Sustainable Clinical Medicine with The Charting Coach

Dr. Sarah Smith
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On the Sustainable Clinical Medicine Podcast we are capturing the stories of physicians who have made clinical medicine sustainable in their own lives, including their before and after stories.  I will also interview coaches who are helping Physicians create sustainable clinical medicine for themselves.

  1. Doctor Burnout Prevention: Energy, Boundaries, and the PACE Method With Dr. Judy Wright Episode 178

    1d ago

    Doctor Burnout Prevention: Energy, Boundaries, and the PACE Method With Dr. Judy Wright Episode 178

    Dr. Judy Wright burned out more than once before she started paying attention to what was actually driving it. As a family doctor who spent years staying two hours after her last patient to finish charting, she knows firsthand what it costs to keep grinding without ever stopping to ask what you actually need.   In this episode, she talks about burnout prevention, energy management, and the quiet belief that saying yes is just part of being a good doctor and a good person. For high-achieving women in medicine who are still doing everything for everyone, her PACE method and her very honest account of learning to say no offer something more useful than another list of self-care tips.   Highlights [02:00]: Her residency director told her she was slow because she cared too much about her penmanship. Dr. Wright explains what was actually going on, and why nobody gave her anything useful to work with. [06:00]: She spent years leaving clinic two hours after her last patient before a single conversation with a colleague cracked something open for her. [11:00]: The moment she came back from maternity leave, she walked into her clinic and asked for something she had never asked for before. What she asked for, and how she asked for it, is worth hearing in full. [19:00]: Dr. Wright introduces the PACE method and makes a distinction between time and energy that reframes what sustainable clinical medicine actually requires. [23:00]: She moved from clinical practice into leadership and immediately repeated every pattern she had spent years trying to break. She explains why, and what finally shifted. [40:00]: A free stress assessment she has built specifically for doctors who think they are managing fine, because that is exactly where she was every time she burned out.   Three Key Takeaways 1. The problem is rarely time. It is almost always energy. Most doctors who feel overwhelmed reach immediately for a time management solution. Dr. Wright argues that time is the wrong lens. Everyone has 24 hours. What varies is energy, and energy is renewable in a way that time is not. When she started working with groups of high-achieving women, she found that underneath the complaints about not having enough time was something else entirely: exhaustion, depletion, and a capacity that had been quietly shrinking for years. Protecting your energy, she argues, is not a luxury. It is the prerequisite for everything else. 2. Saying no is a skill that has to be practiced, not a decision you make once. Dr. Wright is clear that she was not a people pleaser, but she still had work to do around saying no. For doctors who are socialized to help first and for women who are socialized to say yes, declining a request carries a weight of guilt that does not disappear just because you know it is the right call. She offers several practical ways to say no that do not require a single-word answer, and makes the case that every yes has a cost. The question is simply whether the cost is one you can afford. 3. Delegation only works when you know the people you are delegating to. Dr. Wright is not interested in getting things off her plate for the sake of it. She watched leaders hand tasks to whoever was available and then spend more energy managing the fallout than the task would have taken. What she learned, both in clinical teams and at home with her own children, is that effective delegation starts with knowing people well enough to match the right task to the right person. That takes time upfront. It also, eventually, creates something that no amount of personal effort can build alone.   Guest Bio Dr. Judy Wright is a board-certified family doctor, burnout prevention strategist, and performance coach based in the United States. She works primarily with high-achieving women leaders, helping them protect their energy, set meaningful boundaries, and continue performing at a high level without burning out in the process. Her PACE method, which stands for Pause, Awareness, Calibrate, Execute and Excel, gives doctors and leaders a practical framework for sustainable performance.Connect with Dr. Wright on Linkedin.     Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here   Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine. Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca   Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released. Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @thechartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.   Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at admin@reachcareercoaching.ca. I would love to hear from you.

