DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast

45: Changing the Culture of Medicine From the Top Down with Dr. Phyllis Dennery

“How are they going to make croissants and not have the recipe? A grocery list? Not have the equipment that you need to make something? It's the same concept. How are you going to be a Chief or Chair or the Dean or the Provost or whatever you want to be without having some sort of roadmap?” -Phyllis A. Dennery, MD, FAAP

In today’s episode Coach Gabriella Dennery MD sits down with her sister, Dr. Phyllis A. Dennery, Chair of Pediatrics at Brown University, to have a frank and rich conversation. They discuss topics including leadership, women in medicine, race and medicine, medical careers, diversity and changing the culture of medicine, mentorship and so much more! 

 

Dr. Phyllis Dennery attended medical school at Howard University College of Medicine, and completed her residency at George Washington University at Children’s National Medical Center. Her fellowship in Neonatology was completed at Case Western Reserve University - Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, Cleveland OH.

Phyllis A. Dennery MD is the Sylvia Kay Hassenfeld Chair of Pediatrics at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University, Pediatrician-in-Chief at Rhode Island Hospital, and Medical Director of Hasbro Children’s Hospital. She is also Professor of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown University.*

Excerpts from the show:

 

“So tell me a little bit more about how you see your journey in medicine as a leader. What was the easiest thing for you and what was the biggest challenge for you?” -Coach Gabriella Dennery MD 

“When I first thought about medicine, as you well know, our family is riddled with physicians throughout the whole family and that was almost a premeditated or predestined choice to go into medicine for many of us in the family. However, at one point I sort of thought, ‘Oh, do I really want to do this?’ I thought about genetics. I wanted to be a geneticist and a scientist. But somewhere along the line I realized when I was an undergraduate that I really did want to go to med school and that was something that was a passion that I wanted to have. So I put my energy into it and said, ‘Ok, I'm going to get there and really make it work.’ So I ended up going to Howard University and enjoying medical school more than I thought. It felt very familiar. It's a lot of stuff I already knew in my mind, or that made sense to me. Then, deciding what to do next, when I was a third-year medical student I walked into the neonatal intensive care unit because we had a pediatric rotation. So now, we would never have a baby out in the open so somebody could reach in because that's not good safe practice and you know, infection control. But there was a tiny baby on a warmer bed and the attending physician reached over and placed her little finger into the space, and the little baby grabbed her little finger just like that, and I said, ‘Wow!’ I said, ‘I want to be a neonatologist because these little creatures that are so fragile will go on to become human beings that participate in this life! This is what I want to do.’ So I pushed for that. That was something that I really thought was my calling. So I realized I had to do a whole lot of things before I got there. I trained in pediatrics and then trained in neonatology and I did all those things, and then I finally ended up with my first position in neonatology at Stanford University.” -Dr. Phyllis A. Dennery, MD, FAAP

‘When I got there (Stanford University), I realized how important research was for me. I wanted to understand why these babies had problems with their lungs. What was causing the problems? Was it the oxygen we were giving in order to support them? And I studied that and I'm still studying that for the last 30+ years. So a strange thing happens in medicine. You're asked to serve as a physician doing clinical work, doing research, doing whatever you're doing in academia, but all of a sudden people say, ‘Well look, this person is doing so well as a researcher, as whatever.’ And they say, ‘Oh she'll be a great leader.’ Well, I don't know how those two connect but that's how people see it. If there is a connection between your skills in the lab or whatever research you're doing and you becoming a leader? So I was approached for many leadership opportunities to become a division director in neonatology. That's what took me to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where I spent the next 12 years after spending 14 years at Stanford. Twelve years of my career as a division director in that unit and of course, when you spend time there, you develop programs, and that became more fun for me. To think of strategically engaging people and building programs and making things happen and developing other people. How do you help other junior people learn about what their passion is and how they're going to make that passion happen? So I saw it as a way to pay it forward.  Then, after 12 years of doing that, they said, ‘Oh now you’ve got to do more.’ So I was recruited to be a Chair here at Brown University, the Chair of Pediatrics. So it's an opportunity to really engage others and to take people and help them see their way through this difficult and complicated path of getting a career that is satisfying and fulfilling. So that's kind of been the journey that I've taken and why I’m where I am.” -Dr. Phyllis A. Dennery, MD, FAAP

