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Doctors celebrate the value of having a Professional Coach

Being in a room where doctors are openly celebrating the value of having a professional coach is a novel experience for me. We had the pleasure in March of attending the Creative Careers in Medicine Conference. A gathering of medical creatives and curiosos. The speakers were inspiring and really showcased a breadth and depth of […]

Is there an archetypal doctor mindset?

Your mindset has an impact on your experience and your results, because it affects what you notice. In a continuous feedback loop, what you notice can get narrower and narrower, if you live in the red zone of fight-flight, sympathetic dominance as many doctors do.  In this mindset, a stressed state, your body produces cortisol, […]

What does healthcare need from its leaders in 2022?

What does healthcare need from its leaders in 2022? During the pandemic crisis healthcare workers have pulled together to respond with military precision and peak effectiveness to meet the immediate need, to look after patients. But what of before and after the crisis? Burnout and workforce shortages already existed pre-COVID and healthcare worker wellbeing was […]

Be more like water

People, healthcare workers, are saying two things over and over to me in the first two weeks of 2022. Everyone is so fatigued after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are all so tired. What can we do, all we can do is keep going. I was lucky and grateful to have a couple […]

Let the first stone you drop in the water be for yourself

Doctor Self-Care The experienced psychiatrist sitting opposite me in coaching said “You were the first person to ever ask me: What do you want?” He went on to describe the profound impact this simple question had had on him. These four words had permitted him to discover, to imagine, to believe that he could actually […]

Improving Medico Leadership Skills Can Reduce Doctor Burnout

Leadership and sustained attention from the highest level of the organisation are the keys to any doctor’s well-being according to Prof. Tait Shanafelt, the world’s first Chief Wellness Officer in health, and his Mayo Clinic colleague John Noseworthy. They published their paper in 2017 offering nine organisational strategies to promote physician engagement and reduce burnout. Here I will focus […]

Self Compassion: An Antidote for Uncertainty

It’s a difficult time to be a medical professional, there’s so much uncertainty. And while the experience of uncertainty is unified, it’s not the same uncertainty for all. Some health carers are in a sort of suspended animation. The planning is done, everything is adjusted for physical distancing, you are ready, but where are the […]

What difference does trust make to doctor wellbeing?

“There is a difference between a group of people who work together and a group of people who trust each other”. – Simon Sinek Working together can largely be transactional, possibly polite and friendly, guarded and not necessarily requiring emotional connection. Many of us can work together without ever sharing much of ourselves. Health care […]

Do you need to rewrite the equations which you currently live by?

This question was asked by Joshua Rothman in his article The Art of Decision Making published in The New Yorker in January this year. I have only read it now in December as I am reflecting on the year past and planning for the one to come, 2020. As a coach of doctors I am […]

I feel fierce – how the story we tell ourselves makes a difference

At Coaching for Doctors we are intrigued by language. In our Recalibrate program we spend a lot of time in retreat understanding the story through our use of language. What does the story mean? What does the story help you to do or be, what does it hinder? The narrative we hold can help us […]

Transformational learning for doctors, so much more than a training program

Profound experience happens in Our Signature Immersion Doctor Care Program groups that changes the way doctors practice medicine and personally experience their work. I am totally humbled by the trust placed in my cofacilitator Dr Elisabeth Wearne (Liz) and me, by the experience of witnessing our doctor participants’ deep learning. When Liz and I first […]

Making change requires effort in the face of resistance and effort requires clear purpose

Why do we seek change? Something inside us suggests there is something better, we seek change essentially to stop suffering, or in the pursuit of happiness (peace, contentment, wellness). So we set out to make a change, start a new habit, stop an old habit, learn more, revise an old idea, plan a different behaviour […]