Should you have a coach? Greg Pawlson, Beth Griffiths, & Vicky Tang

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GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast 43 min 3 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 8 hours ago

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What is coaching and why is it becoming popular in academic medicine?

Eric Widera 0:01

welcome to the cherry pal podcast this is eric winera hi this is alex smith alex is that your halloween costume i indeed matey for those who are not watching on youtube alex has uh an ancient axe and some type of headgear on like a norse and i don't know if i have the accent right What are you trying to be,

Alex Smith 0:28

Alex? Maybe that's a pirate accent.

Eric Widera 0:32

You are a pirate, but you're not a pirate. You're not dressed as a pirate. Alex, maybe you need some coaching to figure out how to do Halloween costumes and accents correctly. But before we talk about that, who is on the Zoom with us right now?

Alex Smith 0:47

Well, today we're delighted to welcome Beth Griffiths, who's a primary care internist and associate professor of medicine at UCSF and leads a coaching program for general internists also at UCSF. Beth, welcome to Jerry Powell.

Beth Griffiths 1:00

Thank you.

Alex Smith 1:01

We're delighted to also welcome Greg Paulson, who's senior faculty at Lodestar Consulting and Executive Coaching and former president of the American Geriatrics Society. Greg, welcome to GeriPal. And we're delighted to welcome Vicki Tang, who's a geriatrician researcher and associate professor of medicine at UCSF and founded and leads the Junior Geriatrics Research Faculty Wellness Group. Vicki, welcome to

Vicky Tang 1:26

GeriPal. Hi.

1:27

Hi.

Eric Widera 1:28

Well, we're going to be talking about coaching, what it is, when do we need it, what's the evidence behind it, tons of other stuff. But before we get into that, who has a song request for Alex?

Vicky Tang 1:43

I do. I have one.

Eric Widera 1:45

All right, Vicki, what is it?

Vicky Tang 1:47

Don't Stop Believing.

Eric Widera 1:49

Why did you pick this song?

Vicky Tang 1:52

Because prior to coaching, I was starting to stop believing. And it was after coaching that I reconnected with my why and my mission to help older people. So thank you.

Eric Widera 2:08

Wonderful, Alex.

2:12

Just a small town girl living in a lonely world. She took the midnight train going anywhere Just a city boy Born and raised in South Detroit He took the midnight train going anywhere Strangers waiting down the boulevard there's shadows searching in the night streetlights people living just to find emotion hiding somewhere in the

3:24

Hold on to that feeling

Eric Widera 3:42

I could tell Alex loved that song.

Alex Smith 3:44

I love that song. It's

Eric Widera 3:46

so fun. Well, Vicky, thanks for the song. And thanks for the brief kind of reason why kind of you're thinking about this and maybe why the reason you're also interested in coaching. Is that right?

Vicky Tang 4:02

Yeah, that's right. I have a coaching practice for geriatricians and those interested in increasing their impact in improving older life, older adult care.

Eric Widera 4:14

Let me turn to you, Beth. Why did you get interested in coaching?

Beth Griffiths 4:17

Yeah. Well, I was probably a couple of years into being on faculty. And I think I had a point at which one of the teaching roles that I was leading in the School of Medicine went away. And it was really a time where I think I was questioning what was next. I had the escape fantasies. And on the weekends, my partner and I would go to the small town and think about being the small town doctor and really was starting to re-question what was next. And I think I was very fortunate that one of my med school mentors and teachers, Dr. Sunny Smith, who runs a large coaching program now, Empowering Women Physicians, I think Knowing her made me feel confident that it wasn't a scam, that there might actually be some benefit to me to do some coaching.

Beth Griffiths 5:05

And so through that process, I joined Empowering Women Physicians and it really changed my life. It made me feel purpose again. in my work at UCSF and also allowed me to pivot in some roles and see what was next. And so I became a coach really because it had, like many people, an impact on me. And I wanted to be able to share that with some other people who I saw in my division and department who are having similar issues.

Eric Widera 5:32

That's great.

Beth Griffiths 5:33

Awesome.

