Hospitals, for a long time run on a hierarchical basis, are increasingly facing scrutiny on how to improve their operations, patients’ safety and ultimately, financial wellbeing. One of the friction points being the never-ending and quite emotive debate on the roles various cadres should play in management of hospitals. Debate so far, centres on whom between nurses and doctors, make better managers.
In public hospitals in particular, historically, doctors as the senior-most trained cadre, have always felt the right to be at the helm of hospital management. Nurses on the other hand, believe that as the cadre with intimate contact time with patients, their knowledge of the day to day workings of hospitals is unsurpassed. As such, it imbues them with an added advantage over the other cadres.
