What are the signs that you’re unhappy? Physician coaching can help you create the life you want to be living

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Helane Fronek

A talented friend of mine worked for a while in a software company.  She liked the people Screen Shot 2016-01-09 at 5.31.47 PMshe worked with and the pay was good.  But the work was draining and not creative.  Each time she had a bad day, she bought herself a bottle of nail polish as a treat.

One day, she opened her refrigerator and found the door full of small bottles of nail polish.  She knew it was time to find a different career.

What are the signs that your work is stimulating and fulfilling – or not?

The new year is a perfect time to examine your own stockpiles of nail polish.  Do you come home from work exhausted, not interested in doing things that used to be fun?    Are you short-tempered with employees, friends or family?  Do you find yourself spending time on short-lived escapes – computer games, unhealthy snack foods, or surfing the internet?

What if you did nothing about this?  What will your life look like at the end of 2016? What will it cost you to continue this way?

Instead, imagine a life that would thrill you – one in which you were excited to get out of bed each morning because you got to spend the day living your life.  A life filled with interesting conversations,  meaningful work, and time spent in activities and places that filled your soul.  Take a moment and really imagine –  would that be like?

So here’s my request – schedule some time to be alone, perhaps in a beautiful place where you can listen to your heart and hear what it wants you to know.  Where do you want to spend more of your time?  Who do you want to spend more of  it with?  What type of interactions would inspire you? What do you want to accomplish with your work?  Allow your mind to create a vision of what this life would look like.  And then, write down three steps you could take right away to mold your life to look more like this vision.  Commit to doing one thing this week, one next week, and one the following week.  And see where this new direction takes you.

You have accomplished many things in your life.  You can do this, too.  What more important commitment can we make than honoring the life we’ve been given?

As Mary Oliver says in her beautiful poem, The Summer Day:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

 

Posted in physician burnout, physician coach, physician coaching | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Asking the right questions to make 2016 sparkle: Physician Coaching for everyone

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Helane Fronek

The first day of the year was filled with delights.  A chance encounter with
Polar bear clubthe brave members of the Polar Bear Club of San Diego as they ran into the Pacific Ocean for their annual dip (cold, though not as frigid as Lake Michigan, where those dedicated Polar Bear members in Milwaukee, where I grew up, plunge themselves into!).  Walking by an English bulldog named Einstein, who HappyNewYearDogbroadcast to all passersby his best wishes for 2016.  And mostly, a wonderful conversation with a dear friend about the power of our questions. In many ways, the success and richness of our life depends on the questions we ask ourselves.  When we do something we’re unhappy with, usual questions such as, “How could I have been so foolish to have done that?”  aren’t as helpful as, “What need or desire in me triggered that action?”  Instead of becoming critical of ourselves when we are struggling with something or haven’t produced our best work, we might ask, “What part of me is asking for support or nurturing?”

As we begin a new year, I hope you’ll find these questions helpful in harvesting the learning from 2015 and putting it to use in creating a year that reflects who you are and stretches you in exciting ways.

  • Who did I meet last year that is now in my life? What do I value about this relationship?  What does this say about what I want more of in my life?
  • What emotion really caused me to grow?
  • In what ways am I different than I was at the beginning of last year? What does this make possible in my life?
  • What did I do that completely surprised me?  What does this tell me about myself that I didn’t appreciate before?
  • What is the biggest challenge I faced? What internal strengths and external factors were helpful?
  • In what area(s) of my life did I really make some progress? What more do I want to do?  What would surpass all of my hopes?
  • Whom did I really help?  How did that benefit me, as well as the other person?
  • What were the most fun times I had?  What made them so joyful?
  • What am I most grateful for?
  • A year from now, how do I want my life to be the same? How do I want it to be different? What do I need to do or change for that to happen?

Beach2016Cropped

Wishing you 366 days of life, fully lived, moment-by-moment.

Helane

Posted in mindfulness, physician coach, physician coaching | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Looking for the perfect gift? Here’s a daring suggestion!

