepresented minorities. The articles covered 40 different disciplines, with the surgical fieldsexhibiting the highest frequencies, such as orthopaedic surgery, neurosurgery, and plastic andreconstructive surgery. The systematically developed list of positions in our study may beconsidered as a valuable resource for future research, especially in studies that aim to determinethe representation of women and underrepresented minorities in leadership and managementpositions in medical education.