Sustainable Clinical Medicine with The Charting Coach

Are you saying yes to everything and wondering why you have no joy left? Dr. Santina Wheat, family physician, program director, and wellness coach, has lived that story and found her way through it. She shares what she has learned about alignment, boundaries, and how to build a sustainable career in medicine without leaving it behind.

Timestamps:

2:00: The reality of family medicine: double bookings, no lunch, and being told you are not bringing in enough money

4:00: How she protects her team from unsustainable scheduling and why saying no for them matters

7:00: The pause: why reacting too quickly is one of the biggest drivers of burnout

13:00: Losing her mom, surviving COVID as a first year program director, and finally finding coaching

17:00: The one misconception that sent her into burnout: thinking availability meant immediate response

22:00: How coaching changed the way she has difficult conversations with residents

3 Key Takeaways:

Saying Yes to Everything Is Not How You Get Ahead. Earlier in her career Dr. Wheat thought taking every opportunity was the path forward. What it actually did was fill her calendar with things she didn't enjoy and drain the joy from her career. Alignment, not busyness, is what creates sustainability. The question to ask yourself: what did the younger version of you actually want to do with this career?

Availability Does Not Mean Immediate Response. One of the biggest lessons Dr. Wheat learned from coaching was that she didn't have to answer every message the moment it arrived. Sometimes waiting two minutes meant someone else handled it. Sometimes the person figured it out themselves. Being responsive and being reactive are two very different things.

The Pause Is Everything. Whether it is a difficult conversation with a resident, a request to take on a new role, or a message that arrives at 10pm, the pause is the single most powerful tool available to any clinician. When you stop and ask how you actually want to respond rather than just reacting, the joy becomes so much easier to find.

About Dr. Santina Wheat Dr. Santina Wheat is a family physician, program director, and wellness coach helping driven healthcare professionals find purpose, set boundaries, and build sustainable careers in medicine.

Connect with Dr. Santina Wheat:

🌐 santinawheat.com

💼 LinkedIn: Santina Wheat

📸 Instagram: @DrTinaWheat

Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here

Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine.

Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca

Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released.

Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @thechartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.

 Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

What does it take for a patient to become one of the most passionate advocates for physician wellbeing? For Kim Downey, it was losing her beloved radiologist to suicide after years of navigating her own complex cancer journey. That moment changed everything. Kim shares what she has learned from hundreds of conversations with physicians about what is really driving the crisis in doctor wellbeing, and what is actually helping.

Timestamps:

1:00: The moment that changed Kim's life and sparked her calling to support doctors

6:00: How a LinkedIn family became a podcast, a newsletter, and two books

8:00: The hidden risk nobody warned doctors about: substance use disorder in medicine

9:00: The themes that keep coming up: perfectionism, shame, and "I thought it was just me"

14:00: Why medical culture teaches doctors to suppress their needs from day one

21:00: Connection as the antidote to trauma and how to find it inside and outside medicine

3 Key Takeaways:

Doctors Are All Walking Around Thinking Everyone Else Is Fine. The shame and isolation of struggling in medicine is compounded by the fact that nobody talks about it. Perfectionism, guilt over complications, and replaying what could have been done differently keeps doctors trapped in silence. When one doctor shares their story, something shifts for them and for everyone listening.

Medical Training Teaches Doctors to Suppress Their Needs, and It Sticks. Not eating for hours, running on no sleep, suppressing emotions to move on to the next patient. By the time doctors reach attending level, self-neglect is so ingrained it feels normal. Kim's message is clear: just as doctors recertify in CPR every year, they should have regular access to resources that remind them how to care for themselves too.

You Are Never Just a Doctor. When medicine becomes your whole identity and the job gets hard, there is nowhere else to go. Having something outside of medicine that nurtures you: a hobby, a community, a person you can be yourself with isn't a luxury. It's what keeps you in the game for the long run.

About Kim Downey:

Kim Downey is a pediatric physical therapist, physician wellbeing advocate, podcast host, and author. After losing her radiologist to suicide, she founded Stand Up for Doctors, a platform dedicated to amplifying physician stories, reducing stigma, and building connection across the medical community.

Connect with Kim Downey:

standupfordoctors.org

LinkedIn: Kim Downey

Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here

Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine.

Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca

Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released.

Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @thechartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.

Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

Are you drowning in responsibility you never actually agreed to take on? Dr. Rachel Morris, former GP and founder of You Are Not a Frog, has spent years helping doctors and healthcare professionals break out of what she calls the responsibility trap, and the answer isn't just learning to say no. It starts with understanding why you can't.