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Helane Fronek

The holidays are upon us – and with them, the stress of finding that perfect gift for our families, friends, colleagues and employees. Advertising comes at us from all angles and we wonder what each person Screen Shot 2015-12-18 at 10.20.10 AMon our list might cherish or find useful. I’d like to suggest a daring plan that can satisfy all those important people in your life – and save you hours at the mall. Because, what most people really want in life is to be seen – really seen for who they are, the impacts they make, and the importance they have in our lives. Unfortunately, we live in a busy world. Our minds overflow with concerns and the minutes and hours of our days fly by at an astonishing pace. This leaves little time to really notice who other people are or to appreciate them for these qualities.

So, if you’re looking for the perfect gift for that special someone, a colleague, an employee, a child, or anyone else in your life, take a moment to acknowledge them for who they are.

Did a colleague cover for you when you needed to attend to a family matter? That was kindness in action. Did an employee admit making a mistake, even when he could have swept it under the rug? That took  courage and integrity. How about a child who took it upon herself to clean her room? Impressive responsibility!

In dealing with patients, a simple acknowledgement of their effort and dedication to their good health in bringing down their blood sugar, wearing compression stockings, or exercising regularly means so much and goes a long way towards building partnership and trust.

In the middle of this holiday season, when we are bombarded by messages about all those “things” that we can buy for the special people in our lives, consider giving something that will live on long past the time when the coffeemaker breaks down, the sweater is no longer in fashion, or the movie tickets have been used. If you feel the need to present a tangible object, a note to your kind colleague might mean more than a wallet, book, or other gift. Or you might find something that represents the quality that you admire in the person. A heart-shaped paperweight for the courageous employee would serve to remind him that you appreciate that value and might help to encourage more honest courage in the future. After all, the word “courage” comes from the Latin root, cor, which means heart. An opportunity to accompany you on a trip or to attend an important event might demonstrate the value of the responsibility shown by your child with the clean room.

Acknowledgement – a simple and profound gift that comes from the heart and shows someone that you value who they are and what they mean to you.

Posted in physician coach, physician coaching | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Beware the pedestal! Physician coaching may save you a painful fall

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Helane Fronek

As healthcare providers, we see many types of people.  With each encounter, we want to establish rapport and build a relationship that will allow intimate and sometimes difficult conversations and will help our patient trust us enough to share their concerns and follow our recommendations.  And lets’ face it, we all want to be liked.  So when a Screen Shot 2015-11-27 at 7.03.49 PMpatient tells us how much they love us, how they cannot live without us, that we are so much better than any other doctor, we should feel happy, right?

That’s exactly when we want to start backpedaling as fast as we can.

People who idealize us are telling us they need to believe we’re perfect.  But each of us has both strengths and weaknesses.  Inevitably, these patients will encounter one of those weaknesses – or they’ll want us to do something in a certain way, and we won’t meet their expectations.  When that happens, we immediately begin a rapid and painful fall off the pedestal they put us on.  When I first began practicing medicine, I believed it was my duty to treat everyone who came to me for help.  As a result, I’ve had plenty of experience falling off pedestals.

Several weeks ago, I walked into a patient’s room and was met with a look of adoration from a woman I had never met before.  “I’ve heard so much about you. I know you’ll be able to figure out what’s wrong with me.  None of the other doctors I’ve seen have been able to do that,” she said as she beamed up at me. In my early years, I might have been flattered.  “Wow, I guess people have noticed I’m a good doctor,” I would have thought with excitement.  After 30 years of caring for patients, I knew instead I was in trouble.

After listening carefully and reviewing her exam with her, I explained clearly that I had no better idea what was going on than all the other doctors she had seen, that I had no new suggestions for how to treat her, and that I didn’t think I would be able to help her (all of which was true).  Much better to disappoint her from the beginning than to promise to be a person I’m not, leading her to become angry and toss me off the pedestal she had placed me on.  If for some reason I do need to treat this type of person, I always under-promise.  I emphasize all the potential complications and spend time discussing the mysteries of science, the inexactness of medicine, and our inability to predict the outcome of any treatment.  With patients like this, it’s also a good idea to have a witness in the room and confirm that the patient has heard you clearly.

As healthcare providers, we invest a great deal of time, money, effort and concern in caring for our patients.  Given the emotional energy an unrealistic, demanding patient can cost us, for the sake of our own sanity and in service of the many patients who depend on us, it’s important to choose our patients wisely.  There are many appropriate places for us – in the exam room, the operating room, the conference hall – but not on a pedestal.

