Department of Medicine Physician Coaching Program
We are excited to announce a new initiative offering coaching services to the Department of Medicine faculty members. Please read on to learn more about the program.
What is Coaching?
Coaching is a collaborative process that helps you become your best self – personally and professionally. Through Coaching, you can maximize well-being and performance across all aspects of work and life. Your coach will help you identify your values and motivations, increase your capacity to change, and facilitate the change process, ultimately leading to a higher level of health, well-being, and satisfaction.
Why Coaching?
Physician burnout is prevalent and has been shown to adversely impact mental health, job satisfaction, as well as quality of care. Coaching has recently been identified as a strategy for addressing burnout and improving well-being by decreasing emotional exhaustion, enhancing quality of life, and fostering resilience.
How does Coaching work?
Your coach is a UVA faculty member in the Department of Medicine who has participated in a health and wellness coach training program through Wellcoaches School of Coaching, an International Coaching Federation (ICF)- accredited coach training program.
Your sessions may occur in person or via videoconferencing, as mutually agreed upon. There will typically be about 4 – 6 coaching sessions lasting about 60 minutes each over a few months, though this will be individualized based on one’s circumstances.
What does Coaching address?
Coaching is highly individualized, so you and your coach can identify what is most important to you. Common themes include engaging in self-care, integrating personal and professional life, forging career paths aligned with personal values, finding meaning at work, improving efficiency, promoting self-efficacy, building leadership skills, pursuing new opportunities, building community, and addressing interpersonal conflict.
Meet the Coaches
I am an inpatient critical care and infectious diseases, attending and working with residents and fellows in the Medical ICU. I am also the Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs in the Department of Medicine and serve on the promotion and tenure committee. I also hold various education roles in the Internal Medicine Residency and Medical School. I decided to become a coach because it is a powerful tool in helping physicians define their career and personal goals. Many of us are used to tackling challenges for others (patients, children, parents, etc), but we aren’t as good at doing the same for ourselves. Coaching can help provide that space for reflection and growth. I live just south of Charlottesville in a very loud house, for which I squarely blame my elementary-aged kids and wife, who is an opera singer.
General availability: Monday mornings and Friday afternoons.
I am a general internist practicing primary care at University Physicians Charlottesville (UPC) and director of the Women in Medicine Network, a Department of Medicine initiative to support women faculty and trainees’ professional and personal growth. I live in Charlottesville with my husband (a surgeon at UVA) and our three young children after relocating from Boston in 2022. Outside of work, I love to spend time with family and friends, and everyone agrees that I am a better person when I exercise (running, gravel biking, swimming, tennis, and hiking)!
I became a coach after my experience with Coaching, which was frankly transformative! I believe Coaching has the potential to help many define their career and personal goals and become the best version of themselves. As physicians, we are focused on caring for others, and Coaching provides the space and opportunity to care for ourselves. My areas of interest in Coaching include work-life integration, finding your way during challenging times, setting and meeting personal goals, finding purpose and meaning in work, navigating the dual-physician household, and non-traditional medical paths.
General availability: Tuesdays (all day), Wednesday afternoons, and Thursday mornings.
I am a husband, dad to three boys (becoming young men), and a thoracic medical oncologist at the University of Virginia. While I now claim Virginia as home, my family roots go back to Texas, where I attended Texas A&M University (Gig’em!) and medical school at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas. My wife suggested we look to the Mid-Atlantic for residency training, and I arrived at UVA in 2007 for internal medicine training. Since then, I have developed an intense case of what some have called “Rotunda Fever.” I enjoy fitness, watching my boys push themselves in their activities, and quiet moments reading or walking with my wife and our dog.
One of the most rewarding aspects of my work since joining the faculty at UVA has been assisting in developing colleagues through mentorship, which I now know as coaching. My particular interest is meeting with junior and early mid-career faculty in the messy middle – newly graduated from residency or fellowship, with often busy personal lives, and now a demanding academic career – and helping them bring order and structure into their whole self. My approach to Coaching involves a lot of thoughtful listening punctuated by a few deep questions and an abundance of time to discover your best self.
General availability: Tuesday afternoons and Friday afternoons.