    46 min
  2. How to Stop Blaming Yourself as a Doctor: Pain, Guilt, and the Stories We Tell Episode 177

    Jun 22

    How to Stop Blaming Yourself as a Doctor: Pain, Guilt, and the Stories We Tell Episode 177

    When Dr. Maggie Kang's nine-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a rare, incurable autoimmune disease, she was the radiologist who first saw the images. What followed was not just the grief of a mother watching her child suffer. It was two years of silent, suffocating guilt built on a story that made no logical sense but felt completely true. In this episode, Dr. Kang talks about the difference between pain and suffering, why doctors are particularly vulnerable to the stories that keep them stuck, and what it actually takes to let those stories go. The insight she shares is one that applies far beyond rare disease diagnosis, and doctors who have ever blamed themselves for a bad outcome will recognize it immediately.   Episode Highlights [01:00]: Dr. Kang describes the moment she first saw her daughter's images as a radiologist, and what the following five weeks in hospital looked like for their family. [06:00]: She had tried thinking her way through the guilt for two years before coaching surfaced a belief she had never once said out loud to another person. [11:00]: Dr. Kang explains why this particular belief was so hard to release, and how cultural background, professional identity, and motherhood all collided in ways she had not anticipated. [15:00]: The moment she stopped asking what had gone wrong and started asking a different kind of question entirely set off a chain of events that is still unfolding today. [25:00]: She draws a clear line between pain and suffering that reframes how doctors might think about everything from a difficult diagnosis to a bad clinical outcome. [31:00]: A lobster metaphor that her whole family now uses to talk about growth, uncertainty, and what it actually means to let go of a story that is no longer serving you.   Three Key Takeaways 1. Pain is unavoidable. Suffering is the story we add to it. Dr. Kang makes a distinction that sounds simple and lands hard. Pain is the actual experience: a child who is sick, a patient outcome that did not go as hoped, a career that suddenly changes course. Suffering is the additional layer of blame and guilt that doctors quietly construct around that pain, often without ever examining it or saying it aloud. For doctors, who are trained to believe that good outcomes follow from doing everything right, this distinction is particularly important. When things go wrong despite their best efforts, the story they reach for is often the harshest one available. 2. The stories that keep doctors stuck rarely survive being questioned out loud. Dr. Kang spent two years convinced she should have caught her daughter's diagnosis earlier, even though the pediatric presentation of the disease she knew was entirely different from what she had trained on. It was not logic that kept that belief in place. It was shame. Shame keeps stories in the dark, and stories in the dark grow. What coaching gave her was not an answer, but a question: are you sure? That single question, asked with genuine curiosity by someone else, was the beginning of everything that followed. 3. Letting go of a story means tolerating not having one. Dr. Kang uses the lobster as her metaphor, and it is a good one. When a lobster grows, it has to shed its shell and endure a period of complete vulnerability before the new shell forms. The discomfort of that transition is not a sign something is wrong. It is the growth itself. For doctors, releasing a long-held belief about what they should have done or who they should be does not feel like freedom at first. It feels like losing ground. Dr. Kang describes that period honestly and what she found on the other side of it.   Guest Bio Dr. Maggie Kang is a TEDx speaker and certified coach who works with mothers navigating life with a child's chronic or rare disease diagnosis. She runs the Lobster Lessons newsletter and advocates for the neuroimmune disease community alongside her daughter Nell at maggiekangmd.com. Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here   Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine. Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released. Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @thechartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life. Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at admin@reachcareercoaching.ca. I would love to hear from you.

    38 min
  3. Self-Compassion for Doctors: The Missing Piece in Burnout Prevention Episode 176

