Doctors at Work

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In this episode, Clare talks about her career and we particularly focus on her leadership roles. She tells me that as doctors we are all leaders, and often don't appreciate the skills that we actually have. Her leadership wasn't part of a big master plan, she worked hard as a front line GP, had her eyes open to identify problems, and then went on and did something about it. She advises others to work hard, say yes to opportunities, and always be kind.

Having first trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley hospital, Clare Gerada followed her father’s footsteps and became a general practitioner, working in her practice in South London for more than thirty four years. Over this time, alongside her clinical practice, she has held several national leadership positions including both the Chair and President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, only the second women in its history to hold both position. Clare has also set up and led, until 2021 the award winning service for doctors and dentists with mental health problems, NHS Practitioner Health.  She has also set up and leads the Primary Care Gambling Service, a unique GP-led multidisciplinary service straddling the primary, secondary and third sectors. Clare was awarded an MBE in 2000 for her services to drug misuse and received a Dame hood in 2020 for services to mental health.

With Phil Hammond, Clare is appearing at the Edinburgh fringe in August 2024: Fifty minutes to save the NHS. Book tickets here.

Listen at https://matdaniel.net/podcast/; https://open.spotify.com/show/1j8uLaUU1g5bYTRVuwUX7j?si=672ec26a73164d7f; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctors-at-work/id1701284564; or watch on www.youtube.com/@dr-coach/videos.
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You can find out more about Mat's coaching to help doctors create successful and meaningful careers at www.MatDaniel.net. 

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In this episode, I am having a conversation with Dr Valerie Young who is a world thought leader on impostor syndrome. She tells me that impostor syndrome is about feeling that you are not as good as others, attributing your successes to external factors, and a pervasive fear of being found out. It is common in healthcare professionals, linked at least partially to the stakes being high, and our culture of criticising each other. Dealing with impostor syndrome requires recognition that it is common, and normalising it's presence. It requires reframing to a humble realist response where people have a realistic appraisal of their skills and a healthy response to feedback. And it requires separation of feelings of confidence from actual competence, they two are not the same, and thinking and acting competent is likely to come before one feels confident.

Dr. Valerie Young is widely recognized as the foremost thought leader on impostor syndrome. In addition to speaking at over 100 universities including Harvard, MIT, Yale medical school, and Oxford she’s spoken at such diverse organizations as Pfizer, Google, the National Cancer Institute, and NASA. Her award-winning book “The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: And Men, Why Capable People Suffer from Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It” has been published in 7 languages. And her advice has been cited in Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Science, The New York Times, on the BBC, and elsewhere. In 2021 she co-founded the Impostor Syndrome Institute to bring solutions to organizations. You can learn more about Valerie’s work at ImpostorSyndrome.com

If you liked this episode you might also like episodes 19 and 69 on the inner critic.

Listen at https://matdaniel.net/podcast/; https://open.spotify.com/show/1j8uLaUU1g5bYTRVuwUX7j?si=672ec26a73164d7f; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctors-at-work/id1701284564; or watch on www.youtube.com/@dr-coach/videos.
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You can find out more about Mat's coaching to help doctors create successful and meaningful careers at www.MatDaniel.net. 

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In this episode, Professor Rebecca Jones and I discuss inclusive leadership. She tells me that inclusive leadership is about enabling everyone to contribute and be their authentic self. In order to generate the best team performance possible, inclusive leaders need to be focused on enabling everyone to contribute, and ask what this person brings rather than merely focused on how they fit in. Whilst it may be more difficult to display inclusive behaviours during times of stress, it is our own responsibility to educate ourselves, develop self insight, and have the curiosity and courage to include every team member.

Professor Rebecca J Jones PhD CPsychol is a Professor in Coaching and Behavioural Change at Henley Business School, a Chartered Psychologist and Co-Founder of Inclusive Leadership Company. Her research interests lie in examining the factors that influence coaching effectiveness and her consultancy practice focuses on working with organisations to create diverse and inclusive workplaces using coaching and psychological theory and research to achieve sustained behaviour change. Rebecca is the author of the book ‘Coaching with Research in Mind’, host of ‘Coaching@Henley’ podcast and has published her research in globally renowned journals.