Timestamps:

3:00:  What a day in UK general practice actually looks like and why it's become unsustainable

10:00:  Why trying to teach resilience to medical students never worked

11:00:  The responsibility trap: how good people in high stakes jobs end up carrying everything

15:00:  The poll that revealed why we really can't say no (and it's not patient harm)

22:00:  The pause: the single most powerful tool for breaking the automatic yes

27:00:  Why delegation feels like dumping and how to actually do it well

3 Key Takeaways:

You're Not Carrying Responsibility Because You Said Yes. You're Carrying It Because Nobody Else Did. The responsibility trap isn't just about saying yes too often. It's the work that quietly lands on you without anyone asking, the gaps you fill because you notice them, and the impossible targets the system expects you to meet anyway. Until you get clear on what is and isn't in your control, the guilt and overwhelm will keep coming.

Less Than 20% of the Time Is It Actually About Patient Harm. When Dr. Morris asks audiences what stops them setting boundaries, fewer than one in five say it's because a patient would be harmed. The real reasons are guilt, people pleasing, fear of judgment, and not wanting to disappoint anyone. Knowing that is the first step to doing something about it.

Wellbeing Is an Outcome, Not a Starting Point. Everyone knows what they need to do to stay well. The reason they don't do it is because they have no time or capacity left. Protecting your time and managing your energy has to come first, and that means getting honest about what you're carrying that was never really yours to carry.

About Dr. Rachel Morris

Dr. Rachel Morris is a former GP, keynote speaker, and founder of You Are Not a Frog; a podcast and training business helping doctors and healthcare professionals beat burnout, break out of the responsibility trap, and work happier.

Connect with Dr. Rachel Morris:

🎙️ Podcast: You Are Not a Frog

💼 LinkedIn: Dr. Rachel Morris

Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here

**** Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine.

Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca

**** Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released.

**** Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @chartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.

**** Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

What if the biggest threat to patient safety in your hospital isn't clinical error, but it's how your team treats each other?

Professor Catherine Crock, AM, hematologist at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, spent 35 years asking that question and building something remarkable in response.

From bringing musicians into operating theaters and waiting rooms, to founding the Gathering of Kindness, a global movement to transform healthcare culture, this conversation will change how you think about kindness, safety, and what sustainable medicine actually looks like.

Timestamps:

1:00: Sitting down with families to ask "what makes this harder?" and the surprising answers that changed everything

8:00: Getting pushback on change and why a six week pilot is the best tool in your arsenal

13:00: How music opened the door to talking about how staff were actually feeling

19:00: The Churchill Fellowship revelation: the biggest patient safety risk is how we treat each other

24:00: Theatrical plays about healthcare culture and what hundreds of audience responses revealed about the crisis in how we treat each other

30:00: How a media launch turned one hospital music album into an international movement

3 Key Takeaways:

Kindness Isn't Soft, It's a Patient Safety Strategy: After traveling the world on a Churchill Fellowship studying patient safety, Catherine came to a striking realization: the biggest threat to patient safety is how healthcare workers treat each other. When staff are burned out, disrespected, or running on empty, patient centered care becomes almost impossible. Kindness to your team isn't a nice to have. It's the foundation everything else is built on.

Small Acts of Change Are More Powerful Than Big Overhauls: Whether it was staggering theater admission times, getting a pathology trolley to come to the oncology clinic, or starting each morning huddle with a safety story, Catherine's approach was always the same. Find the right person, propose a small pilot, tweak as you go. You don't need permission to start small.

A Culture of Kindness Lifts Everyone, Including Your Newest Team Members: When a grad nurse told Catherine she felt at her absolute best in their theater because she was welcomed, included, and given a role, it crystallized something important. Psychological safety isn't just good for staff retention and wellbeing. It unlocks performance. When people feel seen and valued, they show up differently, and so does the whole team around them.

Connect with Professor Catherine Crock, AM:

🌐 hush.org.au

🎵 Hush Foundation Music Program

💙 Gathering of Kindness, Kindness in Action online program

About Professor Catherine Crock, AM

Professor Catherine Crock, AM, is a hematologist at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, founder of the Hush Foundation, and creator of the Gathering of Kindness; a global movement to build health systems that are as kind to their staff as they are to their patients.

Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here

**** Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine.

Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca

**** Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released.

**** Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @chartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.

**** Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

Toxic leadership in healthcare is more widespread than the profession likes to acknowledge, and its effects on doctors and clinical teams go well beyond a difficult work environment. Organizational psychologist Dr. Laura Hambley Lovett has spent years researching toxic boss behaviors across industries, and she's clear: healthcare has more than its fair share. In this episode, she breaks down the difference between a difficult boss and a truly toxic one, explains why high-achieving doctors are especially vulnerable, and offers a surprisingly hopeful framework for anyone who feels trapped. If toxic workplace culture has ever made you question your own judgment, this episode is for you.

Timestamped Highlights:

[00:04:00] : Toxic leadership didn't vanish after the pandemic, it came back, and what Dr. Hambley Lovett observed in her clients across healthcare is more concerning than most organizations want to admit.

[00:09:00] : Sending a toxic boss to a leadership course sounds like a reasonable solution. Dr. Hambley Lovett explains why it isn't, and what that tells us about whether true change is ever really possible.

[00:11:00] : Not all toxic behavior is loud or visible. The covert behaviors, the ones that operate quietly over time may cause more lasting damage than the obvious ones, and most people don't recognize them until it's too late.

[00:13:00] : Working harder, impressing more, staying later, it's what high-achieving doctors do when they feel under threat. Dr. Hambley Lovett describes why this instinct, in a toxic environment, tends to make things worse.

[00:18:00] : Feeling trapped is one of the most common experiences of working under a toxic boss. But Dr. Hambley Lovett says there are exactly six options available, and one of them is her favorite for a reason.

[00:32:00] : What does it actually take to be a great leader? The qualities Dr. Hambley Lovett names are not the ones most organizations are selecting for, and that gap explains a lot.

Three Key Takeaways:

1. There is a real difference between a difficult boss and a toxic one. Not every frustrating manager is toxic, and the distinction matters. A difficult boss may be disorganized, absent, or poorly trained for leadership, promoted because they were a great clinician, not because they knew how to lead people. A truly toxic boss is different: they lack self-awareness by design, they divide teams, they gaslight, manipulate, and erode the confidence of the people around them. Recognizing which one you're dealing with changes everything about how you respond, and whether change is even possible.

2. Toxic workplaces create a very specific psychological trap for high achievers. Doctors are trained to work harder when things get difficult. In a toxic environment, that instinct backfires. The pattern Dr. Hambley Lovett describes is consistent across industries: increased effort, diminishing returns, growing anxiety, disrupted sleep, and eventually a confidence so eroded that the thought of leaving feels impossible. Understanding this cycle, and recognizing it early, is the first step toward breaking it before it does serious harm to your mental health and career.

3. You have more options than you think, including one worth planning for. Feeling trapped is real, but it is not the full picture. Dr. Hambley Lovett outlines six concrete options for anyone working under toxic leadership, from setting boundaries and taking medical leave to filing a complaint or building a deliberate exit strategy. Her favorite, creating what she calls a "good riddance date" and working backwards, reframes leaving not as giving up, but as taking back control of your career. For doctors who have built their identity around perseverance, that reframe can be genuinely life-changing.

Meet Dr. Laura Hambley Lovett:

Dr. Laura Hambley Lovett is an organizational psychologist, professional speaker, and career counselor based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with 25 years of experience helping individuals and organizations thrive. She is the founder of Canada Career Counseling and an adjunct professor of organizational psychology at the University of Calgary, where her research on toxic leadership has filled a significant gap in the post-pandemic literature. Her newest book, I Wish I'd Quit Sooner: Practical Strategies for Navigating and Escaping a Toxic Boss, draws on interviews and surveys with hundreds of survivors across North America. She also hosts the podcast Where Work Meets Life, now six years running, which explores career fulfillment, leadership, and wellbeing across industries. Dr. Hambley Lovett brings both rigorous research and genuine warmth to a topic that too many professionals are still suffering through in silence.

Connect with Dr. Laura Hambley Lovett:

🌐 Website: https://drlaura.live/

🎙️ Podcast: https://drlaura.live/podcast/

📺 YouTube: @dr.laurawhereworkmeetslife

📘 Facebook: @Dr.Laura.whereworkmeetslife

📸 Instagram: @drlaura.live

💼 LinkedIn: @drlaurahambley

Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here

**** Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine.

Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca

**** Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released.

**** Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @chartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.

**** Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

Burnout isn’t just about working too much, it’s about working in a system that quietly expects more than is sustainable.

In this episode on reducing clinician burnout, Dr. Lillian Emlet shares what she’s seen from both sides, as a critical care physician and leadership coach. From early-career clinicians running at 110 percent to experienced leaders carrying invisible pressure, this conversation unpacks why burnout shows up so often, and why it doesn’t go away on its own.

