Focus on Physicians:
Insights, Ideas, and Strategies
I'm excited to share my recent podcast appearance on Sustainable Clinical Medicine with The Charting Coach, a podcast for physicians and others in healthcare hosted by Dr. Sarah Smith.
In this episode we talk about values alignment, when to say no, and how to combine your passions outside of medicine with your life in healthcare.
If you’re a physician, journaling is a wonderful way to access your own thoughts and values, getting in touch with what matters most to you. It’s a form of mindfulness that doesn’t require any skills or knowledge. All you need is a pen and paper and as few as five minutes.
This article is the first in a three-part series. In each one, I’ll share a different collection of journaling prompts designed to help you to connect your own dots and rediscover what truly matters to you. Whether you’re exploring a new professional path, planning for retirement, or seeking greater happiness and satisfaction in your life, these prompts will guide you towards clarity and self-awareness.
When tackling a big life decision or career shift, you don’t need to have all the answers or even all the skills upfront—just take the first step.
The key to breaking loose? Take action in small, low-risk increments. These manageable steps not only build momentum but also chip away at the stress and anxiety that come with feeling stuck.
Here are five steps that can help you jump start the process.
Your inner critic is that harsh internal voice muttering in the shadows of your thoughts, constantly critiquing, second-guessing, and comparing. It may take form as the voice of a family member, a tough or challenging attending from your years in training, or a demanding patient. It might even arrive in the guise of your own voice. It’s not surprising that most physicians have their own version of the inner critic.
In this article, you’ll learn how to recognize the inner critic as a voice rather than a truth. And you’ll see how you can put it to work to develop a more compassionate self-dialogue, creating conditions that allow you to thrive and grow.
For many physicians, work-life balance (WLB) is the elephant in the room. In 2022, 85% of physicians finishing residency cited work-life balance as their number one consideration when choosing a job.
Dissatisfaction with WLB is strongly correlated with burnout, and is a common reason that many physicians choose to leave their current practice. Although women physicians tend to rate WLB as somewhat more important than men, among millennials it is a top priority for both genders. Yet physicians often avoid raising this crucial issue with potential employers and even colleagues for fear of being judged.
In this article I’ll give you nine ways to create your own version of work-life balance.
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a dynamic, evidence-based approach that uses art as a springboard for exploration and collaboration. By engaging with visual art, healthcare professionals can unlock critical thinking and communication skills—cornerstones of effective medical teamwork. These skills not only enhance team cohesion but also translate into improved patient care and outcomes.
If you’re a physician, chances are that you are a highly reflective individual. Your work probably focuses around thinking carefully, solving complex problems, and making decisions that impact lives.
You may recognize that you are delaying a difficult conversation, taking on thankless work that offers no personal satisfaction, or saying yes too quickly. You may realize that your work doesn’t align with your professional or personal goals. You may understand that your calendar does not reflect your values.
And yet the same patterns repeat.
This is where coaching can make a difference.
When you’re busy and feeling time-pressured, mindfulness may seem to be an uneasy, even unwelcome, construct. Who has time for it? Yet it turns out that simple mindfulness practices can help you to reframe and de-escalate the struggles of the day. In this article I will show you how using mindfulness can create the mental space you need to confidently and calmly manage patient care while protecting your precious time.
Delegating can be a challenging skill for many physicians to master. The need to maintain control over every detail—especially when you bear ultimate responsibility—can make letting go feel risky.
In this article, we’ll explore which tasks are most suitable for delegation, how this practice can strengthen teamwork, and strategies to make the process efficient and effective. Plus, I’ll share a practical template to help you overcome common barriers, enabling you to maximize your team’s potential.
Coaching is a meaningful investment of your time, attention, energy, and money. Sometimes the cost is covered or subsidized by your organization, but for many physicians, coaching is a personal financial investment.
I believe physicians should be able to understand the cost of coaching before scheduling a consultation. I also think it’s important to know what coaching asks of you beyond the financial transaction. In this article, I’ll cover what physician coaching may include, what can affect the cost, and what questions to ask before signing up.
Treating patients with dignity is one of the cornerstones of the medical profession. Most physicians genuinely want their patients to feel safe, heard, and respected. But what happens when physicians are not treated with the same dignity by their colleagues, their healthcare systems or even their patients? It’s a growing problem, and one that often goes unacknowledged.
In this article, I’ll dive into the major shifts that have led to this reality and I’ll share five practical strategies to help you push back against disrespect and reclaim your sense of dignity.
The Five Whys is often described as a root cause reflection tool, but in coaching, I think of it less as digging for a cause and more as peeling back the layers.