Website: https://inclusiveleadershipcompany.com/

Inclusive leadership research paper: https://inclusiveleadershipcompany.com/the-inclusive-leader-system/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-jones-35ab8526/

Listen at https://matdaniel.net/podcast/; https://open.spotify.com/show/1j8uLaUU1g5bYTRVuwUX7j?si=672ec26a73164d7f; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctors-at-work/id1701284564; or watch on www.youtube.com/@dr-coach/videos.
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You can find out more about Mat's coaching to help doctors create successful and meaningful careers at www.MatDaniel.net. 

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In this episode, Nitin talks about his retirement. Whilst he has finished clinical work, he remains involved in professional aspects of medicine. He outlines the challenges of going from being a consultant to, as he puts it, nothing, and stresses the importance of people both peri and post-retirement.

If you enjoyed this episode you might also like episode 72 on retirement. Nitin's previous episode on supporting SAS doctors is episode 69.

Nitin Shrotri is a Consultant Urologist, who was awarded the BAUS Gold Medal for 2022, and has recently been appointed as Visiting Professor at the Institute of Medicine at the University of Bolton and also as Vice Chair at the Centre for Race Equality in Medicine. Before this he was BMA UK Council member between 2020-22 and a member of the GMC BME Forum last year. You can connect with Nitin on LinkedIn, and read his writings at nitinshrotri.com.

Listen at https://matdaniel.net/podcast/; https://open.spotify.com/show/1j8uLaUU1g5bYTRVuwUX7j?si=672ec26a73164d7f; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctors-at-work/id1701284564; or watch on www.youtube.com/@dr-coach/videos.
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You can find out more about Mat's coaching to help doctors create successful and meaningful careers at www.MatDaniel.net. 

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Tommy is a GP and the co-founder of Medics' Money (https://www.medicsmoney.co.uk/) . In this episode, we talk about portfolio careers. He tells me where the initial ideas for his business came from, and how even a weakness can become translated into a unique advantage. We discuss how to progress an idea, and what happens as the business grows. And we talk about how to balance the time and energy to work towards enjoying both the clinical career and the side venture.

Listen at https://matdaniel.net/podcast/; https://open.spotify.com/show/1j8uLaUU1g5bYTRVuwUX7j?si=672ec26a73164d7f; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctors-at-work/id1701284564; or watch on www.youtube.com/@dr-coach/videos.
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You can find out more about Mat's coaching to help doctors create successful and meaningful careers at www.MatDaniel.net. 

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Burnout affects many professionals in healthcare. In this episode, Ami Foster and I discuss how to spot when you are in the middle of it, and what can be done about it. Better than dealing with burnout would be prevention. We talk about how as doctors we are constantly on sympathetic system over-drive, but actually we need to invest in our wellbeing for the sake of the future including our own career success and longevity. The reality is that the world will always want more from us, so it is for us to put in some boundaries and strategies to help set us up for short-term and long-term success.  It's not selfish to practice self-care, and you can be both patient focused and interested in your own wellbeing.

Ami Foster is a Board Certified Family Medicine Physician and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. 20 years post-residency experience in patient centered medical care with a holistic approach including teaching Family Medicine residents, medical students, and PA and FNP within the clinical setting. By exposure to a wide variety of practices during my career, I have a unique understanding of the complexities and challenges of providing patient centered care, managing practices with cost containment and collaboration across the care continuum. Experience with ACO, value based care contracts, HCC coding, closing care gaps and working with care teams to promote quality patient care and cost containment across the care continuum. Physician advisor experience with Commercial, Medicare, Medicaid. MCG certified 2024. Experienced with Interqual guidelines. Utilization management experience: outpatient imaging procedures; Specialty Pharmacy-Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and Commercial; Medicare: inpatient concurrent reviews, prior authorization review, waivers and post acute care review including SNF, IRF and LTACH. Knowledge of Interqual, MCG and NCQA guidelines. Collaboration within physician and care teams and peer to peer interactions.  I have a passion for facilitating physician wellness especially at the medical student and residency level of training! I am licensed to practice medicine in Texas, Colorado, Michigan and Hawaii. I am also a licensed real estate agent in Texas.