Eric Widera 5:34

And Greg, I'm going to turn to you last. You've had a long, historic career as a geriatrician, led the American Geriatric Society, and now you're mostly doing coaching now. Is that right? Yeah,

Greg Pawlson 5:47

coaching and leadership development. You know, it's funny. As my wife, who's a PhD nurse practitioner, who actually was a founding dean of the nursing school at GW, and I was sort of thinking about, well, we're not sure we want to work

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Chapters

8 chapters

1 What is coaching and why is it becoming popular in academic medicine? 0:01–6:48 2 How do the guests define coaching and distinguish it from therapy and mentorship? 6:48–12:39 3 What topics are typically covered in a coaching session for physicians? 12:39–19:11 4 What evidence exists that coaching improves physician burnout and well‑being? 19:11–23:45 5 How do group coaching models differ from one‑on‑one coaching? 23:45–29:39 6 What standards, certifications, and training should I look for when choosing a coach? 29:39–35:44 7 Why might coaching be especially beneficial for women and under‑represented groups in medicine? 35:44–39:55 8 What final advice and resources do the guests recommend for listeners interested in coaching? 39:55–43:23

Speakers

3 identified

Eric Widera 6 min Alex Smith 3 min Bruno Satin

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Topics in this episode

COVID 1 Alex Smith 2 UCSF 4 Eric Widera 1 JAMA 1 Guardian 1 Fortune 500 1 International Coaching Federation 1 American Geriatrics Society 2 Vicky Tang 2 Greg Paulson 3 Lodestar Consulting 1

Source

Recorded09 Nov 2023

Publisherrss.libsyn.com ↗

Transcriptspeaker-named · 100+ languages

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Show notes

Coaching is in. During the later stages of the pandemic, it seemed every other person, and particularly the junior faculty in our Division, were either being coached, in training to coach, or coaching others. When I was a junior faculty, coaching wasn't a thing. Sure, Atul Gawande wrote about coaching in surgery - having someone observe you and coach you on your technical skills- but that's a far cry from the coaching programs focused on empowerment that are exploding around the country today. Today we learn more about coaching from 3 coaches: Greg Pawlson, coach and former president of the American Geriatrics Society, Vicky Tang, geriatrician-researcher at UCSF and coach, and Beth Griffiths, primary care internist at UCSF and coach. We address: What is coaching? How does it differ from therapy? How does it differ from mentoring What is typically covered in coaching sessions? What is the evidence (see many links below, sent by Beth) What are the standards for becoming a coach? Who is coaching for? My take: coaching has tremendous potential. There seems to be a gender story here as well - coaching may be of particular benefit to women who are at higher risk for burnout. Note, for example, the hot off the press JAMA Network Open trial which demonstrated modest benefits across a range of outcomes was conducted exclusively in female resident physicians. Kemi Doll, a physician-researcher and coach, has a terrific podcast I highly recommend everyone listen to, though it is targeted at women of color in academic medicine. On the other hand, there is a concerning side, described in this Guardian article titled, I'm a life coach, you're a life coach: rise of an unregulated industry. See also the long list of disclosures in the JAMA Network Open study. Our guests note, rightly, that the same profit motive and concerns are true about colleges. Still, I remain concerned when I see that the Life Coach School costs $21K; when the founder of the Life Coach School's goal is to grow a $100 million/year business; and when my spidey sense tells me there's something cultish about the empowerment industry. So, I see the potential of coaching, particularly for groups that face challenges in academic medicine; and I worry about the injection of profit-motives and the goals of industry leaders pushing the meteoric rise of the life coach industry. -@AlexSmithMD 1. Hot off the presses RCT in JAMA October 2023: Study that looks at 1000 female resident physicians at 26 sites that showed that coaching improved each outcome assessed (burnout, moral injury, imposter syndrome, self-compassion, and flourishing). https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2810135 2. An RCT for female residents published in JAMA May 2022: This was the initial pilot single institution study by the same team as above. Their findings concluded that it was feasible to implement an online coaching program for female residents and that coaching improved emotional exhaustion, imposter syndrome and self-compassion. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2791968?fbclid=IwAR0taY5CGpUa5eyfleNIl7RfXLT7qVt0GakKPGlT9ESIPLn0yCKWG9obrZo 3. A March 2022 study of Stanford offering coaching as a benefit to their physicians and finding improved self-compassion and burnout. https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(22)00038-6/fulltext 4. The initial RCT published on physician coaching in JAMA in 2019 showing that coaching improves quality of life. This is the first RCT that was available for coaching in physicians. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2740206 5. A 2020 RCT of coaching for primary care physicians shows that coaching improves burnout well-being during the intervention and has a sustained duration at 6 months of follow up. From Beth Israel and UNC. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32297776/ 6. The Business Case for Investing in Physician Wellness, again in JAMA. This paper includes coaching as a sign of a more mature physician wellness program and states it has a positive return on investment. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2653912

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