University Hospital of Northern Norway, UNN director David Johansen

When the list of applicants for the position became known, clinic manager David Johansen identified himself as a favorite among the employees at UNN. The board has thus taken a decision that will be popular on the floor at UNN.

The previous director, Anita Schumacher, received some criticism in her time for not being so close to the employees’ everyday life. It is a demanding role for a commuting director.

Now UNN is getting a director who has completed all the degrees at the hospital, and who is locally rooted.

Johansen is head of the Medical Clinic at UNN and lives in Tromsdalen. He has gone through all the degrees in Tromsø – through education, work as a doctor and the role of manager.

He is a specialist in internal medicine and heart diseases, and has a doctorate in cardiac physiology. Johansen also has an assistant position as deputy head of the Department of Clinical Medicine at UiT.

David Johansen originally comes from Beisfjord in Narvik municipality and is a genuine product of a northern Norwegian education and research offer.

It is reassuring that UNN is building up leadership skills in its employees. It is important that they are able to produce good, local candidates for demanding positions.

At the same time, it is important to emphasize that in addition to grassroots support and medical competence, political competence is important in this job. The restructuring process in Helse Nord will take its toll, and it will not be pretty. UNN is in a vulnerable position as the only university clinic in the north. The hospital must continue to have the main responsibility for large, highly specialized tasks, if the region is to have an equivalent health service. In addition, they must get money to expand the psychiatric department at Åsgård and the neonatal intensive care unit in Breivika, as well as establish a cancer centre.

There are good professional reasons for putting all of this in place. But subjects do not always trump politics, especially in Helse Nord.

David Johansen has been part of the most talked about working group that investigated the division of functions and tasks for acute and planned functions in Helse Nord. The noise that came in connection with that investigation has given him a foretaste of the political reality he will come into even closer contact with as director at UNN.