“As far as leadership is concerned, did you feel like you knew what you were doing right off the bat?” -Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

“Unfortunately, that's what I say is wrong with that system. They don't prepare you as much as they should for the opportunity that they're saying you're so good at. They don't know that. But there's a lot of on-the-job learning. But there are many opportunities now that are much more clear about ways in which people can train to become what they are excited about. So now my journey continues and it's much more strategic about how I get to know what I am getting myself into in these next steps and these next opportunities. And so I took a lot of leadership development courses through various national organizations and also locally to better understand what are some of the pitfalls of becoming a leader. You want to be a leader that's inclusive. You want to be a leader that has a way of thinking that helps people and isn't reactive, isn't strident, isn't many many things. So there's lessons to learn. Because we all have our personalities. But sometimes we have to also understand how our personality traits might affect others and make their lives either good or bad.”  -Phyllis A. Dennery, MD, FAAP

“Phyllis, I asked you before we started recording if you were the only black chair at your medical school.” -Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

“My answer can be really simple, yes. But a much more in-depth answer would be to say I really hate the concept of ‘the first’ and ‘the only’. Because the whole point is where it becomes irrelevant. Where it's just as likely that you or your colleagues of color or the woman next to you could be that person versus it just being relegated to men. So right now we're so happy, ‘Oh there's the first this and the first that,’ but the reality is, it needs to become as normal and as accepted and as common as it needs to be for the population.” -Phyllis A. Dennery, MD, FAAP

“What does that mean in terms of your work right now though? What is your impact on young doctors of color who are looking at you and saying, ‘Whoa’?” -Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

“Well, you know just my face makes a difference in young people who are looking at a website and say, ‘Oh,’ and they reach out and they say, ‘Oh, I'd like to talk to you, work with you, do something with you.’ It's a bit easier for me to recruit someone who is of color. So the higher you are in the hierarchy, the more impact you have on who will be there with you. So it's so much easier for me to recruit someone who is like me. I can have much more credibility as a recruiter of these people into my department by saying, ’It’s safe to come here, it's a good place to be. It's a place where you could grow,’ than someone who doesn't represent what I represent. Sometimes they don't come. But one of which, a really brilliant guy, he's now my mentee. He said, ‘I’d like you to mentor me.’ We meet monthly or every month to talk about his career path and I send opportunities his way. So there are ways in which by just being who we are we can help grow that group so that we are not the only one. That's my passion. My determination and what I do is that I feel like a lot of people talk about, ‘Let's diversify the medical school class, let's diversify this one that one.’ Doesn't matter as much in my opinion. I could get a lot of people all upset. But if you have a leader who represents that diversity, so that now you can keep bringing more residents and students and fellows of color into the mix. So it's not that it doesn't matter to do it from the ground up. A lot of people use that strategy. The question is, that pipeline is awfully long and ‘leaky’ in that you send people elsewhere too. But if you bring people into leadership, you can make a difference in that culture. Because someone gets on their bully pulpit and says, ‘No we're not going to accept these micro aggressions. This very white supremacist educational model where you don't think about these things, and how they affect us, and make us feel like we don't necessarily belong.’ The other day some white man was talking about how just not having bandages of color can influence a child in thinking they are outside of the norm. So why aren't we having bandages that are brown and beige and not just white or light? Similarly, when we show a picture of a disease on a white skin, do we now prevent people from seeing and understanding how that disease would look on a brown skin? There's so many things that, only people who are thinking about that, can help change the medical curriculum and can help broaden people's perspective of disease and what's normal. I can play a role as a leader and not feel that I'm going to get reprimanded for saying things. Saying we don't have enough women in leadership at our university. We have two women chairs in the medical school and one is me as a woman of color but there's just two. If you add the Biomed (Department) there's maybe one or two more, so it's very limited when you think about it. So we have to make a difference there.” -Phyllis A. Dennery, MD, FAAP

*“Phyllis A. Dennery,” vivo.brown.edu/display/pdennery

Get One-on-One Coaching with Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

Get One-on-One Coaching with Master-Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

DocWorking believes the time has come to prioritize the health and wellness of physicians.