    Jun 15

    Self-Compassion for Doctors: The Missing Piece in Burnout Prevention Episode 176

    The traits that make someone a great doctor, caring deeply, holding high standards, never switching off, are the same traits quietly driving burnout in medicine. Dr. Ira van der Steenstraten has spent over a decade working with junior doctors across Queensland and now coaches doctors one-on-one, and what she keeps finding is that most are not struggling because the system is hard. They are struggling because nobody ever taught them to treat themselves with the same compassion they extend to every patient. This episode asks a confronting question: what if burnout is not a workload problem, but a self-compassion problem? And what do you actually do about a critical inner voice that has been running unchallenged for decades?   Highlights [03:00]: Dr. van der Steenstraten describes what it was like to sit across the table from patients suffering deeply from the same condition she was living with herself, and what she noticed that changed how she understood the mind-body connection. [07:00]: A report landed in Australia in 2013 with numbers so alarming that a group of junior doctors decided enough was enough. What they built in response reached more than 4,500 interns across Queensland. [15:00]: Burnout gets talked about constantly in medicine, but Dr. van der Steenstraten draws a distinction between burnout and something else entirely that is far more common and far more misunderstood. [19:00]: She describes a period in her own clinical career where she showed up every day, did her job, and felt hollow doing it. The reason why will resonate with doctors across every specialty. [25:00]: Something unexpected happened when hospital leadership was invited into the wellbeing workshops. Dr. van der Steenstraten explains what it was and why it changed everything in the room. [30:00]: The very qualities that get doctors into medicine are the ones that make them most vulnerable inside it. Dr. van der Steenstraten explains why this is not a coincidence and what needs to happen next.   Three Key Takeaways 1. Burnout and moral distress are not the same thing. Most doctors know what burnout feels like, but fewer have a name for the specific frustration of being unable to practice medicine the way they believe it should be practiced. Dr. van der Steenstraten describes moral distress as something distinct from burnout, with different drivers and a very different path forward. She has watched the moment doctors hear this distinction described clearly, and the response in the room is always the same. When you finally have the language for what is happening to you, something shifts. That shift is where recovery begins.   2. Self-compassion is not a soft skill. It is a clinical risk factor. The selection process for medical school tends to attract people who are caring, conscientious, and hard on themselves. Then medical training reinforces exactly those tendencies. Dr. van der Steenstraten argues that low self-compassion is one of the most underrecognized risk factors for burnout in medicine, and that the critical inner voice most doctors carry has often been running since long before they ever set foot in a hospital. The good news is that it is not fixed. The harder truth is that it takes more than awareness alone to change it.   3. Connection inside the workshop was the intervention. When Dr. van der Steenstraten asked groups of junior doctors what they found most valuable about the wellbeing program, the answer was rarely a specific strategy or framework. It was the moment they realized they were not alone. That simple recognition, that the person sitting next to them was carrying the same weight, consistently came back as the most powerful part of the experience. It raises a pointed question about what is actually lost when wellbeing programs move entirely online.   Guest Bio Dr. Ira van der Steenstraten is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and wellbeing coach based in Brisbane, Australia. She coached more than 4,500 junior doctors through her Queensland-wide wellbeing program and now works one-on-one with doctors internationally through Vitae Wellbeing Leadership.   🌐 vitaewellbeingleadership.com💼 LinkedIn: Dr. Ira van der Steenstraten   Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine. Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca   Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released. Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @thechartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.   Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at admin@reachcareercoaching.ca. I would love to hear from you.

    38 min
  4. How Coaching Helped This Doctor Fall Back in Love With Medicine Episode 175

