We are offering several different perspectives on the coaching of physicians in this issue.

Patients’ emotions influence their quality and value ratings as well as what they tell their friends. High-emotion healthcare includes services related to major life events, some of which are at the top of the Holmes and Rahe scale of stressful life events that can contribute to illness. Fine-tuning the way healthcare services are delivered can make a big difference in patients’ satisfaction and outcomes. …

I look at some of my colleagues who have failed at weaving all the strands together – medical training, personal insight, becoming a leader

Human factors, leadership, and communication are the top three contributors to unexpected events in a healthcare setting that kill or harm patients.

I suspected she was in good hands. I was window dressing. I was doing what all physicians are often asked to do—to just be there, to help translate medical terms, to comfort the patient and her family.

The problem is physician executives were landing in their posts for the same reason that physicians became department chairs in academic medicine – not because they were good at management, but because they were well-respected clinicians.

We physicians live in a blame and shame world, a rigid hierarchy, one where Mistakes. Are. Not. Allowed.

Jack and I created A Whole New Doctor as an experiment with the strong hypothesis that providing coaches to medical students would make a difference in their lives (like providing coping skills and reducing pressures that lead to depression or learning how to engage in team leadership and mindset shifts).

Margaret Cary, MD MBA MPH PCC and Cliff Kayser, MSOD, MSHR, PCC “I’m so exhausted. I love my patients, but caring for them gets in the way of time with my family. I have young kids and I want to be there for them. My dad was always at work and I barely remember him. I don’t want that to happen …

My work in coaching physicians lives at the interface of what they know—getting it right—and what they often don’t realize, that being an effective executive leader requires additional skills and moving from linear to complex thinking.