Here are 3 key takeaways from this episode:

1. When life gets hard, self-care goes up, not down. Most people abandon their routines when things get overwhelming. Dr. Emlet's counterintuitive lesson, learned through burnout, a pandemic, divorce, and single motherhood, is that the harder things get, the more intentional you need to be about caring for yourself. Working out two hours a day during COVID wasn't indulgent — it was survival.

2. Coaching isn't just for executives, and it doesn't have to be forever. For too long, coaching has been reserved for physician and nurse leaders at the top. Dr. Emlet argues that front-line clinicians of every profession deserve that support too, especially during major transitions. And it doesn't have to be a huge commitment — starting weekly, then scaling back to monthly maintenance is a completely sustainable model.

3. You have more choice than you think, at every level. Whether you're a burnt-out resident struggling to make it to the pickup line or a new chief who just inherited a calendar packed with meetings that were never really yours, the principle is the same: step back, get curious, and ask what actually needs to be there. You don't have to accept the life or role that was handed to you — you get to shape it.

Timestamps:

Meet Dr. Lillian Emlet:
Dr. Lillian Emlet is a critical care and emergency physician, professor, and founder of Transforming Healthcare Coaching®. After 20 years in academic medicine, she combined her clinical expertise with leadership and wellbeing coaching to help healthcare professionals at every level build sustainable, thriving careers. Her work is grounded in emotional intelligence, cognitive science, and energy leadership, transforming healthcare from the inside out, one person at a time.

Connect with Dr. Lillian Emlet:

Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here

**** Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine.

Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca

**** Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released.

**** Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @chartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.

**** Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

If your EMR feels like it’s adding to your workload instead of reducing it, this episode will feel very familiar.

In this conversation, Sarah Smith sits down with healthcare IT and analytics consultant Lori Runion to explore why clinician burnout is often driven by systems, not individuals, and what is actually working to fix it.

From large-scale virtual scribe programs to EMR workflow optimization and predictive staffing, this episode looks at the operational side of burnout and how healthcare organizations can reduce friction, improve efficiency, and give clinicians their time back.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

 Episode breakdown:

01:57 Why EMRs Are Driving Clinician Burnout
04:08 When Work Follows You Home
06:24 Inside a Large-Scale Virtual Scribe Program
10:35 Human Scribes vs Ambient AI
13:27 Using Data to Predict Patient Demand
18:53 Predictive Staffing in Practice
22:50 Fixing EMR Workflow Friction
28:31 Burnout as a Systems Problem
29:47 Managing the Patient Inbox
33:15 Reducing Clicks and Documentation Load

Key Takeaways:

1. Burnout is a systems failure, not a clinician failure. The EMR turned documentation into an after-hours expectation. Fix the workflow, not the person.

2. The data exists and now it's time to use it. Two decades of electronic records are sitting largely untapped. AI finally gives healthcare the tools to act on it predictively, not reactively.

3. You can optimize your EMR without waiting for IT. Pick lists, smart phrases, and a few hours of upfront setup can return significant time. Start small, collaborate with colleagues, and let it compound.

Meet Lori Runion:

Lori Runion is a healthcare technology and transformation leader with more than 20 years of experience improving how care is delivered and documented. At Community Health Network, she led the clinical informatics team through a comprehensive, two-year Epic EHR implementation and spearheaded a virtual scribe program that scaled to over 200 remote scribes, directly reducing provider burnout and helping clinicians reclaim joy in their work. Driven by a passion for supporting healthcare workers, Lori has seen firsthand how the right tools and systems can transform both patient outcomes and clinician well-being. Today, she serves as a Portfolio Leader at Resultant, partnering with healthcare organizations as the day-to-day leader on complex initiatives and helping turn technology investments into meaningful, real-world results.

Outside of work, Lori enjoys planning her next international adventure and cheering on musical theatre performances and football games with her husband and three step-children.

Connect with Lori Runion:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-runion/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lstone8

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Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here.

**** Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine.

Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca

**** Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released.
**** Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @chartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.
 
**** Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

Welcome to another episode of the Sustainable Clinical Medicine Podcast!

Dr. Sadie Elisseou, a primary care physician in the US VA system in Boston, Harvard and Boston University educator, and trauma-informed care expert, discusses her path into medicine and how working with veterans led her to trauma-informed practice after noticing patients’ discomfort during routine exams. She explains trauma-informed care as creating physical and psychological safety through mindful nonverbal communication, transparent agendas, permission-seeking, and reducing power dynamics, with examples such as thyroid exams and avoiding phrases like “for me.” She highlights VA onboarding on military experience, notes higher ACE rates among volunteer-era veterans, and describes how staff behaviors and clinic environments shape patient stress. The conversation also covers clinician wellbeing and burnout prevention via self-care, team debriefing, boundaries, therapy access, and time-management strategies like scheduled breaks, batching tasks, finishing notes between visits, and structuring varied work roles.

Here are 3 key takeaways from this episode:

Meet Dr. Sadie Elisseou:

Sadie Elisseou, MD is a practicing physician, faculty at Harvard Medical School, and leading subject matter expert in trauma-informed care who teaches clinical healthcare professionals how to provide top-quality care to trauma survivors and consults for organizations that wish to cultivate wellness and help team members engage through stressful times.

Connect with Dr. Sadie Elisseou:

🌐 Website https://www.sadie-elisseou.com/

LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/sadie-elisseou/

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Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here

**** Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine.

Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca

**** Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released.
**** Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @chartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.
 
**** Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

Welcome to another episode of the Sustainable Clinical Medicine Podcast!

The host and physician coach Dr. Karen Leitner discuss why the transition to new attending is often harder than training, marked by impostor feelings, shame about not knowing, and decision paralysis in clinical uncertainty. They compare systems in the US, Canada, and Australia, including practice ownership models, overhead, billing learning curves, and how lack of business training and negotiation skills can affect long-term earnings; they share an example of lost income due to paperwork capacity and not realizing support could be hired. They emphasize that regret is unhelpful, mistakes and bad outcomes can happen despite good intentions, and guilt should be replaced with compassion and connection by talking with trusted colleagues. They address burnout dynamics—skipping food, water, and bathroom breaks—advocating radical responsibility, analyzing the “math” of workload, small workflow fixes, and boundaries, including not relying on external praise. Leitner mentions her eight-week coaching program for women physicians.

Here are 3 key takeaways from this episode:

Meet Dr. Karen Leitner:

Dr. Karen Leitner spends the bulk of her time helping women doctors recognize their amazingness and feel better in their lives (in addition to getting paid what they deserve.) She lives outside Boston< MA with her husband, her beloved mini goldendoodle Oscar, and three school-age daughters—and loves to travel, sing karaoke, and fight the patriarchy (preferably in that order).

Connect with Dr. Karen Leitner:

🌐 Website https://www.karenleitnermd.com/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/karenleitnermd/

🌐 https://go.karenleitnermd.com/masterclass free class for women physicians
looking for more time/less stress

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Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here

**** Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine.

Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca

**** Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released.
**** Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @chartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.
 
**** Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

Welcome to another episode of the Sustainable Clinical Medicine Podcast!

Psychologist and psychometrician Dr. Bryan Sexton, Chief Wellness Officer at Duke Health Integrated Practice, discusses how his early quality-improvement work in Johns Hopkins ICUs revealed that high staff burnout undermined readiness for interventions like bloodstream infection reduction. He explains measuring burnout—especially emotional exhaustion—and how adding metrics like work-life integration and emotional recovery enables personalized wellbeing “profiles” and targeted interventions. Sexton describes evidence-based, one- to two-minute “bite-sized” tools (e.g., humor, awe, gratitude) designed for busy clinicians, and how Duke embedded these into continuing education with private feedback to boost engagement; a five-hour, eight-day CE program published in JAMA Network Open (Sept 2024) showed improvements, particularly for those struggling most. He outlines a 7-minute gratitude letter exercise, its research roots (Emmons, Seligman), wellbeing-informed leadership practices, and directs listeners to free tools at caws.dukehealth.org.

Here are 3 key takeaways from this episode:

Meet Dr. Bryan Sexton:

Bryan is the Chief Wellness Officer of Duke Health Integrated Practice and Director of the Duke Center for the Advancement of Well-being Science. After 30 years as a psychologist, psychometrician and investigator, he now works with leaders to assess and improve culture and work-force well-being. Bryan has conducted and published large studies and randomized controlled trials showing how to cause enduring improvements in the well-being of our workforce. He has authored over 100 peer reviewed publications, and his research instruments and well-being interventions have been translated and used in over 30 countries.

A perpetually recovering father of four, he enjoys running, using hand tools on wood, pickleball with friends, and hearing particularly good explanations of extremely complicated topics.

Don’t miss this enlightening conversation! 🎙️

Connect with Dr. Bryan Sexton:

🌐 Website https://caws.dukehealth.org/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/wellb/

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Would you like to view a transcript of this episode?  Click Here

**** Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine.

Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca

**** Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don’t forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released.
**** Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @chartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life.
 
**** Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.