    Jun 8

    How Coaching Helped This Doctor Fall Back in Love With Medicine Episode 175

    Dr. Heidi Baker has been a pediatrician, an emergency medicine doctor, a helicopter retrieval medic, and a coach. That kind of career range does not happen by accident. It happens when someone keeps hitting walls and choosing to climb rather than quit. In this episode, Dr. Baker talks candidly about the moment she realized emergency medicine was no longer sustainable for her, and what happened when she decided to do something about it rather than simply endure. The conversation raises a question that more organizations need to sit with: if you offered your doctors real coaching support, would you be helping them leave medicine, or saving them from doing exactly that?   Highlights [03:00]: Dr. Baker describes the point in her emergency medicine career when she realized she was not showing up the way she wanted, either at work or at home, and the decision that followed. [08:00]: Setting up a private practice after 17 years of hospital paychecks meant learning an entirely different skill set almost overnight. Dr. Baker shares what she was not prepared for. [13:00]: Pre-hospital retrieval work sounds thrilling from the outside. Dr. Baker describes what it actually demands of a clinician in the moment, and the specific experience that brought her to her knees. [19:00]: Dr. Baker explains what drew her toward coaching and why a 16-week program changed how she practices medicine, not just how she supports other doctors. [25:00]: There is a quiet fear inside many healthcare organizations about offering coaching to their staff. Dr. Baker names it directly and makes a case that flips the assumption. [33:00]: One emergency department embedded a psychologist for the entire team, not just doctors. The uptake surprised everyone. Dr. Baker explains how the model works and why it matters.   Three Key Takeaways 1. Coaching can bring doctors back, not push them out. There is a persistent concern among healthcare organizations that offering coaching will accelerate doctors leaving medicine. Dr. Baker's experience challenges that directly. She was close to walking away from clinical work entirely when coaching, both receiving it and training in it, gave her the clarity to pivot rather than exit. The doctors most at risk of leaving are often those who have never been given space to examine what is actually driving their dissatisfaction. Coaching creates that space. The result, more often than organizations expect, is doctors who stay, re-engage, and contribute more fully.   2. Peer supervision works best when it is built on actual skill. Mentorship and peer review have long been part of medical culture, but the role is frequently handed to someone experienced rather than someone trained to hold it. Dr. Baker draws a clear distinction between top-down informational support and the kind of exploratory, reflective practice that actually shifts things for the person receiving it. She has built several peer supervision groups of her own, including one that meets at the change of each season, and describes what makes them work. The skill set required to facilitate that kind of space is learnable. It just needs to be taught.   3. Sustainable clinical medicine sometimes means rebuilding from the ground up. Transitioning from a salaried hospital role to running a private practice is not just a clinical challenge. It is a business challenge, a mindset challenge, and for many doctors, the first time they have had to place a real value on their own time. Dr. Baker reflects on the steep learning curve of setting up her pediatric practice, including billing, insurance contracts, and patient management systems, none of which were covered in her medical training. For doctors considering a similar move, her honesty about what the transition actually costs is both a warning and a reassurance that it is survivable.   Connect: 🌐 https://www.podhealth.nz/   Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here   Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine. Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released. Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @thechartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life. Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at admin@reachcareercoaching.ca. I would love to hear from you.

    41 min
  5. You Are Not as Stuck as You Feel. The Truth About Telemedicine Episode 174 Dr. Suneer Chander

    Jun 1

    You Are Not as Stuck as You Feel. The Truth About Telemedicine Episode 174 Dr. Suneer Chander

    What if you could replace your hospital income, work 25 hours a week, take three week vacations without asking permission, and still practice medicine you are proud of?   Three physicians who made the leap to full time telemedicine join us to share exactly what that looks like and what it took to get there.   Timestamps: 1:00: Meet the panel. An EM doc, a family physician, and a primary care doctor who all left brick and mortar for telemedicine 7:00: What telemedicine actually looks like for an emergency medicine physician and how to expand your clinical niche 13:00: Income. Can telemedicine really replace a hospital salary and what does that look like in practice 25:00: What growth means in telemedicine and why one doctor realized on her last day she had stopped growing years ago 33:00: Licensure in 51 states. What it costs, how to streamline it, and why more licenses means more opportunity 43:00: You are not as stuck as you feel. Final thoughts on courage, golden handcuffs, and redesigning your career at any stage   3 Key Takeaways: You Are Not as Stuck as You Feel. Whether you have been in medicine for two years or thirty, the options available to physicians right now are wider than most realize. Telemedicine, independent contracting, medical directorships, niche clinical roles, and leadership opportunities are all on the table. The ceiling you think exists may just be the walls of the building you are currently working in. The Math of Telemedicine Can Work in Your Favor. One panelist cut her hours by more than two thirds and increased her income. Another paid off sixty thousand dollars in startup costs within a year of going full time. Working fewer hours for comparable or better pay is not a fantasy. It is a business model. But it requires understanding the rules of the space you are operating in. Community Is What Makes the Leap Survivable. Every panelist pointed to the same thing: the transition was hard, and they could not have done it alone. Whether it is knowing which companies to trust, how to manage licensure across states, or just having someone in your corner when the fear kicks in, the people around you during a major career change matter as much as the plan itself.   Connect: 🌐 airphysicianacademy.com   Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here   Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine. Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca   Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released. Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @thechartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.   Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at admin@reachcareercoaching.ca. I would love to hear from you.

