Articles, Audio, and Videos for Your Inspiration and Learning
Need a Short Time Out? Take It!
ast week I spoke with a gynecologist in private practice who told me that he couldn’t remember the last time he took a vacation. His wife and children frequently travel to the beach and overseas, but he just cannot take time off from his practice....
Tighten up those Boundaries or else…
It is almost summer which is the time for weekly lawn mowing. When you instruct your landscape company to take care of your lawn, where do they stop with mowing? At the boundary line. I assume you don’t instruct them to mow your neighbor’s back lawn as well. After...
The Implications of Burnout in Physician Leaders
The Harvard Health Publications / Medical School just published an article on June 8, 2016 where they talked about the connection between opioid crisis and physician burnout in this country. You can read the entire article "The opioid crisis and physician burnout: A...
10 Assumptions About Physicians that Make Life Harder for Hospital Administrators
… And what to do about it! Physicians are the face of a healthcare organization. Their skills, behavior, and attitudes impact not only patient care, staff performance, and profitability but also the job satisfaction of their team and the hospital administrators....
Healthcare Success Depends on More Than Clinical Skills
To excel in the highly demanding, ever-changing healthcare market doesn’t simply require technical skills (clinical skills for providers; business skills for administrators, etc.); it equally requires self-management and interpersonal skills. A study by the Dale...
Three Ways To Ease A Disaster And Save The Day
A friend of mine recently posted the following story on her Facebook page: “Finally on a plane, and should be on the way to New York soon. A flight attendant just explained what happened: first plane was delayed, so they had to wait for another plane. At that point,...
Non-Clinical Continuing Education for Physician Leaders
If clinical skills are the critical machinery for health care providers, personal development is the fuel that runs the machinery more effectively. After all, health care providers are human beings as well as professionals when serving their patients. While it is true...
Time Management and Life Priorities for Physicians
If we can’t add a 25th hour to the day, how can we manage our time to accommodate the things we want to do besides work? First, it starts with managing our energy. So many times it is not that we don’t have the time to do the things we want to do but we don’t have the...
Three Tips to End 2015 with Joy, Peace, and Connection
Do you want more peace, joy, and connection this holiday season? Check out three tips here.
When Healers Need Healing – A Case about Physician Burnout
Last month, Katja Ridderbusch, an accomplished journalist and foreign correspondent for the German newspaper “Die Welt”, a noted author and international media consultant, interviewed me about the topic of physician burnout. Over the last 10 years, I have been...
Learning from Healthcare Executives about High Performance Teams
Earlier today I attended the Georgia Association of Healthcare Executives annual meeting luncheon. The topic of the luncheon was “Developing High-Performance Teams” where a panel of 3 female executives of 3 different hospital systems in the city shared their...
Reasons for Creating a Physician Leader Coaching Program
Q: What made you decide to create this physician leader coaching program? https://youtu.be/-I52RNAstXA A: In the last 10 years of my work with physicians, most engagements started with a conversation with an administrator and also with the medical director of the...
Issues a Physician Leader Coaching Program Addresses
Q: We currently employ a physician who has been in a department leadership role for quite some time. But there is a lot of turnover and conflict in this department. Would your program help? https://youtu.be/Kw5PcMpwtHo Q: We currently employ a physician who has been...
Ideal Candidate for a Physician Leadership Coaching Program
Q: Our physician leaders attended already a physician leadership program; isn’t that enough? https://youtu.be/SMOddg7rt7s Q: Our physician leaders attended already a physician leadership program; isn’t that enough? A: It can be enough or maybe it won’t. Here is how...
First Step in Building Work-Life Balance
A few weeks back I was interviewed on the topic of work-life balance for physicians. Here is the 4th question I was asked and my response. Can you comment on how the first step in building work-life balance is defining work-life balance for oneself and one's life...
Definition of Work-Life Balance
A few weeks back I was interviewed on the topic of work-life balance for physicians. Here is the 3rd question I was asked and my response. How do you define work-life balance? I must admit, I personally don’t like the term work-life balance since it not only...
Physician Happiness and Satisfaction Study
Physician Happiness Study and what you can do with it Last week the 2015 Great American Physician Survey, sponsored by Kareo, revealed a new statistic on physician happiness. In this study, they interviewed 1001 physicians where the majority was male (58.7%) and...
How You Can Stop Annoyance or Frustrations Quickly
Are you feeling frustrated or annoyed more frequently? Feeling frustration or annoyance frequently can be a major energy drainer in your life. It sucks everything out of you and many times it is hard to recover from this setback. Here is a neuroscientific trick that...
Two Concrete Principles That Ensure Your Success and Work-Life Balance
In general, physicians who explore my programs want more fulfillment, less stress, better performance – either as a doctor, as a leader, or as a parent / spouse. One of my mantras for all my programs is to keep everything rather simple. I learned the more complicated...
Work-Life Balance Strategies For Physicians
Can you comment on some of the strategies I’ve seen mentioned such as: – Compromise – Set reasonable expectations – Hire help at home with chores (lawn cutting), and find tasks at work you can delegate. (“If it doesn’t require your MD degree, consider delegating or...
How Do You Handle Complaints?
On Tuesday, while I was waiting for a client in a hospital cafeteria, I overheard a conversation between two physicians who were talking about their frustration with their office manager. Sitting close by I couldn’t help but notice how much time, strong feelings, and...
Do What Matters To You – Life Doesn’t Wait
For the longest time, I had "legit" reasons and time-related excuses to skip working out. To put a stop on that I signed up for a Tough Mudder event, which is a 10.3 mile run with 21 different muddy, mental, and strength related challenges. Committing to the event and...
Compassionate Care
Four Tips To Give Constructive Feedback To Your Staff
Are you dissatisfied with the performance of some of your supportive staff members? Now you may think that physicians who work in their private practice have it rather easy. They tell the personnel how to do it next time and if the person won’t do it or can’t do it,...
Long-term Stress Destroys Physicians
Just a couple of days ago I had an interesting conversation with a physician who is so stressed out right now that she became very emotional as soon as I asked her some clarifying questions. As a physician you have been trained to work through stress and accept stress...
If You Tolerate It, It Burns You Out
When you first practiced medicine did you feel stress during your first major procedure or an emergency situation where the life of a patient depended on you? I am sure you did, most people experience stress when they do something new the very first time or when...
Prevent Physician Burnout – Plan Time Off for the Year!
Studies and experience have proven that taking time off reduces stress and burnout. It amazes me that the United States is one of only 13 countries in the entire world that does not mandate vacation time. The Medscape 2015 Physician Lifestyle Report revealed that more...
Prevent Physician Burnout & Medscape 2015 Study
Medscape published their 2015 Physician Lifestyle Report. If you haven’t seen it yet, here are the numbers: 46% of physicians reported that they are feeling burned out. Burnout is defined as loss of enthusiasm for work, feelings of...
How to say “no” without feeling guilty
Your schedule is already full. Your kids complain that you don’t spend enough time. You are sleep deprived, and you feel like life is out of control. Rings a bell? Additionally, a hospital administrator asks you whether you’d be willing to write an article for the...
The Mindset of Future Physicians
The Ninth Future Physicians of America survey report that included the opinions of 1,462 medical students from August / September of 2014 announced the following results: Almost three quarters of medical students desire to work in a larger health system or...
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