Professional coaching is transformational. Elite athletes, award-winning actors and top-performing executives all know this, which is why they embrace coaching to achieve such extraordinary success. Leading corporations also know this, which is why they encourage coaching for employees at every level. Smart leaders leverage the power of coaching to achieve outcomes that are meaningful, measurable, and attainable.

Our Coaches Will Show You How!

 

We have exciting news! Our live course, STAT: Quick Wins to Get Your Life Back is coming soon! Life is too short to be stretched so thin. Do you want more time to focus on what matters most to you? Our power packed plan fits easily into your busy day! Coaches Gabriella and Jill have taken all their best strategies from coaching hundreds of physicians over multiple years and folded them into one efficient course. You can easily practice these bite-sized strategies on your timeline: anytime, anywhere. Are you ready to invest in yourself, reclaim your time and minimize stress? Click here! 

 

To learn more about DocWorking, visit us here!

 

Are you a physician who would like to tell your story? Please email Amanda, our producer at Amanda@docworking.com to apply.

 

And if you like our podcast and would like to subscribe and leave us a 5 star review, we would be extremely grateful!

 

We’re everywhere you like to get your podcasts! Apple iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google, Pandora, PlayerFM, ListenNotes, Amazon, YouTube, Podbean

 

Some links in our blogs and show notes are affiliate links, and purchases made via those links may result in small payments to DW. These help toward our production costs. Thank you for supporting DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast!

 

Occasionally, we discuss financial and legal topics. We are not financial or legal professionals. Please consult a licensed professional for financial or legal advice regarding your specific situation.

 

Podcast produced by: Amanda Taran

44: Failing Forward & the Courage to Try New Things

Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes Into Stepping Stones for Success is a book by John C. Maxwell, you can find it here

 

“We’re kind of wired as humans to grow and to live our most meaningful, richest, flourishing life when we step out of that comfort zone, step out of the box and break the cycle of monotony in our lives by being willing to try new things.” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

In today’s episode Coaches Gabriella Dennery MD and Jill Farmer talk about having the courage to try new things and why that is so important. So when was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone and tried something new? Recently? Awesome! But if you’ve just been going through the motions lately, this episode is for you. Remember to give yourself grace through the process, let go of perfectionism and have fun! 

 

 

Excerpts from the show:

“Most of the time when people come to me with great fear and trepidation and all kinds of reasons why it's a terrible idea to try something new, it's because they're convinced that if they're not certain whatever it is will be a wild success or they're going to be perfect at it, they feel like something is wrong and therefore they shouldn't try it. So a lot of my encouragement and coaching around when somebody has this kind of spark or inspiration to want to try something new and then the other part of the brain that is saying, ‘Don't try something, you're not going to get this right, you're going to screw this up.’ They tend to want to default and listen to the voice of doubt or inner critic, the part of them that is saying, ‘You can't do it’ and pull back into that safe place. The problem with that is, of course, we're kind of wired as humans to grow and to live our most meaningful, richest, flourishing life when we step out of that comfort zone, step out of the box and break the cycle of monotony in our lives by being willing to try new things. So the price of admission for letting that caution voice always be the one telling you that it's uncertain, unsafe, better not try it, which is really strong in doctors and I love that a lot of doctors have a really strong voice of caution to try to keep everything safe for those that they're serving. We're not asking you to change that part of you that has prudence and caution. It's just to recognize that sometimes that can be a little over developed when it comes to things in your life that have lower stakes potentially that you could try and develop. And the price of admission for that is that you lose the reward of mastering new things, playing with new things, learning new things when you stay stuck in those old ways.” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“I think you bring up an important point. How do you distinguish between the caution that you need to exercise at work to make sure that you mitigate risk for your patients and for your colleagues etc. etc. and what happens at home and outside of work? The ability to avail yourself of new ideas and new opportunities and a quality of life that may be different. You know, to expand your quality of life. It's easier to take that work philosophy home. So to be able to separate the two, I think it's about stepping out of the comfort zone. It's like, ‘Ok it's safe for me to try in-line skating now because I don't have to do that at work. I can do that at home. Yes, I may crash a few times and I'll need a few Band-Aids and I may look foolish. No, I won't master the first time on those skates, but I get to have a little fun and to learn something new that I've been curious about.’ It's kind of a mundane example, but a lot of times it's about knowing that work is work and play is play or outside of work is outside of work. It may not necessarily be play, it may be other things that you're interested in. So what do you think in terms of coaching and in terms of encouraging somebody to try something new, whether it's at work or in other situations? Is it fair to say that part of the encouragement is to say, ‘You're not necessarily going to be great at it right away?’ How do you approach that perfectionism, that need to get it right, that need to master everything right off the bat? And is it more of a need to impress somebody or to make sure it's done right as opposed to going into the situation with the curiosity of a child, with that growth/learning mentality which says there may be times when I'm going to suck and that's ok? What has been your experience with that and trying to push people out of that comfort zone?” Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

