Today's junior health professional will be tomorrow's healthcare leaders. In the 21st century, healthcare providers face new and evolving challenges from emerging pandemics, technological innovations, and demands from the patients and communities. Future health professionals may become leaders in their institutions, academic, government, or non-government organizations, creating value and driving changes in our society. On the other hand, effective leadership comes into play in every aspect of daily work in hospitals and clinics. Today's health professionals are not merely technical experts but need to collaborate with other specialties to provide high-value health care to patients and communities. These changing roles of modern health professionals echo the importance of leadership competency in the curriculum of faculty training and medical education.
In the United Kingdom, the Medical Leadership Competency Framework applies to postgraduate and integrated into the undergraduate training program. In the United States, Harvard Medical School provides postgraduate leadership programs to help physicians build up the knowledge and skills for administrative management or executive roles. Stanford School of Medicine also provides training programs focusing on leadership skills in academic medicine. During the pandemic of COVID-19, Taiwan's successful approach to containing the global outbreak indicates the importance of leadership skills for cross-departmental collaboration. Therefore, the theme of 2020 is 'Next Generation's Leadership-Cultivation and challenge.' Our conference will be held from November 10th-14th, 2020, at Taipei Veterans General Hospital. The first day will be plenary sessions, focusing on leadership development in medical education, faculty development, Innovation leadership, and leadership in academic settings. On the second day, we will provide four interactive parallel workshops for leadership development, including leadership in academic medicine, inter-professional collaboration, faculty development for leadership, and innovative leadership development strategies. We wish you a productive conference, and hoping you can advance your leadership skills, take in the latest knowledge, and network with your peers at the 2020 International Symposium of Medical Education!