Head of Department for the Children and Youth Ward and the Pediatric Emergency Department sought for the Department of Children and Youth at Mid and West Zealand Hospital, Slagelse

Do you have a talent for leadership and the nerve to try it out? Are you motivated by creating the framework for where both staff, professionalism and patient pathways can succeed – even when the pace is high and decisions must be made quickly?

We are seeking a Chief Consultant who, together with us, will take responsibility for the Children and Adolescents’ Bed Ward and the Children’s Acute Receiving, where acute pediatrics, education, research, interdisciplinary collaboration and development of clinical practice go hand in hand.

As a Chief Consultant with departmental responsibility for the Children and Adolescents’ Bed Ward and the Children’s Acute Receiving, you will play a central role in a large pediatric department. You will be responsible for the daily leadership and development of the ward in close collaboration with the head nurse and will simultaneously be part of the department’s overall leadership team.

The position includes both operations management, professional leadership, strategic leadership and personnel management. You must be able to move between the concrete clinical daily life and the longer perspective – from patient flow, capacity and prioritization to professional quality, education and development of our way of working.

Leadership is also about making others succeed

We believe in leadership as something created together with others. As a Chief Consultant you therefore should not solve all the tasks yourself. An important part of your leadership role will be to set direction, provide overview and facilitate others to succeed. You must be able to share and delegate responsibility and invite staff and colleagues to participate in the development of the bed ward and the receiving. We want an environment where, even on a busy shift, people can ask questions, seek help, voice their concerns and challenge an assessment – and where we afterwards are curious about what we can learn.

It requires that you can both make decisions and give space, follow up and at the same time have trust, and be clear about the direction without necessarily knowing or delivering all the solutions yourself.

About the position

The Children’s Acute Receiving and the Children and Adolescents’ Bed Ward are the focus of a large portion of the department’s acute and subacute pediatrics. Here we meet children and young people with the full range of acute pediatric problems, and here a significant part of the clinical training of our younger doctors takes place.

As a Chief Consultant you will among other things be responsible for

• The medical operational management and professional development of the Children’s Acute Receiving and the Children and Adolescents’ Bed Ward
• Personnel management and competency development, including further education
• Development of workflows and patient pathways with a view to what creates value
• Clinically integrated education and supervision in the ward in collaboration with the education-responsible senior physician
• Quality work as well as handling and learning from patient pathways, near-miss events and inquiries from patients and relatives
• Interdisciplinary collaboration across disciplines, wards and professional groups and with relevant partners outside the department.

You will not be alone in the tasks. On the contrary, we expect that you, together with junior doctors, specialists, younger doctors, other staff and the ward management, will develop a ward where responsibility, knowledge and initiative are distributed widely.

We also dare to do less

Development is not only about adding new things. We actively work to critically review our clinical practice and ask whether examinations, treatments and workflows still make sense and create value for the patients.

We want a Chief Consultant who can see the potential in this mindset and help create professional curiosity about our habits: What should we continue? What should we do differently? And what can we with advantage stop doing?

It requires professionalism, courage and the ability to create buy-in. For meaningful service delivery, it is not about doing less to save, but about using our time and resources on what actually makes a difference for children, young people and families.

You must continue to be a clinician

The position is a leadership role, but we want a Chief Consultant who still has a clear clinical anchor. It would be natural for you to have an interest in acute and general pediatrics, but you can also bring other pediatric specialties that we cover in the department. The concrete composition depends on your competencies and interests as well as the department’s needs.

You will join the department’s on-call team in on-site shifts and contribute to the department’s shared clinical and educational tasks.

We know that the good job is not the same for everyone. Therefore we want – within the department’s framework – to tailor the position so that it fits the right candidate. If you have special interests in areas such as education, research, quality, digital development or a specific clinical field, we would like to discuss how this can become part of your role.

Who are you?

You are a specialist in pediatrics and want to take clear leadership responsibility in an inclusive collaboration. You may already have leadership experience, but the most important thing is that you are motivated by the leadership task and have a view for both people, professionalism, operations and organization.

You thrive in a clinical daily life where the pace can change quickly, and where good leadership requires both overview, prioritization and the ability to be available to others. You can create structure and direction without needing to control every solution yourself.

You are a skilled communicator, build relations and promote interdisciplinary collaboration, and you can take an active role in the department’s ongoing focus on psychological safety in the clinical everyday life.

