Courage in Healthcare: A Necessary Virtue or Warning Sign?

Faced with a perfect storm of escalating demand, rising costs and rapid technological change, the need for effective leadership in 21^st century health care has never been greater. This book breaks new ground in addressing the unexplored concept of courage in leadership. The authors adeptly combine evidence and experience to offer a variety of perspectives that speak to the challenges faced by health and social care professionals, managers and policy makers as well as patients, service users and carers. This book offers a rich, distinctive and thought-provoking analysis and deserves to be widely read.

In this thought-provoking book, Rahman and Myers dissect what courage means using carefully chosen real-life vignettes to illustrate key concepts. Reading it will prompt reflection on one's own experiences and encourage new perspectives on one's interactions with others involved in providing care. In light of recent failures of care, the concept of moral distress incurred by the need (perceived or actual) for the courage to speak up when things are wrong should prompt a thorough re- examination of the way the health service currently deals with this fundamental issue. For this reason alone, it deserves to be widely read.