The Physician Philosopher™

One of the most common questions that I get asked about physician coaching is, “How is coaching different from therapy?” And this is one of the most important questions to answer for doctors who feel trapped in medicine because Trapped Physicians often feel burned out and they want help but aren’t sure what help to get.

So many doctors and physicians would agree that the medical system is broken. The system has been built to accommodate so much paperwork and those that hold the money and doctors are at the mercy of it all. While I agree there are a lot of things that need to be fixed about the system, I have also seen firsthand how doctors can overcome these systematic problems in medicine. Coaching just might be the cure doctors have been searching for. The answer you have been looking for. Listen to today’s episode to find out if you can finally cure your burnout.
The current system of medicine doesn’t help either. This system quickly turns doctors into external validation junkies. Our entire self-worth can become attached to who and what other people think about us as physicians. But what if you knew your self-worth and made decisions from what is most important to you? This idea (and how you get there) is what we are going to dive into on today’s episode.

The number one thing people talk about when approaching death is the idea that they wish they had been unapologetic about who they are and what they wanted in life. So often as physicians we seek the validation of others rather than unapologetically seeking our own validation.

The current system of medicine doesn’t help either. This system quickly turns doctors into external validation junkies. Our entire self-worth can become attached to who and what other people think about us as physicians. But what if you knew your self-worth and made decisions from what is most important to you? This idea (and how you get there) is what we are going to dive into on today’s episode.

People often talk about the hamster wheel of life or, what I call, the achievement treadmill. Why do physicians run on the achievement treadmill even once they have achieved success? What does it mean to be content or to have enough? There is a beautiful place in life where we operate not out of anxiety. On today’s episode we are going to talk about the art of having enough. Hang on, because it might just change your life.

When you find yourself reaching for your phone when you are off the clock to check your email. Or drinking not because you are enjoying that IPA, but because you are avoiding something. Or when you begin to think about all the people that need you to respond to their text within minutes, you might be buffering. Buffering is very common in our culture today, but it isn’t a way to live life that will help us feel like the person, parent, and physician we want to be. Today I am going to talk about something Napoleon taught us years ago that might just help you uncover the real reason you are buffering today.

With 30-40% of physicians being sued on average, this is a topic that needs to be discussed in terms of how we can help doctors mentally and emotionally handle the fear of a lawsuit. If you have ever been in this situation or if you are living in fear that you someday will be, this episode is for you.

Join me today as I walk you through how you can beat the fear of a lawsuit so that this one idea that maybe has happened to you, or the fear that it may happen in the future, not impact how you practice medicine and live life.