You do not need to know everything from day one. We instead expect you to be curious about leadership and want to develop in the role.

"I am looking for a Chief Consultant who is eager for leadership and for a clinical daily life where things can be unpredictable and fast-moving. Someone who can create direction and frameworks so others can succeed, but not necessarily have all the answers or solve every task. I hope for a leader who sees education, development and psychological safety as part of daily operations, and who, together with us, dares to be curious about our habits and asks whether everything we do today is also the right thing to do tomorrow."

• Cæcilie Trier Sønderskov, Chief Physician

About the Children and Young People Department

You will become part of a dedicated department and a medical team with a chief physician, three Chief Consultants, 5–6 consultants, 6–9 specialists, 2–4 senior residents in pediatrics and 12–14 junior doctors.

We are in the process of an ambitious increase in the number of specialists, and we expect more specialist colleagues in the coming years.

The medical group includes a research-responsible consultant, four clinical professors and a research lecturer, who together with the department’s other doctors handle teaching and examination of medical students from the University of Copenhagen.

We have an active and growing research environment with several researchers and PhD students attached, and we have a long-standing research collaboration with the Danish Children’s Asthma Center (COPSAC) attached to ABC Clinic in Næstved.

We work purposefully with psychological safety and believe that the best solutions are created when employees can contribute with their professional knowledge, curiosity and experience. We want an environment where it is natural to ask for help, challenge habits, share knowledge and learn from both what works and what does not.

Our educational environment is lively with a structured daily teaching program. Twice a week we have scheduled cross-disciplinary simulation training in acute neonatology and acute pediatrics. The specialty-specific, supervised outpatient clinics are also an important part of our educational environment and support high quality in both patient care, supervision and education.

The Children and Young People Department is physically located in Slagelse with associated research units in both Næstved and Slagelse.

We have a bed ward with space for 18 children as well as a neonatal unit with 9 intensive beds for sick newborns and premature infants from 28+0 weeks gestation. In addition, we have an emergency pediatric department with approximately 5,000 contacts per year and a large well-functioning outpatient department with about 12,000 contacts per year.

Mid- and West Zealand Hospital was established on 1 January 2026 through the merger of the former Næstved, Slagelse and Ringsted Hospitals with Psychiatry in the Zealand Region. For the Children and Young People Department, this means a strengthened and closer collaboration with Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Salary and employment terms

Employment on accordance with collective agreements under the Agreement on Medical Chiefs (22.04.1).

Please send a motivated application and CV, where you address the 7 doctor roles in your CV.

References will be requested after additional agreement.

The position is desired to be filled on 1 February or by agreement.

Application deadline is 3 November, and interviews are expected to be held on Thursday 12/11.

If you are curious about the job, you are very welcome to visit us and see the department and the Children and Young People Bed Ward and the Children’s Acute Receiving, or contact Chief Physician Cæcilie Trier Sønderskov for an informal conversation.

Area of employment

Region Zealand and Region Capital will, on 1 January 2027, become Region Østdanmark as a result of the health reform. Your area of employment will be Region Østdanmark with all related organizational units.

Read more about the meaning of the area of employment on Region Østdanmark’s website.

Starting salary for employees under collective agreement

The region is obliged to inform you of the starting salary for the position. You will be told the base salary, centrally fixed allowances and pension in the relevant collective agreement. In addition to the starting salary, the pay may include any negotiated allowances depending on the position, your experience and qualifications.

See the starting salary on the region’s website

About Midt- and Vestsjællands Hospital

At Midt- and Vestsjællands Hospital we work every day to promote healthy living by preventing and treating in a cohesive health effort. As a hospital we combine psychiatry and somatics. Our goal is that patients and citizens experience good and safe high-quality care pathways.

As an employee you become part of an innovative, professional and organizationally robust hospital, where we make a difference for the people who need us. Learning and development are part of daily life and happen in professionally binding communities. Also across departments.

Midt- and Vestsjællands Hospital covers a catchment area of about 230,000 citizens. We have 766 beds and around 5,000 employees spread across 20 departments, including 16 somatic and psychiatric specialties.

We offer a solid research environment with 13 professors and a strong professional educational environment, where we welcome around 2,700 students, apprentices and doctors in further education programs each year.