Listen at https://matdaniel.net/podcast/; https://open.spotify.com/show/1j8uLaUU1g5bYTRVuwUX7j?si=672ec26a73164d7f; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctors-at-work/id1701284564; or watch on www.youtube.com/@dr-coach/videos.
Production: Shot by Polachek

You can find out more about Mat's coaching to help doctors create successful and meaningful careers at www.MatDaniel.net. 

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For many doctors a career in medicine seems like a conveyor belt, but increasingly people are willing to take stock and consider what it is that they want in their lives, and what kind of a career suits them. This may be decisions relating to specialties, locations, allied roles, leadership roles, or wholesale changes. In this episode, Giles Croft tells me about career decisions that he has made. We identify that slowing down matters, happiness is an inside job, and we create a six point plan for career transitions.

Giles is a psychology graduate and former NHS surgeon who stepped aside from clinical practice to seek happiness in a number of alternative career paths, including health informatics, cycling journalism, public speaking and high street retail with his wife. Ultimately he realised what we all know to be true — that happiness is indeed an ‘inside job’ — and since 2018 has been helping individuals and groups to rediscover their own ‘Innate Health’ as a speaker, coach and trainer. He has worked extensively with busy Health & Social Care staff, and his 6 week Reconnect Programme was recently found by the UK’s What Works Centre for Wellbeing, to be the most effective way to improve staff wellbeing and mental health, out of more than 200 different interventions across the UK. Giles writes a monthly wellbeing column in the South Wales-based Focus Magazine, runs a free monthly online meet-up called ‘Wellbeing Wednesdays’ and lives in Abergavenny with his wife and 10 year old daughter.

You can connect with him:
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://gilespcroft.com
Wellbeing Wednesdays: https://gilespcroft.com/wellbeing/
YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/drgilespcroft
Facebook page: https://facebook.com/drgilespcroft
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/gilespcroft
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/drgilespcroft

Listen at https://matdaniel.net/podcast/; https://open.spotify.com/show/1j8uLaUU1g5bYTRVuwUX7j?si=672ec26a73164d7f; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctors-at-work/id1701284564; or watch on www.youtube.com/@dr-coach/videos.
Production: Shot by Polachek

You can find out more about Mat's coaching to help doctors create successful and meaningful careers at www.MatDaniel.net. 

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Leadership is a key quality that all doctors need to posses. But sometime it is challenging to lead in a way that sits comfortably with you, whilst accepting the external reality. In this podcast, Ross tells me that authentic leadership is about specifically choosing the best response for a situation, based on what matters to each person as an individual. We talk about values, psychological flexibility, and he shares his top tips.

Ross is an organisational and coaching psychologist. As a practitioner, he uses evidence-based psychology in all areas of his portfolio career. In his research role at City, University of London, he works alongside Dr Paul Flaxman in an academic/practitioner partnership where they design and deliver ACT Workplace Training for both the public and private sector. He also lectures in organisational psychology at City, University of London and Birkbeck. Nine years ago, he founded the start-up, People Soup, which aims to cultivate well-being, adaptability, meaningful action and awareness in organisations. He has designed and delivered evidence-based training to over 23 NHS Trusts, HM Treasury, Nectar Loyalty, teachers, a global tech company, a global drinks company, hedge fund managers and a variety of ballet companies and independent dancers. Prior to his portfolio career, he spent over 20 years in Senior HR roles in the UK Civil Service. He has a BSc (Hons) in psychology from the University of Dundee and Masters degrees in Human Resource Management and Organisational Psychology. He’s a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD), the Association for Coaching and the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). He's also the founder and host of the award winning People Soup Podcast - which aims to make behavioural science, accessible, useful and fun for adults at work.

