Have you or your organization ever considered hiring a coach for your residency program? Having a coach can be highly beneficial for helping residents navigate the changes and challenges of residency and feel more empowered, even when things seem out of their control.
In episode 25 of the Life, Love, and Leadership for Physicians podcast, Dr. Tonya Caylor and I discuss her experience as an external coach for family medicine residencies. You’ll learn how incorporating a coaching program can benefit both residents and physicians and what to consider when looking for a coach for your team.
Tonya L Caylor, MD, FAAFP, is a family physician and an academic physician coach in Anchorage, Alaska with 24 years of combined clinical and academic experience. She is a certified coach who has earned her ICF credential with additional training in Trauma Mitigation. She owns and runs Joy in Family Medicine Coaching Services®, which partners with family medicine residency programs to help residents and faculty enjoy all of life and thrive in their chosen careers.
What are the most common challenges that Dr. Caylor sees with residents?
Dr. Caylor has helped residents gain clarity on relationships, career goals, interpersonal difficulties, professional interpersonal difficulties, anxiety, feelings of impostorism or self-doubt, and everything in between.
She once had a resident dealing with micro-aggressions brought on by a series of undeserved challenges in addition to the challenges of residency. It’s easy to start feeling helpless when in a place of disempowerment.
“The truth is, we have a lot of agency on how we allow things to impact us and what we decide is in our lane that we want to change and when we want to say, “Okay, I don’t like it, but I’m going to accept it. This is just part of me getting to my long-term goals.”
How can coaching help residents feel more empowered?
Dr. Caylor believes there are two critical factors to assist residents in having more agency and feeling more in control of their residency experience. One of these is separating the facts from the stories we tell ourselves about the facts and examining how our thoughts affect and create our reality.
“The other key is when you are in a place of being disempowered, what roads do you want to take? […] As a worn-out, burnt-out resident, how much of yourself do you want to devote to that right now? How much do you want to say, ‘Not now, but later?’ […] The truth is, there are some really challenging things that all of us in medicine have gone through and experienced, and sometimes you don’t have the bandwidth, right? But there’s agency there too, like, ‘how am I going to decide how to engage?’ And so getting to a place of acceptance for the things that you can’t change is really another big key.”
What should your organization consider when hiring a coach?
- You need to choose a coach that is comfortable and familiar with coaching physicians. While they don’t have to be a physician themselves, it’s incredibly beneficial because they understand the contextual nature of the day-to-day and the challenges we face.
- There are advantages to both internal and external coaches. Developing a coach within your residency program allows there to be boots on the ground. On the other hand, with an external coach, there is no potential for conflicts of interest.
How can a coach benefit your specific team or residency program? Listen and learn more about hiring a coach for your organization in episode 25 of the Life, Love, and Leadership for Physicians podcast.