“Well, what I like to tell people is there's just a lot of brain science behind the idea that when we have a growth mindset, which is what the work of the masters in positive psychology, which is really the science of success, positive psychology isn't about being a peppy person, it's how do we work with people who are on the well side of the psychological scale and help them thrive instead of just surviving. And one of the things we know about that science of success is that people who have a growth mindset, which means they look at a challenge or something new as an opportunity to learn, they are happier and more successful than people who look at challenges with a fixed mindset, which is what I call problem stalling instead of problem-solving. ‘Here's all the reasons that it's going to be hard and I'm not going to be great at it and I might make a mistake.’ So we know in that science of success also, that we have to set ourselves up to be allowed to make mistakes because mistakes are how we revamp. I'm not talking about mistakes that are going to harm patients, obviously. Since we're talking to physicians here, we understand that we're not encouraging that. But I find a lot of physicians are really uncomfortable with setting themselves up or making space for making mistakes anywhere and being willing to revamp and being willing to use those mistakes as data. I know you've heard me say it before, but I love what Richard Branson has said about the reason that he's so wildly successful. It's because he has a bigger capacity for failure and he kind of likes it when things go wrong because he feels like that's how he learns how to make things go right. I think that's what you were talking about. Making some space for mistakes to happen. Because that's data that can help whatever it is we're learning new and be more in line with what we want it to look like. And that's how we grow and actually thrive. When we have that setback, reconfigure, move forward motion, that's a really good place for humans to thrive.” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“Absolutely. You're absolutely right about that. Because part of it and just speaking from experience being on wards and emergency rooms and CCU’s, it can potentially be a very judgemental environment and you don't want to make mistakes. Clearly for the sake of your patients and at the same time it's about how your colleague is judging you or how the chief is judging you or the chair is judging you. There's always a process of evaluation, of testing, of performance. So yes, getting out of your comfort zone in other arenas of your life or even in a career track or a different career choice can become difficult because of that fear of judging, that fear of being judged and being looked at in a certain way. You want to do the right thing, but what is the right thing? That is really still a very subjective thing. So to be able to allow yourself to just take a breath. To allow yourself to say, ‘You know what? I'm on a learning curve.’ For example, podcasting for me, although as much as I love it and enjoy it, it's still very new and I'm still on that learning curve. I've still got a lot to learn and I know I've made a lot of mistakes. At the same time it's learning how to enjoy that process. To fail forward instead of just seeing it as falling backwards and not trying again. So we get back on the horse. And yes, if it risks looking silly for a little while or sounding totally crazy for a while, that's ok, too. So it's being ok with making mistakes. I think that's the point that I think is a really really important point for why it is important to muster up the courage to try new things. You have to be ok to not be perfect and great with making mistakes and even relish in making mistakes so that you can learn and love it and laugh about it and say, ‘Wow, look at what it was six months ago compared to what it is today.’ And you enjoy the learning curve. You're able to just flourish in the learning curve itself. So that's what I love about it.” -Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

 

Get One-on-One Coaching with Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

Get One-on-One Coaching with Master-Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

DocWorking believes the time has come to prioritize the health and wellness of physicians.