By asking “why” five times, each “why” gently opens another layer of the decision, creating insight and dimension that often goes way beyond the first question.
This is a difficult story for me to tell. It is about facing our humanity and our mortality as physicians. And it’s about the truth that despite our desire to view ourselves as insiders with the keys to the hospital doors, the pact that we have made is one-sided. There is no covenant with the universe, no deal with the devil that if you save others, you yourself will be saved. I saw my physician father fall victim to this implicit belief after he became ill. I witnessed with sorrow his misplaced trust that he would be treated differently, and his difficulty in disengaging from his identity as a physician.with an idea.
“The wound is the place where the light enters you.”- Rumi
With over 60% of physicians surveyed reporting burnout in 2021, it’s an epidemic in our profession.
Burnout is not a personal failing or a psychological illness. Rather, burnout is a response to chronic workplace-related stress.
But burnout is not a failure of compassion. In fact, burnout may be a natural reaction to the recognition that you are unable to provide the compassionate care that your patients need.
No matter where you are in your professional arc, the “future self” exercise is a powerful tool for envisioning and then creating a meaningful retirement. In this article, we’ll explore how you can use this exercise to develop and align your retirement plans with your personal values, dreams, and aspirations.
When you’re a physician, it can sometimes feel as if the weight of the world is on your shoulders. Despite years of training and experience, dealing with the unexpected is part of the job.
Complex decisions with no easy solution, challenging interactions with patients and family, and outcomes that don’t always turn out as planned: these are unavoidable facts of life for most physicians.
Although you may thrive on the challenge of the unexpected, seemingly lost opportunities or unanticipated consequences may lead to feelings of regret that can haunt you when you least expect it.
This is completely normal, but coming to terms with regret can be difficult. What can make it especially painful is the fact that this aspect of professional life is rarely discussed out in the open.
In this article, we’ll talk about regret, what it can teach you, and how it might help you to become an even more effective physician.
If you’re considering investing in physician coaching, you probably want to know what you will actually have to show for it when your coaching arc is complete.
Will there be a written plan? Goals? Metrics? Accountability? Practical strategies? Or will coaching mainly consist of talking through problems and reflecting on what comes up?
These are reasonable questions, and they’re the questions that prospective clients often ask me.
As a photographer, a physician, and a Visual Thinking Strategies facilitator, I believe that visual art is a portal through which we may discover find powerful connections with people from all walks of life.
For physicians and others in healthcare, art provides a framework to build understanding and create greater trust, even when we have no background in the artistic process or history. When we spend time with a work of art, we’re offered a chance to explore what the world might mean to somebody from a different time, place, or culture.
In this article, I’ll explore Wu Zhen’s The Fisherman, and the lessons it offers for medical practice.
It was a thrill to appear on the legendary cardiologist Dr. Bill Lombardi’s podcast The Journey to Better. I was honored to be invited onto the show to discuss mindfulness, goal setting, and combating burnout.
As a physician coach, I am often asked to explain the difference between coaching and mentoring.
The main difference is this: A mentor generally acts as an advisor. A coach does not give you the answers, but will collaborate with you to help you find and follow your own path.
Meditation is a hot topic with deep roots, but sometimes it feels like it’s being pushed as a modern-day cure-all for what ails the spirit.
The practice is often touted as an antidote to burnout, when in truth most of us know that a meditation app won’t solve the systemic issues that plague healthcare today.
That’s why it’s exciting that academic researchers have been taking this ancient practice seriously. And they are discovering that meditation can often have powerful and measurable benefits for your mental well-being, your memory, and even your physical health.
For many physicians, the electronic health record (EHR) inbox is treated as “light work.”
A message from a worried patient. A lab result. A radiology report to review. Something you’re expected to squeeze in between patients, or finish at the end of the day.
But if you’ve ever sat down to thoughtfully review a complex lab trend, interpret an imaging report in context, or respond to a nuanced patient message, you know this is not light work.
In many cases, it’s exactly what productivity expert Cal Newport would call deep work.
If you’re just getting started in practice, or beginning a new role, it’s important to set yourself up for success from the very beginning. Whether your career path is in academic medicine, a large healthcare system, or a private practice, the habits and systems you develop early on can shape both your professional trajectory and your personal well-being for years to come
In this article, we’ll focus on five key areas that will help you provide the best care while managing the demands of a busy practice. Developing these strategies early on can improve both patient outcomes and your own well-being.
I was honored to be featured recently in a Medscape article discussing one of the greatest challenges facing physicians today: constant interruption and fragmented attention.