Posted in effective communication in healthcare, physician coach, physician coaching, physician communication | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Physician Burnout – Real and Getting Worse. The time to make changes is NOW

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Helane Fronek

Is this familiar?

That feeling of emotional exhaustion at the end of a day of seeing patients. Viewing patients as problems to deal with rather than individual human beings who come to us Screen Shot 2015-12-07 at 1.06.22 PMfor help. Leaving the office after a day of jousting with insurance companies and explaining to patients why they don’t need antibiotics for a viral infection, knowing that we still face hours of charting that evening rather than enjoying time with our family. Wondering what we’re really accomplishing anyway.

It’s called physician burnout.

As Shanafelt and his group at Mayo Clinic found, 45.4% of us experienced this in 2011. In the last 3 years, the number has shot up to 54.4%. At a recent presentation on physician burnout, I asked the members of a thriving medical group to raise their hands if they had ever experienced symptoms of burnout. Nearly every hand went up.

The many years of postponing our dreams as we completed our training, the debt most physicians incur, and the long hours at work (physicians work on average 25% more hours than other professionals) were rewarded with fulfilling relationships with patients, the intellectual stimulation of our work, the satisfaction of helping others, a sense of prestige and belonging to a group of like-minded people. As medicine has changed, these rewards have diminished or disappeared altogether while the demands on our time and the stakes have increased. As the available knowledge expands and new methods for diagnosing conditions earlier are developed, expectations bear down on us more heavily. There is little tolerance for not knowing or missing a clue. Our sense of insecurity and anxiety over an eventual failure or catastrophe form a cloud over our days.

In addition to the significant increase in symptoms of burnout, our work leaves us with even less time for personal and family life. In 2011, 48.5% of physicians felt they had enough personal time. That number dropped to 40.9% in 2014. How can we balance the increasing demands at work with enjoyable, regenerative activities outside work if we have less time to do that?

As Shanafelt suggests, change must come from both personal and organizational efforts. Organizations must make serious adjustments to promote efficiency and improve physician support. Time saving interventions such as the integration of scribes, flexibility in scheduling work hours and patients, acknowledgement of the importance of physicians’ life outside of work, nurturing a sense of community at work, rewarding physicians for their true service to patients and not simply productivity would help diminish physicians’ sense of burnout. We physicians must become more vocal and demand that our organizations listen and make changes to support our professional mental health.

On a personal level, each physician must spend some time understanding their personal and professional values – those activities and principles that make their life feel alive and worthwhile – and then take steps to integrate those values into their lives. For ideas on finding your values and ways of putting them into your life, see this link.  Intentionally placing a priority on these activities may improve the quality of our patient care more than reading the latest journal!  Mindfulness practices such as meditation are powerful ways to develop self-awareness and redirect negative, self-defeating thoughts, bringing a greater sense of calm and control to each person’s life. (More information on mindfulness here.)  Learning to bring attention to the fulfilling aspects of our work enhances our sense of personal accomplishment (see Rachel Remen MD’s 3 Question Journal).   Physician groups that provide a mindfulness practice, sharing of experiences and didactic information are proven to improve levels of burnout. Individual physician coaching is another powerful and effective method of developing resilience and recovering from burnout. The Physician Coaching Institute is a great source of information on physician coaches.

While the rates of burnout are distressing, what’s even more alarming to me is that nearly 40% of physicians are depressed and 6.4% of physicians report suicidal thoughts in the past year. What are we waiting for?

The time to do something is NOW.

What will YOU do about your own and your colleagues’ sense of burnout?

(image above compliments of nytimes.com)

Posted in physician burnout, physician coach, physician coaching | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Self-compassion: a physician coach’s recipe for a long and fulfilling career

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Helane Fronek

I once worked with a beloved physician whose skills were excellent.  Unfortunately, a patient initiated a malpractice lawsuit. Hurt by the experience, the doctor never returned to practice. Another physician was unable to face her patient’s post-operative DVT. She avoided contact, refused to speak with the patient, and eventually left her
Screen Shot 2015-11-30 at 9.20.15 AMpractice. Neither of these reactions left room for understanding and healing – and they wasted the hard earned knowledge and experience the physician might have contributed to the health of future patients.                    (photo from the dailygood.org)

 

How do we show compassion for our patients and for ourselves when complications arise?

