So, Dr. Joe… If you’re a Lifestyle Medicine doc, why do you keep talking about work and teams?
Here at Candid Medical, I do a lot of advocacy work with physicians and healthcare teams. This work includes: supporting the Lane County Medical Society Physician Wellness Program, serving as the hospitalist well-being champion, leading team communication trainings for nurse manager teams, hospitalists and onboarding training, and providing confidential coaching to physicians. Through all of this, one message repeats itself over and over, “My job was making me sick.”
I have a few thoughts regarding this. First, we know this can actually happen. Second, it doesn’t have to be set up this way. Third, in medicine (and most careers), it requires a team to do something great.
For some reason, many managers, C-suite leaders and coaches like to tell physicians they aren’t resilient. I’ve sat through training after training and discussion after discussion focused solely on how physicians underperform because they lack resilience skills. Yet, nearly every single time, the real problem has been work culture and work systems that create challenges for the team. The story I hear from team members is when they take steps to change their work culture and processes, their health improves.
Let’s take my real-life example from right now. My weight has been steadily dropping over the past month. Sure, I’m intermittently fasting and taking meal replacement protein shakes (both per ACLM guidelines, btw). But what was the really big change? I changed my work culture and work processes so that I could take care of myself. And, I see this time and again with my clients.
Let’s put that all together. Physicians want to practice great medicine. Great medicine requires a multidisciplinary, high functioning team. Physicians also want to live authentically. This usually means the healer wants to be healthy, among other things. When they live authentically, they show up for their family and their community.
Ready to change things up for yourself? Start your coaching journey today! Ready to transform your team and workplace? I’ll coach your entire team!
-Dr. Joe
