Physician Coaching

Graduate medical education success coaching for residents and fellows: a single-institution real-world experience

While coaching has been employed as a success strategy in many areas such as athletics and business for decades, its use is relatively new in the medical field despite evidence of its benefits. Implementation and engagement regarding coaching in graduate medical education (GME) for residents and fellows is particularly scarce. We report our three-year experience of a GME success coaching program that aims to help trainees reach their full potential by addressing various areas of medical knowledge, clinical skills, efficiency, interpersonal skills and communication, professionalism, and mental health and well-being. The majority of participants (87%) were identified by themselves, their program director, and/or the GME coaches to have more than one area of need. The majority (79%) of referrals were identified by the coaches to have additional needs to the reasons for referral. We provide a framework for implementation of a GME coaching program and propose that coaching in GME may provide an additional safe environment for learners to reveal areas of concerns or difficulty that otherwise would not be disclosed and/or addressed.

Women in Anesthesiology and the Mid-Career Stall: Why They Are Not Advancing Into Senior Leadership

Women anesthesiologists face many challenges when trying to advance their careers and find balance in personal and professional endeavors. In this article, we introduce the reader to several concepts central to understanding the challenges faced by mid-career women anesthesiologists and highlight why these challenges become particularly pronounced when women enter the mid-career stage. We describe how lack of constructive actionable feedback combined with lack of mentorship and sponsorship negatively affects women in the workplace. We also outline barriers and bias that mid-career women anesthesiologists face in high-level leadership roles along with the disproportionally high burden of nonpromotable work. We present a discussion of mistreatment and burnout, which are compounded by concurrent demands of parenthood and a professional career. We conclude with the impact that these barriers have on mid-career women anesthesiologists and recommendations for mitigating these challenges. They include a systematic increase in mentorship and sponsorship, an individualized professional development strategy, and an improved and comprehensive approach to promotion.

Coaching to Improve Individual and Team Performance in Anesthesiology

In addition to medical knowledge and psychomotor skills, anesthesiology practice requires the ability to work within a complex system, navigate social situations, manage conflict, and lead teams. Coaching has foundations in psychology and adult learning theory and uses a process of inquiry, reflection, and shared discernment to discover values, goals, and solutions. There is increasing use and evidence for coaching in medicine and anesthesiology to support personal and professional growth. Individual and group coaching for anesthesiologists may improve anesthesiologists' ability to communicate, collaborate and solve problems, improving well-being, culture, and plausibly, patient outcomes.