Yet another physician was asked to appear before a committee when a patient complained about their interaction. The doctor was apprehensive about what the patient might say – and how she might react. Deciding that she would meet the challenge head on, she established three goals for the meeting: to give the patient an opportunity to explain her perspective and to share her own; to learn something from the interaction; and to avoid becoming defensive.  She entered the room, greeted the patient warmly, and stated her desire that both would share their ideas of what had happened so they could understand each other better. During the conversation, she repeated her intention to provide excellent care and her regret that this hadn’t been what the patient experienced. She realized the patient’s recollection was quite different from her own and understood that expectations, perceptions, and selective hearing all color our experiences.  There was no way to verify which version was correct.  She could only accept and express her regret that the patient’s experience hadn’t matched either of their expectations.  She remains in practice, happy to be a doctor.

In showing compassion to patients who feel they have been wronged, we must first give them the chance to be heard and have their disappointment validated.  We can apologize for a mistake or express regret that they did not have the desired experience.  By verbalizing our intention to provide competent and compassionate care and providing an explanation both of where things went awry and what will be done differently in the future, we leave the door open to resume a therapeutic, trusting relationship.

And what about us?  How do we muster our self compassion and go on, confidently and with renewed passion for our work after we make a mistake?  Many of us are perfectionists.  Since one error can cost a patient his life or result in permanent disability, we tend to perseverate on our mistakes.  By opening a discussion with our patient, we learn and grow from the experience and honor our commitment to lifelong learning, a pillar of medical practice. We can restore the relationship with our patient, a major source of most physicians’ satisfaction.  By discussing our complication with colleagues, we educate others. The complication thus acquires a positive meaning that can offset the negative one we more readily feel.  (This is the concept that underlies the practice of M&M conferences.)  Finally, keeping a file of successes – a personal journal or a collection of thank you cards from happy patients – can be a reality check whenever our infrequent misses overshadow our more common successes.

Wise Native Americans intentionally place an error in each handicraft, emphasizing that we are human and not godlike.  Errors will always be part of the human experience.  Compassion toward ourselves allows us to learn, grow and continue to contribute to our patients and the world around us.  We physicians are a precious resource and it’s essential that we use all of our wisdom and abilities to keep ourselves engaged and in the game.

Posted in physician coach, physician coaching, physician communication | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Take a moment to give thanks – a physician coach’s RX for a happy Thanksgiving

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Helane Fronek

I love Thanksgiving!  As a child, it was my favorite holiday, as our family came together and the house was filled with the smell of my mother’s Screen Shot 2015-11-23 at 11.40.18 AMdelicious cooking.  Our cousins would arrive and we would play until dinner was ready. As we grew, we participated more in the preparation and learned our way around a kitchen under my mother’s skillful guidance.  Implicit in the preparation, serving, and cleaning was a sense of gratitude for the food we ate, the people who added so much to our lives, and the freedom we enjoyed to share the holiday with those we loved.

In the last few decades, much has been written about gratitude and a small industry has developed to support us in being grateful.  There are gratitude journals, gratitude card decks, and gratitude practices.  One of my favorite restaurants is called Cafe Gratitude, where each dish is named and ordered as an affirmation.  You don’t tell the server, “I’ll have the grain salad.” Instead, you state, “I am gracious.”

It’s a simple, yet profound, concept.

As we affirm a trait that we aspire to, we search our mind for experiences and beliefs that demonstrate that quality.  We reinforce the belief that, “I am gracious” by recalling times that we were, in fact, gracious.  Owning that we are gracious then leads to more gracious behavior. Similarly, when we intentionally set out to feel gratitude, our mind jumps to the people, conditions, and activities in our lives that we are grateful for. Once we set that intention, we become more aware of feeling grateful throughout the day.

Try it – stop what you’re doing and take a few moments to think about what you are grateful for.  Consider the small things (I found the shoes I thought I had lost), the more important things (our new roof doesn’t leak) as well as the truly big things (our kids are healthy). Allow your mind to bring in images of what you are grateful for in every realm of your life –  family, friends, home, work, nature, activities.  As you take a few deep breaths, allow the feeling of gratitude to fill your body, including your heart.  How does your life feel now?   Notice how many times during the rest of the day that you become aware of a sense of gratitude.