Physicians are expected to manage complex cognitive work while navigating inboxes, notifications, documentation demands, and frequent disruptions. But fragmented attention can have serious consequences, not only for physician well-being, but also for patient care.
In my recent conversation with Kevin Pho, M.D we discussed how mindfulness can have far-reaching effects not only for physicians, but for those you we care for. We also discussed the best times for meditation, when you might want to avoid it, and how a brief meditation can impact your sense of well-being.
As a physician coach, I love sharing this story, because it encapsulates how such a simple and brief practice can have a meaningful impact.
When I learned about the concept of “sunk cost”, I felt as if a giant lightbulb had clicked on in my head. The term, borrowed from economics, refers to our tendency to keep doing something that is not in our best interest due to expenses that have already been paid and are not recoverable. These compounded investments of time, energy, and capital can influence your decision making for years to come, leading to choices, both professional and personal, that are increasingly disconnected from your goals and values.
Meditation has numerous benefits for physicians, but there are also a few drawbacks that are not often discussed. With widespread recommendations for meditation and meditation apps, it’s important to keep in mind that meditation is not for everyone. Potential downsides include worsening of anxiety, insomnia, rumination, and physical discomfort. . By starting with shorter sessions, being mindful of any arising emotions or negative feelings, and ensuring a comfortable posture, you can minimize risks.
What a pleasure it was to meet with Matt Huey of the Enlightened Anatomy Podcast! Matt and his partner, Andrew McGonigle, have created a community that is focused on evidence-based yoga teaching. As a yoga teacher myself, and a yoga practitioner for nearly 30 years, this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.
We talked about the ways that yoga, mindfulness, and heart health connect, and how you can put this into practice.
We also touched on the importance of knowing where health information comes from, and how misinformation, often from social media, can lead to mistrust of physicians and fuel physician burnout.
With the rise of EHRs and telemedicine, the term "work-life integration" rapidly has become an administrative buzzword. However, for physicians who are expected to be always on duty, this approach can paradoxically increase stress and decrease balance.
In this article, I’ll explore why work-life integration might not be the promised panacea for getting it all done.
It’s no surprise that nationwide, levels of burnout reached record highs during the pandemic. But now that we are back to a semblance of normal, the percentage of physicians experiencing burnout symptoms still hovers a little under 50 percent-- far above the “baseline” of 38 percent in 2020. In this article, you'll learn how to know if you are burned out. And we'll go over the costs of burnout in both dollars and patient care.
My Podcast Interview With Dr. Cliff Han of AllerPops
I recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Cliff Shunsheng Han for the Techlink Health podcast. Dr. Han is a physician, a medical researcher with the Human Genome Project, and the creator of AllerPops, an innovative product designed to help fight the seasonal allergies that plague so many of us.
Dr. Han is a wonderful example of a physician who followed a nontraditional pathway. In the podcast he shares his story and what led him to research and create the AllerPops products.
I recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Cliff Shunsheng Han for the Techlink Health podcast. Dr. Han is a physician, a medical researcher with the Human Genome Project, and the creator of AllerPops, an innovative product designed to help fight the seasonal allergies that plague so many of us.
An allergy sufferer himself, when medications failed to get his problem under control, Dr. Han decided to look beyond the traditional factors that contribute to allergies. he was also motivated by the allergies suffered by his young son. That led him to explore the idea of prebiotics and the importance of a healthy oral microbiome.
Dr. Han is a wonderful example of a physician who followed a nontraditional pathway. Although he trained and practiced as a doctor in China, he has worked as a research scientist since coming to the US over 20 years ago. He shares more about his story on the podcast and in his book, Nothing to Sneeze At.
But once a physician, always a physician. Through his curiosity and resilience, Dr. Han has created something completely new with AllerPops. The science is still in the early stages, but the testimonials on his website are inspiring.
As a disclosure, I will note that Dr. Han has kindly offered to supply me with a sample kit of Allerpops. As a nearly year-round allergy sufferer, I am really looking forward to giving them a try.
Listen to my podcast interview with Dr. Cliff Han, co-hosted with David Sanchez, RN.
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My Podcast Interview with Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid
I was invited by TechLink Health to interview Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid of Doctoring Differently. Dr. Naomi, as she prefers to be called, describes how she pivoted from full-time practice and found new opportunities to use her skills as a physician. Her story is inspiring and engaging.
After appearing on a recent segment of TechLink Health’s Podcast, I was invited to interview Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid of Doctoring Differently. Dr. Naomi, as she prefers to be called, describes how she pivoted from full-time practice and found new opportunities to use her skills as a physician.
Her story is inspiring and engaging. You can take a listen right here.