Professional coaching is transformational. Elite athletes, award-winning actors and top-performing executives all know this, which is why they embrace coaching to achieve such extraordinary success. Leading corporations also know this, which is why they encourage coaching for employees at every level. Smart leaders leverage the power of coaching to achieve outcomes that are meaningful, measurable, and attainable.

Our Coaches Will Show You How!

 

We have exciting news! Our live course, STAT: Quick Wins to Get Your Life Back is coming soon! Life is too short to be stretched so thin. Do you want more time to focus on what matters most to you? Our power packed plan fits easily into your busy day! Coaches Gabriella and Jill have taken all their best strategies from coaching hundreds of physicians over multiple years and folded them into one efficient course. You can easily practice these bite-sized strategies on your timeline: anytime, anywhere. Are you ready to invest in yourself, reclaim your time and minimize stress? Click here! 

 

To learn more about DocWorking, visit us here!

 

Are you a physician who would like to tell your story? Please email Amanda, our producer at Amanda@docworking.com to apply.

 

And if you like our podcast and would like to subscribe and leave us a 5 star review, we would be extremely grateful!

 

We’re everywhere you like to get your podcasts! Apple iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google, Pandora, PlayerFM, ListenNotes, Amazon, YouTube, Podbean

 

Some links in our blogs and show notes are affiliate links, and purchases made via those links may result in small payments to DW. These help toward our production costs. Thank you for supporting DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast!

 

Occasionally, we discuss financial and legal topics. We are not financial or legal professionals. Please consult a licensed professional for financial or legal advice regarding your specific situation.

 

Podcast produced by: Amanda Taran

43: Leaving Burnout Behind for Concierge Medicine with Dr. Becky Lynn

“Burnout is a real issue and I feel like I got to that point where I was like, ‘I just can't do this anymore.’ And I don't think it's a good way to practice medicine. Especially what I do, cannot be done in a five to ten minute visit.” -Dr. Becky Lynn, MD, MBA, IF, NCMP

 

 

 

In today’s episode, Coach Jill Farmer talks with Dr. Becky Lynn. Dr. Lynn is the CEO and Founder of Evora Women’s Health, a concierge private practice. Jill and Dr. Lynn discuss what it was like to leave traditional medicine to open a concierge practice. We find out why Dr. Lynn made this choice, what the benefits are, if there were any challenges along the way, and she shares her tips for anyone considering delving into the concierge business model. 

 

Dr. Becky Lynn is the CEO and Founder of Evora Women’s Health. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

 

You can find her website here, her Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.

 

 

 

“Can you tell us about your experience transitioning from a busy life as a practicing OB/GYN and professor full-time into starting this all new practice on that concierge model, and what that journey has been like for you? Is there one thing that surprised you most about your experience of making this transition over the last few years to this new practice?” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

 

“Well, I'm a planner. I used to be full-time faculty at St. Louis University. I left there and I spent all this time creating a business plan. I had this vision of how things were going to go. When I look back, I've been in private practice concierge for a little over a year, my business looks nothing like what I expected. So I almost have to laugh at that. I'm really happy about what it's morphed into. But when you start, you have this idea but then as things go along, things change. And then, not to mention I started in February 2020, so right as the pandemic hit. So if you can imagine, nothing was working as planned in April, May and a lot of March, too.” -Dr. Becky Lynn

 

 

“So being somebody who really likes to have a plan and have things turn out the way that you planned them to be, what you discovered is you have to plan and kind of hold it loosely, right? Because you have to be willing to pivot.” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

 

“Pivot, and you have to be flexible. You know, I really think that you try something and if that doesn't work you move onto your Plan B. You sort of learn along the way, and that's one of the things that I really enjoyed about my new practice, it's all about learning. I'm a lifelong learner. I love teaching, I love learning. So this has definitely been very eye-opening for me, a challenge for me, I love it, apart from the fact that I get to practice medicine in the way that I want to practice medicine. Where I have time with my patients, where I call them directly. The business model of concierge really works well. I just wasn't really happy with the short visits where you didn't have time to get to know your patients and get to the root cause of their issues or talk about preventative medicine and just being healthy. So apart from the fact that I love this model, I do love learning. So it's been a challenge and a good one.” -Dr. Becky Lynn

 

 

“I’ll also say that we do a lot of things here that are nontraditional. So I think that's been kind of fun to try things that are different, not as far as treatments or anything, we're pretty evidence-based and academic. But right now the way that it works we don't have one person usually specifically assigned to the front desk. My medical assistant will go to the front, bring the patient back, check the vitals, all that, but then they check out in the room. She goes back into the room and does all the check out in the room. Our office phone is a cell phone. Why not? We're concierge, you can reach us after hours on the weekend. So it's been kind of interesting to be able to think outside the box and not say, ‘Oh we have to have this many people at the front desk and this many people at check out.’ And not taking insurance gives us a lot of leeway to run as efficiently as possible. So it's been fun and interesting.” -Dr. Becky Lynn

 

 

“When I was figuring all this out, I felt horrible for my patients who couldn't afford me. Part of it is not fair. If you have money then you can spend an hour with your doctor. If you don't, you get a five minute visit and if you have a second problem you have to come back and pay another co-pay six months from now. So I did, I felt bad. And I really enjoy working with my patients and I like the patient/physician relationship. And I just couldn't bear to abandon my patients. So what I did is, I started a giving back to the community day. So that is the second Tuesday of every month. I see patients in my office regardless of ability to pay. So they can pay nothing, they can pay something, it just runs the whole gamut. I tell everybody they can bring me cookies, nobody's brought me cookies yet, but I’ll take them! It's just whatever they feel is appropriate. And I like doing that. That way I don't feel like only the wealthy can have time with their doctor or a thorough history taken or a thorough exam or talk about prevention and lifestyle and things like that. So that's one way that I've handled it. I started that from day one and I still have my giving back to the community day.” -Dr. Becky Lynn

 

Get One-on-One Coaching with Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

Get One-on-One Coaching with Master-Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

DocWorking believes the time has come to prioritize the health and wellness of physicians.

Professional coaching is transformational. Elite athletes, award-winning actors and top-performing executives all know this, which is why they embrace coaching to achieve such extraordinary success. Leading corporations also know this, which is why they encourage coaching for employees at every level. Smart leaders leverage the power of coaching to achieve outcomes that are meaningful, measurable, and attainable.

Our Coaches Will Show You How!

 

We have exciting news! Our live course, STAT: Quick Wins to Get Your Life Back is coming soon! Life is too short to be stretched so thin. Do you want more time to focus on what matters most to you? Our power packed plan fits easily into your busy day! Coaches Gabriella and Jill have taken all their best strategies from coaching hundreds of physicians over multiple years and folded them into one efficient course. You can easily practice these bite-sized strategies on your timeline: anytime, anywhere. Are you ready to invest in yourself, reclaim your time and minimize stress? Click here! 

 

To learn more about DocWorking, visit us here!

 

Are you a physician who would like to tell your story? Please email Amanda, our producer at Amanda@docworking.com to apply.

 

And if you like our podcast and would like to subscribe and leave us a 5 star review, we would be extremely grateful!

 

We’re everywhere you like to get your podcasts! Apple iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google, Pandora, PlayerFM, ListenNotes, Amazon, YouTube, Podbean

 

Some links in our blogs and show notes are affiliate links, and purchases made via those links may result in small payments to DW. These help toward our production costs. Thank you for supporting DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast!

 

Occasionally, we discuss financial and legal topics. We are not financial or legal professionals. Please consult a licensed professional for financial or legal advice regarding your specific situation.

 

Podcast produced by: Amanda Taran

42: Importance of Having Hobbies & Passions Outside of Work

“Mindfulness, hobbies, gratitude, proper sleep, proper rest and proper nutrition, these are not necessarily things that can be compromised.” -Coach Gabriella Dennery MD 

 

In today’s episode Coaches Gabriella Dennery MD and Jill Farmer discuss why it’s important to have hobbies and passions outside of work. We need these outside interests for so many reasons that Jill and Gabriella outline in this episode. Not only do hobbies and passions help us to access different parts of our brains but they can also connect us with different people outside of our work world and also a sense of community which we all need. These are things that can contribute to our mental and physical health and help us to thrive. Tune in to find out all the benefits of incorporating hobbies into your life!

 

Podcasts mentioned: 

Episode 38: Procrastination: The Self Defense Mechanism We Can Do Without

 

Episode 35: Perfectionism: Why 100% at Everything Doesn’t Add Up

 

Episode 27: Interview with Dr. Ysaye Barnwell: Singer and Composer From Sweet Honey in the Rock, Author, Actress, Educator

 

Excerpts from the show:

 

“Why do you think it’s so important for physicians to find time to do things that light them up outside of their workplace?” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“You need that creative juice. You need that creativity somewhere along the line and it's not just work related. I think if we could take work off the table for a minute, life is not just about that. There are other things going on. You need to recharge and I think one of our podcast guests said it wonderfully. Ysaye Barnwell talked about creativity and she said that sometimes you need to shut off one valve and open another one up and allow something else to come in. Just take a mental and physical break to recharge, to get the juices flowing, to have a different kind of community, a conversation. I took up African drumming when I was an attending physician within the first six months of starting my first job as an attending. I was in New York City and it was something I wanted to do, something I was curious about. I saw it on stage one day and there was a particular drum that I wanted to study. I said, ‘Well, I'm in New York City. This is the right place to be! Let's go for it.’ So I found a teacher. Within six months, I started a new job in July and by January, I was in drum classes. And to be around a different community of different people who didn't talk about patients and didn't talk about diagnoses and consultants. They were from different walks of life and they talked about anything and everything. And to be in a space where I was learning something completely different. So encouraging somebody by saying, ‘You know what? I know you think there's no time, and I think through the coaching work what's important is you realize that there is more time than we think there is.’ But even if you believe there is no time and there are other things that are more pressing or more important and a hobby is something you can just push aside… the hobbies are what you dig into even more when you're stressed. Why? Because it gives you that breathing room and that breathing space.” -Coach Gabriella Dennery MD 

“Yeah, I love what you just said, I think it's really important. We talked about it in other conversations and other podcasts which I highly recommend folks tune into about procrastination and perfectionism. A lot of times people actually procrastinate doing their hobbies because they are so attached to the outcome. ‘Well I can't paint because I can't make a pretty picture out of it.’ This is an important time for us to really play with progress over perfect. It's the process not the outcome. The process is doing as you said, shutting off one valve and turning on another. The term that I use a lot of times with my clients is that we have to change the channel. As a kid growing up in the 70s before we got cable, I'm watching the Brady Bunch and all I've got is a bunch of white fuzz on the screen for some reason, you know whatever day there's not a good signal coming in. We had this trick where we would turn the channel and we’d watch a little Gilligan’s island for a while and then sure enough we’d come back and the channel was clear again. Our brains are a little like that too. We need to be shifting some of those neural pathways. We need to be reusing that glycogen in different ways and changing the channel is important. So one of the things that comes up in my physician clients who I'm encouraging to look for some ways to change the channel and to explore some hobbies and some interests and some passion, something that they're interested in outside of work. And they'll say, ‘Well I don't have any of those because I'm not good at it.’ So they're not a painter and they have no haute couture skills. They're not a drummer like you. I'm that way. I don't have any hobbies that are actually other high-end skills for me but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have ways to explore that. What do you say to people like that, Gabriella, who say, ‘Well I'm not good at anything else so how can I have a hobby?’” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“Understand that it's not just about the activity itself, it's a benefit you get from it. So what are you going for? Are you going for perfectionism? Are you going for getting it right? So you don't do it because you're not going to be a world-class painter? I think my father sold three paintings in 86 years of life. It's not about that, it's about the pleasure of it. So where is your joy? Where is the pleasure? Where is that leisure time? And if you don't have a hobby, and I'm saying this to everybody, find one. Go for what you're curious about. And you can always drop it if it's something that you tried but it’s not interesting. So I'm curious about knitting, let me see how that works. Ok, that bores me. Let me find something else. Get curious. Go with where your curiosity leads. It doesn't have to be the next big thing. It doesn't have to be how you earn your living. It doesn't have to be your next business idea. It just has to be something that breaks the routine and helps you think and access your brain in different arenas. Where different pockets of your brain are activated you know. Get that creative right side brain going as opposed to always being about logical decisions. Stop being logical for a moment and be illogical. Have fun, go with your curiosity. Find stuff out. Ask people, ask your friends what they do. One thing I ask my clients is what hobbies did you have when you were growing up? What was fascinating to you then? What about your teen years or younger adult years before you went into that medical track? What were your personal side gigs that had nothing to do with money or performance but had everything to do with where you found your joy? That seven or eight-year-old kid knew what they were fascinated about, so if we have to go all the way back there then that's what I do until we find that thing. It may be something new, but just to tap into that curiosity again, that kid-like curiosity.” -Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