    51 min
  6. You Do Not Have to Choose Between Medicine and the Life You Actually Want Episode 173

    May 25

    You Do Not Have to Choose Between Medicine and the Life You Actually Want Episode 173

    What if the thing you want most is actually the solution, not the problem? Dr. Kristine Goins was a full time academic psychiatrist, burnt out, physically unwell, and working across nine clinics with five different electronic medical record systems.   Two years out of residency she booked a one way ticket to Colombia and never looked back. She now works one clinical day a week, lives in her 16th country, and helps other physicians do the same.   Timestamps: 1:00: Two years out of residency, chest pains, tremors, and a skyrocketing A1C. What burnout actually looked like 4:00: Nine clinics, five different systems, and notes every weekend. What her academic career really cost her 9:00: Why her colleagues stayed even though they were miserable. The devil you know 16:00: How NomadMD started and why there is no specialty that cannot be digitized 22:00: Working two days a week from Colombia and earning more than she did full time in academia 25:00: The one hour a week that changed everything and how to stop catastrophizing your way out of a better life   3 Key Takeaways: Your Body Will Tell You What Your Mind Is Trying to Ignore. Dr. Goins was eating well, doing yoga, and doing all the right things. Her body still gave her tremors, chest pains, and a skyrocketing A1C. Burnout is not a mindset problem you can outrun with self care. It is a signal that something structural has to change and the sooner you listen the better. The Stability You Think You Have May Be Costing You More Than You Know. Working full time in academia felt safe. It was also paying her less than two days of direct contract work from Colombia. The institution takes a cut, sets your schedule, and decides your worth. When you work for yourself, the math changes completely. Give Your Brain a Better Problem to Solve. Instead of asking how do I survive this, Dr. Goins started asking what if traveling was actually the path to financial independence? Our brains are wired to solve problems. The question is whether you are giving yours a problem worth solving. Sometimes the thing you want most is not the obstacle. It is the answer.   Connect with Dr. Kristine Goins: 🌐 thenomadmd.com 📸 Instagram: @thenomadmds 👥 Facebook: thenomadmds   Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here   Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine. Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca   Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released. Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @thechartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.   Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at admin@reachcareercoaching.ca. I would love to hear from you.

    38 min
  7. Doctor Burnout Recovery: What Medicine Never Taught Us Episode 172

    May 18

    Doctor Burnout Recovery: What Medicine Never Taught Us Episode 172

    What happens when a doctor becomes the patient and discovers that everything she thought she knew about recovery was only half the picture?  Dr. Olivia Ong was a second-year rehabilitation registrar when a car struck her in a hospital car park, leaving her with a spinal cord injury and a prognosis full of uncertainty. She went on to walk again, return to clinical practice, and build a career in pain medicine, but a decade later, doctor burnout brought her to her knees in a completely different way.  This episode sits at the intersection of nervous system dysregulation, chronic pain, and sustainable medical careers, and raises a question every clinician will recognize: when the standard advice to "just meditate" fails, what actually works?   Timestamps 5:00: On her 29th birthday, surrounded by friends in a rehabilitation ward, something happened to her body that shifted the entire trajectory of her recovery, though she had been deliberately trying not to hope for it. 11:00: As a rehabilitation registrar who had just become a patient, Dr. Ong experienced the healthcare system from the other side, and what she found there changed something fundamental about how she understood her own patients.  22:00: Her rehabilitation trainers in California did something her Australian medical team had not. The name for it comes from psychology, and once she understood what it was, it permanently changed how she shows up for her patients with chronic pain. 28:00: Being part of a team is not the same as being protected by one. Dr. Ong describes the specific working arrangement that put her at highest risk of burnout, and it is more common than most doctors realise. 37:00: It was not a colleague, a coach, or a clinical measure that finally forced her to act on her burnout. It was her three-year-old son, and four words he said to her at 7:30 on a weeknight. 45:00: Dr. Ong shares the non-negotiable physical maintenance routine that keeps her functioning with a spinal cord injury, and makes the case that busy doctors without a serious illness have far less excuse than they think.   Three Key Takeaways 1. Meditation alone will not rescue a dysregulated nervous system. When burnout reaches the point of physical collapse, top-down cognitive approaches like breathing exercises and mindfulness may not land at all. Dr. Ong spent six weeks with a meditation teacher just learning to breathe properly again. What eventually made the difference was bottom-up nervous system regulation work, and understanding why that distinction matters may be the missing piece that explains why conventional burnout advice keeps failing. 2. The Pygmalion effect is a clinical tool, not just a leadership concept. When Dr. Ong arrived at a rehabilitation facility in California, her trainers held an unshakeable belief that she would walk again, something she had not encountered in her Australian clinical care. She credits that belief as the turning point in her recovery, and it permanently changed how she practices pain medicine. In a specialty where patients often arrive having already been told nothing will help them, a clinician's genuine belief in their patient's capacity to improve is itself an active ingredient. 3. Solo practice is one of the highest risk factors for doctor burnout. Dr. Ong's experience points to something more specific than patient overload: the absence of collegial support. Working as a solo practitioner within larger organizations, with no shared case load and no one to carry part of the emotional weight, is what preceded her burnout. Her path out involved deliberately choosing workplaces with genuine multidisciplinary teams, and she makes the case that for doctors designing their careers, this is a structural decision worth taking seriously.   Dr. Olivia Ong Bio: Dr. Olivia Ong is a rehabilitation and pain medicine specialist based in Melbourne, Australia, whose own recovery from a spinal cord injury sustained early in her medical career reshaped her understanding of chronic pain, nervous system dysregulation, and what it takes to sustain a clinical life. Her memoir, Back On My Feet, is available now in Australia and forthcoming in the US and UK. Find her on Instagram at @drolivialeeong or at drolivialeeong.com.     Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine. Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released. Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @thechartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life. Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at admin@reachcareercoaching.ca. I would love to hear from you.

