The SurgeonMasters Podcast

Pump the brakes on your week and take 10 minutes to make your life as a surgeon just a little better…

Jeff welcomes to the podcast physician and entrepreneur, Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley. Michelle has spent more than 16 years assisting physicians with career strategy and transitions.

Many physicians are afraid when they start to feel that a career in medicine isn’t what they want to do - often because we’re not really taught that there are other options available to us. But it’s important to remember that transitioning careers (even for physicians) is very normal, especially as we all live longer. In fact, according to research by the Department of Labor, most people have 5-7 career changes throughout their lives. 

What steps does Michelle suggest we do to approach career transitions?

• Step 1 - Get Started. Don’t worry about being perfect (I know this can be hard for a lot of physicians!). Sit down with a piece of paper and try to identify where you want to be career-wise in 1 year, 3 years, and 5 years.

• Step 2 -  Write / Edit Your Resume! Start getting down on paper what you’ve done professionally.

• Step 3 - Get on LinkedIn. Build out your profile and start networking.

Michelle is a physician and entrepreneur. She runs 4 different businesses and has spent over 16 years assisting physicians with career strategy. The doctors she works with are interested in using their degree in a non-traditional way, exploring a non-clinical career, optimizing their skills and passions within their career and rediscovering meaning and purpose in their work. Dr. Mudge-Riley was called the “Doctor’s Doctor” in a 2010 book she co-authored because of her success in working with other doctors. The book is titled Physicians in Transition.

Pump the brakes on your week and take 10 minutes to make your life as a surgeon just a little better…

Jeff welcomes to the podcast psychologist, success coach, and international best-selling author Dr. Sharon Grossman.

There are many factors that contribute to physician burnout - from system-wide issues, to internal demands that we place on ourselves. Because physicians are often high achievers, we often tend to push ourselves really hard. We’re constantly focused on doing, giving, and providing. In doing so, we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves.

Emotions are contagious. If you’re surrounded by people who are irritable, you are likely to start feeling irritable yourself. Similarly, if you’re irritable, you may start infecting others around you. With that in mind, it’s important to try and control our emotions. A great way to do that is try to depersonalize situations.

What steps does Sharon suggest we do to avoid becoming irritable?

• Step 1 - Assume it’s not about you. When you start getting irritated with another person, assume the issue is not about you - because it’s probably not!

• Step 2 -  Ask yourself what it’s really about. Listen without interrupting and try to understand where the other person is coming from.

• Step 3 - Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Don’t get defensive and work to empathize with the other person’s viewpoint.

Dr. Sharon Grossman is a psychologist, success coach, and the author of the international bestselling book, The 7E Solution to Burnout: Transforming High Achievers from Exhausted to Extraordinary. For the past 19 years, she has coached physicians who are struggling with anxiety, overwhelm, and burnout. She works with them using her Exhausted to Extraordinary™ Method to break through the mental fog, boost their energy levels, and enjoy more of what matters in 90 days. Visit her at: www.drsharongrossman.com

Jeff welcomes to the podcast certified physician coach and physician executive, Dr. Terri Malcolm.

Terri reminds us that emotions play a pivotal role in our actions, behaviors, and thoughts. As physicians, it’s important for us to be emotional scientists. As a physician coach, Terri strongly believes that we need to attain a better understanding of who we are and how we tick by tapping into our emotions.

As physicians and especially surgeons, we’re often taught to bottle up our emotions, but so much of how we behave is based on how we’re feeling. It’s essential that we dig into these emotions so we can better manage our actions, attitudes, and behaviors. 

While it isn't easy for surgeons to do this, what simple steps does Terri suggest we do to build our emotional vocabulary?

• Step 1 -Try a 1-5-7 Model. Find 5 times throughout the day to check in briefly with your emotional self for 7 consecutive days.

• Step 2 -  Step 2 -  Identify Your Emotions. At each of those 5 moments, identify the emotion that you’re feeling. 

• Step 3 - Reflect on Your Dominant Emotions. On that 7th day, reflect back on your dominant emotions and assess how well those emotions were serving you in doing what you do, or in accomplishing your short- and long-term goals.

Check out this complimentary resource from Dr. Malcolm:

Dr. Malcolm (Terri) is a Certified Physician Coach and Physician Executive. Her coaching philosophy, The Malcolm Method, is rooted in the principles of social and emotional intelligence, positive psychology, and strengths-based leadership. Through-thought provoking conversations, she strives to deepen the awareness of her physician clients and further their actions, thereby helping them to thrive as they lead. Dr. Malcolm (known to friends and family as Terri) is a loving wife to her husband, Nate. Together they have three charming and athletic boys, Nathaniel, and twins, Roman and Colton.

Jeff welcomes to the podcast Dr. Kara Pepper - a practicing primary care internist, certified life coach, and primary care physician for Atlanta Ballet.

Most physicians are aware of the concept of second victim syndrome - the negative experience or emotion that physicians may experience after an adverse event. On top of the experience of second victim syndrome that many physicians are all too aware of, we are trained to ignore these emotions and just keep going, rather than process these emotions as they arise. This can lead to significant emotional issues that can build over time. 

What steps does Kara suggest we take to address second victim syndrome?

• Step 1 - Individuals - Take time and create space for yourself after an adverse event to acknowledge the emotions you’re experiencing.

• Step 2 -  Organizations - Provide support and screen for second victim syndrome by asking physicians about their state of mind after an adverse event.

• Step 3 - Where steps 1 and 2 are easier said than done, reach out to a community for ideas or assistance.

Dr. Kara Pepper is a practicing primary care Internist, Certified Life Coach, and primary care physician for Atlanta Ballet. Dr. Pepper helps physicians love the life they worked so hard to create. She specializes in burnout, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome. She provides one-on-one and group coaching and speaks on topics surrounding burnout and physician wellness.

Jeff welcomes to the podcast Dr. Paul DeChant, an experienced physician executive, leadership coach, and an expert on physician burnout.

We spend a lot of time on the personal aspects of burnout, but not nearly enough time discussing the organizational drivers of burnout. Most people understand the manifestations of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, cynicism, etc.), but not as many people are aware of the drivers that actually lead to burnout. The problem with burnout is not the physician. It’s the workplace. The system blames the physician for burning out when it’s the workplace that is creating the burn out.

Paul reminds us that there are six primary drivers that lead to burnout:

• Driver 1 - Work Overload

• Driver 2 - Loss of Control

• Driver 3 - Insufficient Reward

• Driver 4 - Breakdown of Community

• Driver 5 - Absence of Fairness

• Driver 6 - Conflicting Values

The more we understand these drivers, the better we’re able to have a direct impact on our workplace and our overall well-being.

Dr. Paul DeChant is an internationally recognized expert on clinician burnout. He speaks from the unique combined experience as a family physician, medical group CEO, and consultant to C-level leaders on engaging physicians to reduce burnout while building the bottom line.

In addition to 25 years of practicing family medicine, he has served as:

• President and Medical Director for High Country Health Care (a group he developed in the Colorado Rocky Mountains),

• Department director and compensation committee chair for Geisinger Health,

• Medical director, divisional president, and board member for the Palo Alto Medical Foundation,

• CEO for the Sutter Gould Medical Foundation,

• Executive advisor to Simpler Healthcare, and

• Deputy Chief Health Officer for IBM Watson Health.

While he was CEO, the Sutter Gould Medical Foundation achieved the highest overall rating of 170 medical groups in California two years in a row from Consumer Reports and the California Healthcare Performance Information System, and improved provider satisfaction from p45 to p87 in the AMGA Provider Satisfaction Survey.

He co-authored, “Preventing Physician Burnout: Curing the Chaos and Returning Joy to the Practice of Medicine”, and blogs regularly at www.pauldechantmd.com.

He can be reached at [email protected].