Multidisciplinary Team Leadership.

It is often asked who should lead the multidisciplinary team (MDT) in palliative care. Exploration is needed into whether there are criteria for leading and who determines these. An old acquaintance of mine once remarked that it is always the doctor who leads the MDT because of the medicalization of dying; it is the doctor who chairs the MDT meetings and the doctor who makes the decisions. Although the above assertion may have the resonance of a tired argument and misplaced assumptions, this still occurs in places. Most doctors would deny that their efforts culminate in an inappropriate medicalization of dying and death (Gannon, 2001) and are only an attempt to manage medically-orientated symptoms as part of total patient care.