I remember when I first thought about enrolling in a life coaching program. As a physician, my first thought was that perhaps it was a sign of weakness. Here I was an attending physician, who had completed her residency training and was board certified practicing medicine for over a decade. I thought I was suppossed to know it all. And while I did know a lot when it came to taking care of patients, what I realized is that my training had taught me a pattern of thinking that was very self-critical and led me to always look for what was abnormal. Abnormal pathology in patients but also what was wrong in my own personal and professional life too.

What I realized is that coaching wasn’t a sign of weakness at all. In fact, it’s a sign of strength and leads to success. It was a way to take my life from average to great!

Physicians Need Coaches Too

Entrepreneurs, CEO’s, athletes and all successful professionals have coaches. Truly, the physician community is lagging in this regard.

We are high-achieving, high-functioning doctors who deal with life and death on a daily basis, not to mention lots of other sad things. If entrepreneurs and athletes need coaches, of course all doctors do as well. What I love is that it puts you back in the driver’s seat and truly turns you into the CEO of your life.

Furthermore, studies including randomized clinical trials (the best type of data out there) published in JAMA show that professional coaching for physicians makes a significant difference on reducing emotional exhaustion and burnout and improves overall well-being.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Dr. Tait Shanafelt, the guru of physician wellness, co-authored a study which was published in JAMA back in 2019. It was a randomized controlled study where they took 88 primary care physicians working at Mayo Clinic and randomly assigned them to be either in the control or intervention group. For the intervention group they gave them 6 coaching sessions with a professional life coach and compared pre and post surveys.

The results were impressive. Those in the intervention group had a nearly 20% decrease in high emotional exhaustion and 17% decrease in overall burnout. Also, quality of life and resilience scores improved in this group, too, showing that professional life coaching is an effective way to reduce emotional exhaustion and overall burnout as well as improve quality of life and resilience for physicians.

Meanwhile the control group, who received no coaching, had an increase of nearly 10% in emotional exhaustion and 5% increase in Burnout.

What this means is that there is a cost to doing NOTHING about burnout. When we do nothing about it, we get more emotionally exhausted and burnt out and spiral further. Often in this case, things that once brought us pleasure cease to be important. And no amount of rest or playing in the most popular slot machines casinos helps to cope with stress.

That’s why in a 2021 Medscape survey, among physicians who reported burnout:

• 70% it had a moderate to severe impact on their life
• 69% said they “felt depressed”
• 13% reported thoughts of suicide

This month there was another study published in JAMA looking specifically at women physicians which also showed that coaching works especially well for women doctors.

The evidence that coaching works is compelling and with 56% of women physicians reporting burnout right now, we felt the need to help our sister docs and provide you with a coaching program similar (if not better, in my humble opinion) to what was being offered physicians at Mayo. (In fact, I would argue that community physicians, who oftentimes are unsupported and isolated and infrequently have mentors, need coaching even more.)

The Physician Wellness and Empowerment Program

We created our coaching program to be just 12 weeks long because we know you want relief from burnout, overwhelm and exhaustion fast. In our program participants actually get way more coaching than what was provided in these randomized clinical trials.

The program includes 12 weeks of weekly group coaching and 12 sessions of private coaching and weekly recordings, where we teach you strategies to improve your time management, your charting efficiency, self-care routines and relationships. Participants also learn how to get over imposter syndrome, have lasting confidence and how to step into their power and ask for what they truly want both at work and at home.

Our program has truly changed lives and careers and helped women physicians get out of burnout and feel like a new person. Women physicians come to us feeling so burnt out BUT leave feeling empowered and back in control of their life.

They feel empowered to:

• Schedule their time intentionally and work more efficiently
• Ask for what they need to do their jobs
• Ask for and get raises and promotions
• Improve their relationships
• Leave toxic work situations or relationships
• Stop charting at home
• No longer turning to chocolate, wine or Netflix to cope
• Stop overworking
• Schedule their time intentionally and work more efficiently

And the best thing one of our participants said is it not only got her out of burnout but gave her a way to combat it for good.

How amazing would it be to finally have a way to combat burnout for good so that you can finally enjoy the career you worked so hard to have?

Enrollment for our Physician Wellness and Empowerment Program is now open and will be until September 19th! Check out the details register for a spot here!

Archana Shrestha, MD is a physician, life coach, speaker and entrepreneur in Chicago. She is the Cofounder and Chief Wellness Officer at Women in White Coats and co-author of “The Chronicles of Women in White Coats” book series. Learn more about her by going to MightyMomMD.com. She can be followed on Instagram @MightyMomMD

If you are ready for a change and need more confidence and balance back in your life, join our free training where we cover 3 steps to help you kick overwhelm and exhaustion to the curb and live that confident and balanced life you seek. Click here to enroll in our free training.