So as we approach this wonderful holiday, let’s spend a few minutes each day being thankful.  Maybe you want to call one friend a day to tell them how much you appreciate them being in your life.  Perhaps you keep all the children at your Thanksgiving day dinner busy before dinner by giving them a pile of magazines and asking them to make a collage of all the things they are thankful for.  Or you might ask each guest to declare what they are grateful for.  As we spend time actively being grateful, we will bring and become more aware of the many things we have to be grateful for.  And that will make this Thanksgiving a happier time for us all.

Screen Shot 2015-11-23 at 11.24.48 AMScreen Shot 2015-11-23 at 11.28.42 AM

Posted in mindfulness, physician burnout, physician coach, physician coaching | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Happy Halloween! A physician coach looks at those dark, hidden places in herself

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Helane Fronek

Americans love Halloween, don’t you think?  In fact, as our culture is increasingly Maskpolarized and each side seeks to be “purely” what they want to represent, the Halloween frenzy seems to increase.  Halloween is a time to pretend we are someone else – usually some dark and sinister version of the pleasant and light version we reflect out into the world.

We each have both light and dark aspects of ourselves.  And each aspect has its strength, beauty and benefit.

As a girl growing up in the Midwest in the 1950’s, I was repeatedly told that girls were supposed to “be nice.”  “Nice” was the word given for characteristics such as calm, quiet, cooperative, polite, thoughtful, submissive, and considerate.  If we were loud, aggressive, demanding, too honest, or called attention to ourselves, we were definitely “not nice.”  A proclamation of “nice” would be accompanied by a smile, whereas when we were told, “that’s not nice,” a frown would follow.  We were then expected to immediately snap to attention with a nicer version of ourselves.

As Robert Bly explains, as society rejected certain aspects of our personality or being, we hid them away in what he calls our “black bag.”  Jungian psychology terms this our “shadow.”  The more we try to portray ourselves as only “good,” the larger our shadow becomes.  Although we believe we have safely put away these important aspects of ourselves, they manage to sneak out in our words and actions.  They seek to again become a part of us and to bring with them the power, strength, discernment, and sense of wholeness that we once felt.

Many years ago, in a group on psychological wholeness, I made a series of masks that portrayed the wholeness of my own psyche.  Although I am usually seen as a quiet and thoughtful person, there was a ferociousness in several of the masks.  As I sat looking at them, I clearly recognized those “not nice” parts of myself.  I realized they were the very parts that allowed me to get through the rigors of medical training, to leave bad relationships, to deliver powerful presentations, and to continually seek to serve people who are suffering.

Thinking back on my life, I recalled hours of playtime climbing trees and in other rough and tumble activities (definitely not nice), racing our bikes through the neighborhood, playing sports to win decisively.  There was always an aggressive streak in me that was not welcomed but has served me well at many times.

As the trick-or-treaters show up at your doorstep tonight, I wonder which “dark and sinister” qualities you will recognize in yourself.  How have those qualities served you?  Is it time to welcome them back into your whole being, to no longer see them as negative and instead acknowledge that they bring an aliveness that you might have been missing?

Posted in Doctor Coach, physician burnout, physician coach, physician coaching, physician fulfillment, wholeness | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The things we fail to say – a few simple questions help to fill in the gaps

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Helane Fronek

It’s been several months since I’ve blogged regularly.

Fortunately, I’ve learned to appreciate that we all have seasons in our lives and a limit to how much we can/should push ourselves.  I’m better at prioritizing and forgiving myself when I don’t accomplish everything.

The reason I didn’t have the time or energy to write was because of a mountain of activities that all hit at once.  One of these was a minor remodel of our house.  I’ve come to realize that’s an oxymoron.  The words “minor” Screen Shot 2015-10-15 at 10.28.51 PMand “remodel” don’t usually belong in the same sentence.  While the workmanship on our home is excellent and we’re happy to be living there, the process was peppered with many stressful incidents.  One of these occurred as we contemplated replacing a series of windows with dual-paned glass.  “What will this cost?” I asked.  “About $14,000,” was the answer.  Eventually, we decided that $14,000, although substantial, was worth the benefits we and the environment would derive.

