Physician as a manager: personal and managerial characteristics, Saudi Arabia

The emergence of physicians' roles in key administrative positions within many King Saudi Arabia health care organizations has represented a major change in the medical profession over the last two decades. This have created a need for physicians who are willing to assume a high level of responsibility for managing evolving health care organizations. The study explores the perception of physician managers regarding their work, personal and managerial characteristics. The data for this study were obtained from a sample of 200 physicians working in management positions in different health care organizations in Riyadh. Physicians were selected at random with probability proportional to size from a list containing managers in all health care organization to participate in the study. Our results indicated that physician managers lack administration skills. No formal training in medical administration and management because management principles are not integrated in the medical context and the majority were experienced in management for less than four years. Very few possess the technical competencies such as strategic planning, financial and economics knowledge. Boredom with medical practice, improvement of personal position and encouragement from others are related to being older, having more years in medicine and interest in medicine is reduced. The finding also supported the notion that physician manager can maintain stable levels of loyality to professional interest and organization. This dual commitment is related to work-related characteristics involving sharing his time favorably to management job and to patient care. To improve their management skills physicians can benefit from management education programs such as those offered by King Saud University

Smoking habits of physicians in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The smoking habits of physicians in Riyadh city were studied as a first step towards surveying the habit among health professionals and then among the different sectors of the community. The aim was to provide basic information on the causes and pattern of smoking as a prerequisite for an effective control programme since smoking has negative health, social and economic effects. Of the 698 physicians who participated in the study 48% had smoked previously and 34% were current smokers; 55% of male physicians and 24% of female physicians had smoked previously, but current smokers constituted 38% and 16% respectively. Half the non-Saudi physicians and 37% of the Saudi physicians were previously smokers and 37% and 26% respectively were currently smoking. The habit had been started by 60% of smokers while studying in colleges of medicine or after graduation. About 60% tried seriously to quit smoking but only half of them were successful; 80% of the smokers did not smoke at work. The majority of all physicians agreed that smoking is hazardous to health and they were concerned about it