You can find all of Ross' links here - https://linktr.ee/PeopleSoup

Listen at https://matdaniel.net/podcast/; https://open.spotify.com/show/1j8uLaUU1g5bYTRVuwUX7j?si=672ec26a73164d7f; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctors-at-work/id1701284564; or watch on www.youtube.com/@dr-coach/videos.
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You can find out more about Mat's coaching to help doctors create successful and meaningful careers at www.MatDaniel.net. 

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As doctors our training focuses on clinical skills, yet sooner or later we all find ourselves in a position of being a team leader. In this episode, Declan tells me that leadership is a different set of skills, and one that can be learnt and developed. A mindset of listening, asking questions, and being open to try things is important, and modelling psychological safety through acknowledging uncertainties is key to creating an environment where others feel safe to belong and speak up. I love his idea that leadership is something that can move around the team depending on what is needed and what expertise team members have. Perhaps a key insight is noticing what's going on in the team, what it is that the team needs, and asking how things could be better.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like 87 how to become a senior medical leader, 86 how to become head of school of General Practice, and 59 how to create great teams.

Dr. Declan Woods is a ‘top team’ Psychologist and Professor of Leadership Practice at King's College London (KCL) who specialises in working with boards and leadership teams in international blue-chip corporations and public sector bodies. He has significant experience in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors and with the NHS. He is the founding CEO of teamGenie, an international venture specialising in designing, coaching, and developing teams with the mission of transforming organisations through teams (see teamgenie.com). Declan used his expertise and research on teams to create the award-winning diagnostic tool, teamSalient, to help teams radically improve their impact (see teamsalient.com). Declan is the world’s first team Master Coach accredited with the Association for Coaching (AC), and a Chartered and HCPC-registered Psychologist. Declan created the global industry standard for team coaching (see associationforcoaching.com/page/TCADetails) and previously co-authored and launched coaching’s global code of ethics (globalcodeofethics.org) signed by the world's leading coaching and mentoring bodies and companies. He was made a lifetime Fellow of the Association for Coaching (AC) for this work raising standards of coaching in organisations globally.

Listen at https://matdaniel.net/podcast/; https://open.spotify.com/show/1j8uLaUU1g5bYTRVuwUX7j?si=672ec26a73164d7f; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctors-at-work/id1701284564; or watch on www.youtube.com/@dr-coach/videos.
Production: Shot by Polachek

You can find out more about Mat's coaching to help doctors create successful and meaningful careers at www.MatDaniel.net. 

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David noticed a problem, got an idea, and brought it to fruition. The result was a book featuring 100 different voices and aiming to improve doctors' wellbeing. In this episode, we talk about creativity -  we all already are creative. It is important to notice to what excites and frustrates us, and to wake up and bring our whole selves to work. Great ideas might be sabotaged by fear of failure or worrying about what others think, but he advises that we cannot please everyone, and the attitude of trial and error is more important than aiming for perfect outcomes.

In the spring of 2003, David Tamale-Sali [surname pronounced: Tah Mah Lay Sah Lee] attended a surprisingly life-changing lecture, and then four months later found himself kicked out of Medical School at the start of resitting his third year. He then spent the next two decades off the beaten path, having experiences such as summarising patient Medical notes in a GP surgery, selling products on the high street for a Hollywood makeup artist, freelance copywriting, raising a family whilst on benefits, hosting a Franchising podcast, being blackmailed by his Dad into going back to medical school, getting kicked out of Medical school during Lockdown…all while continuing to encourage distressed and frustrated Medics from around the world via email, private forums and his blog at Okaydoctor.net. David is married with 7 kids, a writer/bass player, and an encourager of all who are ready to leave Medicine to enjoy a fulfilling and abundant life. You can get a free copy of his latest project, Medic S.O.S, by going to www.okaydoctor.net/sos

Listen at https://matdaniel.net/podcast/; https://open.spotify.com/show/1j8uLaUU1g5bYTRVuwUX7j?si=672ec26a73164d7f; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctors-at-work/id1701284564; or watch on www.youtube.com/@dr-coach/videos.
Production: Shot by Polachek

You can find out more about Mat's coaching to help doctors create successful and meaningful careers at www.MatDaniel.net.