What we weren’t told was that $14,000 was the cost of the glass only.  It didn’t include the significant labor charges we would incur, as the glass didn’t easily fit into the space available.

It reminded me of a recent incident with a patient.  “Will Medicare cover my treatment?” he inquired.  We assured him that it would.  Then he went to check out and was told he owed $51 for the compression stockings we had fit him with that day.  “I thought you said Medicare would cover everything!” he yelled, as he threw the box of stockings down on the desk.

How do we get all the information we need, when we frequently don’t even know the questions to ask?  How can we anticipate what our patients and others in our lives want to know when they don’t ask?

It’s clear that in most situations, I need to ask more questions.  Simple, general questions are often the best.  “What other costs are involved?”  “What else do you think I need to know about this?”  Asking either of these would likely have saved a lot of misunderstanding.

And in speaking with others, we can listen for their major concern.  Patients who inquire about insurance coverage aren’t really asking if their care will be “covered.” As we know, this can mean that the insurance company will pay only a small percentage and leave them with a large sum of money to pay.  They are really asking how much they will have to pay out of pocket.  Patients who ask, “Will it hurt?” usually realize there will be some discomfort.  What they are worried about is whether they’ll be able to tolerate it. Again, using simple and general questions will help us focus our communication on what is most important.  “What concerns do you have about this?”  is one of the best questions I know.

Given that our thoughts are processed in milliseconds, we each respond to situations almost immediately based on our experience and psychology.  We frequently assume that others share our thought processes and come to the same conclusions we do, even though we are constantly reminded this isn’t so.  Taking a moment to ask some simple questions can help to make our communication clearer – by reducing those things we fail to say.

Posted in physician coach, physician coaching, physician communication | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Inner Game: what the Pope and her shadow taught a physician coach about being judgmental

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Helane Fronek

Traveling to a conference, I struck up a conversation with the man next to me, who shared that at 47 years old, he had never married. He recalled Bill Maher’s remark that if a man hasn’t been married by his mid 40’s, he either doesn’t like women enough or likes them too much. He laughed and conceded that he definitely liked women too much to settle down with just one, although many people had tried to convince him to marry. In his experience, people frequently tried to make him wrong by insisting he live his life as they do. What’s important, he stated, is to know yourself and live according to your values and beliefs. “It’s what I call inner game,” he said.

Later in the trip, I passed through Philadelphia, where my cab ride was long because of the Pope’s visit. The radio was on and the commentator discussed Francis’ emphasis on non-judgmentalism, asking, “Why should we try to make ourselves feel better by criticizing someone else?”

It reminded me of my own judgmental reaction to someone at the conference I attended. Her approach to marketing seemed boastful and she appeared both pretentious and insecure. I found myself feeling better in comparison. As I reconsidered this, I realized that my marketing is founded on my values of honesty and integrity; I wouldn’t be comfortable promising something that might not happen. By firming up my inner game I felt better about my approach and could let this other person have hers.

Then I recalled the part of our unconscious called the shadow – the “long bag we drag behind us” where Robert Bly says we put those parts of ourselves that our parents, teachers, society or we find unacceptable. I realized that I was taught to be modest but confident, so I keep those parts of myself that at times feel pretentious or insecure hidden in my own bag. I drag them behind me but don’t often acknowledge they are there. The truth is they manage to find a way into my life anyway, as they did in this projection.

A more effective strategy is to feel compassion for those parts of our selves. Since pretention is often a defense against insecurity, I imagined the child in both me and this other person who had felt unsure of herself but got the message this was weak or unseemly. Failure, or anything less than perfection was not to be tolerated, so our insecurity was driven into our ever-enlarging bag. As I held that sense of compassion, I could feel the judgment melt. She and I were not that very different after all.

It’s a constant effort to recognize our judgments and find their origins in the rejected parts of ourselves we keep in the bags we drag behind us. But by holding to our values and acknowledging our shadow with compassion, our life becomes less encumbered and more authentic. It’s a more joyful way to live and allows us to bring more of who we truly are to the world and those we care about.

Posted in Doctor Coach, mindfulness, physician coach, physician coaching, physician fulfillment | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments