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Update August 2023
Dr2DrCoaching.com.au is now live
Dr2Dr Coaching is a new venture delivering the coaching services to Australian doctors previously provided by MindingTheGap Coaching and Communication Training.
MindingTheGap will continue to provide PCM and LOD training services to Healthcare, Education and Industry, as well as tools-based coaching to non-physicians.
COACHING FOR MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS
Background
Medical education in Australia has devbeloped over 150yrs to comprise: basic education, prevocational training, vocational training and continuing professional development. This has served well to train and maintain technical skills in the medical workforce.
Training in non-technical skills ("NTS" - includes situational awareness, decision-making, communication, team working, leadership, stress- and fatigue-management) has emerged only in the last decade or so, championed by Anaesthetic and Surgical endeavours. Undergraduate institutions have varied in their adoption of NTS training according to their degree of enlightenment.
Mentorship and Peer Support have played a significant role in the settings of vocational training and professional development, yet professional coaching is only beginning to be utilised by the medical profession. The differences are outline here:
Mentorship is a relationship in which the mentor has greater knowledge and experience and provides guidance to the lesser experienced mentee.
Peer support comprises collegial support through shared knowledge and experience with peers, commonly focussing on emotional and social support.
Formal Peer Support programs can be employed to support doctors in the setting of medical error or traumatic event involving the care of a patient.
Coaching is distinct from mentorship and peer support, and involves a partnership between coach and coachee involving inquiry, encouragement, and accountability to increase self-awareness, motivation, and the capacity to take effective action.
Coaching is an especially effective way to assist non-technical skills development, particularly communication and conflict management skills in the setting of stress and distress. It is notable that effective coaches do not need to be fellow medical practitioners, although the shared experience and understanding of medical culture by fellow practitioners can be helpful.
compassion
Coaching with compassion
There has been increasing recognition of the central importance of compassion in healthcare over the past 15yrs, yet in this same period there has been a perceived decline in compassion accross health systems world-wide. The decrease in compassion, combined with the associated moral distress, have contributed to increasing rates of burnout.
Stephen Trzeciak in his groundbreaking 2019 book "Compassionomics" declares the "Compassion Crisis" to be the most pressing problem of our time.
NextElement's Compassion Cycle® elegantly applies the compassion skills of Openness, Resourcefulness and Persistence to use the energy present in conflict in a postive and creative way. This cyclic model readily applies to the coaching process, by establishing a caring and psychologically safe environment, and progressing to collaborative curiosity and true accountability. In learning the compassion cycle, the principles of self-compassion are established which serve well as a foundation for self-coaching.
Compassion defined:
Etymology:
'Co-suffering' or 'Struggling with'
Contemporary definitions:
- "Sensitivity to suffering, and the motivation to relieve, improve, or prevent it in oneself and others (Brito-Pons 2018 )
- “The emotional response to another’s pain or suffering, involving an authentic desire to help” (Goetz 2010)
Why now
Widely used in the corporate world, it would be rare to encounter a business executive that has not used coaching to elevate personal and professional performance, yet within the culture of medicine, professional coaching remains a novelty.
The Covid pandemic has been responsible for escalating stress levels through all facets of society. This has added to the pre-existing, well documented sources of stress and distress prevalent in healthcare, including:
- Workplace cultural issues, professional isolation, lack of support
- Emotional challenges – responding to psychosocial component of clinical care. Dealing with grief, sadness, uncertainty, unrealistic expectations, excessively demanding, manipulative or abusive patients.
- Collegial, interprofessional & institutional conflict. Power-politic struggles
- Bullying
- Workload, working conditions, clinical and leadership responsibilities
- Work-life balance and home/family challenges.
1:1 coaching is well suited to helping the already over-stretched, highly technically trained practitioner acquire and develop the non-technical skills to confidently navigate the increasing challenges of the modern healthcare environment. 1:1 coaching with MindingTheGap uses evidence-based psychometric assessments and state-of-the-art communication tools that have proven effective in the modern healthcare, business, corporate, and aerospace environments.