    48 min
  8. Episode 171: Stop Saying Yes to Everything. Finding Purpose and Sustainability in Medicine with Dr. Santina Wheat

    May 11

    Episode 171: Stop Saying Yes to Everything. Finding Purpose and Sustainability in Medicine with Dr. Santina Wheat

    Are you saying yes to everything and wondering why you have no joy left? Dr. Santina Wheat, family physician, program director, and wellness coach, has lived that story and found her way through it. She shares what she has learned about alignment, boundaries, and how to build a sustainable career in medicine without leaving it behind.   Timestamps: 2:00: The reality of family medicine: double bookings, no lunch, and being told you are not bringing in enough money 4:00: How she protects her team from unsustainable scheduling and why saying no for them matters 7:00: The pause: why reacting too quickly is one of the biggest drivers of burnout 13:00: Losing her mom, surviving COVID as a first year program director, and finally finding coaching 17:00: The one misconception that sent her into burnout: thinking availability meant immediate response 22:00: How coaching changed the way she has difficult conversations with residents   3 Key Takeaways: Saying Yes to Everything Is Not How You Get Ahead. Earlier in her career Dr. Wheat thought taking every opportunity was the path forward. What it actually did was fill her calendar with things she didn't enjoy and drain the joy from her career. Alignment, not busyness, is what creates sustainability. The question to ask yourself: what did the younger version of you actually want to do with this career? Availability Does Not Mean Immediate Response. One of the biggest lessons Dr. Wheat learned from coaching was that she didn't have to answer every message the moment it arrived. Sometimes waiting two minutes meant someone else handled it. Sometimes the person figured it out themselves. Being responsive and being reactive are two very different things. The Pause Is Everything. Whether it is a difficult conversation with a resident, a request to take on a new role, or a message that arrives at 10pm, the pause is the single most powerful tool available to any clinician. When you stop and ask how you actually want to respond rather than just reacting, the joy becomes so much easier to find.   About Dr. Santina Wheat Dr. Santina Wheat is a family physician, program director, and wellness coach helping driven healthcare professionals find purpose, set boundaries, and build sustainable careers in medicine.   Connect with Dr. Santina Wheat: 🌐 santinawheat.com 💼 LinkedIn: Santina Wheat 📸 Instagram: @DrTinaWheat   Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here   Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine. Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released. Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @thechartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.  Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at admin@reachcareercoaching.ca. I would love to hear from you.

    38 min
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On the Sustainable Clinical Medicine Podcast we are capturing the stories of physicians who have made clinical medicine sustainable in their own lives, including their before and after stories.  I will also interview coaches who are helping Physicians create sustainable clinical medicine for themselves.

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