Wellness It’s 2022: Why You Should Seriously Consider Coaching

It’s 2022: Why You Should Seriously Consider Coaching

By Amanda J. Deutsch, MD; Jeffrey Sakamoto, MD; Rebecca Smith-Coggins, MD; Al’ai Alvarez, MD, on behalf of the SAEM Wellness Committee

When I think of coaching, my mind goes to scaling a scoreboard in Rock Island, IL, and watching my two older brothers being coached in Little League. I chewed through a pack of Big League gum while wondering if either brother was listening or improving. As an attending, this line of inquiry helps me understand what coaching is versus training or mentoring: coaching holds the participant accountable to find actionable solutions to their problems. Compared to training and mentoring, coaching goes beyond transferring knowledge to the learner and is a process of supporting and encouraging individuals to maximize their potential. Group coaching takes the common dyad of coach and coachee and brings a cohort together to develop a community engaged in supportive encouragement, each responsible to each other and themselves. The coachee should learn through creative, reflective observations and grow through experimentation with possibilities imagined during coaching sessions. “A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.” - Zig Ziglar. So why is coaching getting a lot of buzz lately? Research has shown that coaching in medicine has numerous benefits. Coaching is an effective

“A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.” - Zig Ziglar method for driving behavioral changes

“The ability to learn, grow and be willing to adapt constantly is a requirement for a successful career in emergency medicine. Fortunately, we don’t have to go through this process alone.”

and addressing feedback that leads to personal growth and development. Coaching helps individuals create actionable plans to see and enact personal change. Coaching has been shown to decrease burnout, improve selfvaluation, skills training and performance, sleep-related impairment, leadership competencies, career mobility, and retention. Coaching has gender-specific benefits of increased resilience in women. Recent work has shown coaching to be akin to therapy. Coaching for an early career faculty has been shown to strengthen an individual’s professional identity and improve well-being, including increased work engagement and job satisfaction. The overwhelming benefits of coaching are sufficient to seriously consider working with a coach.

The above advantages of coaching are similar and potentially more universally evident in group coaching. Similar to studies of coaching medical students and junior doctors to facilitate professional identity formation and ease transitions, group coaching showed similar benefits. Unsurprisingly, group coaching helped new doctors fit into their new profession and environment more seamlessly. Group coaching helps doctors throughout their careers. It has also been shown to support seasoned clinicians find new ways to work through professional challenges and improve communication skills. Group coaching may be more accessible than individual coaching because getting coached as a group is potentially more cost-effective to establish and start. Group coaching, additionally, provides a sense of community where participants often feel safe to be creative and courageous in exploring common daily work-life challenges with the added benefit of promoting team building.

One study found that this group setting increased clinicians’ communication skills as they were able to learn from interactions with their colleagues. Similarly, group coaching often benefits participants through the creative, insightful, and supportive solutions that the collective wisdom of the group offers. Group coaching participants generally feel empowered to try new approaches to challenges, as they sense the group support and feel less isolated. The community that group coaching creates provides accountability and a sense of personal and group responsibility. The sessions also provide social capital and opportunities to remind participants of their purpose and the meaning of their work, which could translate to synergy, improved satisfaction with their work, and better patient care.

If you are still not convinced that coaching is beneficial (and not like being yelled at by former gym coaches to run faster or jump higher), why isn’t coaching more commonly utilized among physicians? Coaching costs money. It is also a time commitment. Beyond cost and time, “What if I don’t jibe with my coach?” is another common and important question. Just like dating, you’re not bound to each other. This also emphasizes the need for standardization of training to be a qualified and effective coach, along with setting core competencies such as creating psychological safety, which is paramount to success. For group coaching, it is crucial to anticipate the impact of group dynamics, accountability, and respect for confidentiality. Many coaching limitations may be addressed by an exercise focused on brainstorming and cocreating goals in front of the team to promote a greater sense of responsibility.

The ability to learn, grow and be willing to adapt constantly is a requirement for a successful career in emergency medicine. Fortunately, we don’t have to go through this process alone. There are trained coaches who can help us navigate the many challenges in medicine and academia. Try it out for yourself. Get your department to support this, even as a pilot. Alternatively, consider developing commensality groups, a facilitated gathering without a formally designated coach. These efforts aim to improve you as an individual and contributing member of your department and our specialty. It’s really a win-win. ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dr. Deutsch, MD, is an EM Physician Wellness Fellow at Stanford Emergency Medicine @amandajdeutsch

Dr. Sakamoto is a clinical instructor at University of Hawaii JABSOM Division of Emergency Medicine. @jtsakamo

Dr. Smith-Coggins is associate dean for medical student life advising at Stanford Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Alvarez is director of wellbeing at Stanford Emergency Medicine and chair of the SAEM Wellness Committee. @alvarezzzy