“I love that so much. The hot track right here that we follow is what are you interested in and exploring it and also being willing to be more kid-like, like you said. As kids we would change our mind about stuff. Remember you'd be into something and then a couple years later you see that Aunt that you hadn't seen in a couple years and she’d ask if you were still into geodes and you're like, ‘No I'm not into geodes anymore.’ But that's ok. As a kid you thought it was ok and there was no crime in moving onto the next thing. And so I think to give ourselves permission as adults to play in that space is important. Another thing I realized around this subject over Covid times was I had kind of let my phone and my iPad become a bit of a hobby in a way that wasn't particularly satisfying to me. It was just a default mechanism more than a real place that was drawing me in out of curiosity. You know it's fine to play solitaire on your iPad, I thoroughly enjoy it and I'm not saying it's evil. It could be a really nice thing to do. It's just I let myself realize that was my default and there might be other things I wanted to do. So I've just come back to good old-fashioned reading mystery novels that I hadn't read for a long time. The other thing that I think is important that I know is something we're both passionate about, is looking for ways to be connected to other people. A sense of community is important to us. We know it's actually an antidote to burnout as well. So I love encouraging my physician clients to notice whatever they're interested in and are there places they can go be interested in that thing with other people? Whether it's sailing or needlepointing or biking or tae kwon do as you mentioned. Whatever it is. It's letting ourselves play. When we are hard workers and high achievers, which physicians are, we somehow think that play is for other people or for people that have more time on their hands, and we don't recognize that as creatures we were literally built to balance what we're doing in terms of effort with some play. It's part of our biology and we forget that.” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

Get One-on-One Coaching with Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

Get One-on-One Coaching with Master-Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

DocWorking believes the time has come to prioritize the health and wellness of physicians.

Professional coaching is transformational. Elite athletes, award-winning actors and top-performing executives all know this, which is why they embrace coaching to achieve such extraordinary success. Leading corporations also know this, which is why they encourage coaching for employees at every level. Smart leaders leverage the power of coaching to achieve outcomes that are meaningful, measurable, and attainable.

Our Coaches Will Show You How!

 

We have exciting news! Our live course, STAT: Quick Wins to Get Your Life Back is coming soon! Life is too short to be stretched so thin. Do you want more time to focus on what matters most to you? Our power packed plan fits easily into your busy day! Coaches Gabriella and Jill have taken all their best strategies from coaching hundreds of physicians over multiple years and folded them into one efficient course. You can easily practice these bite-sized strategies on your timeline: anytime, anywhere. Are you ready to invest in yourself, reclaim your time and minimize stress? Click here! 

 

To learn more about DocWorking, visit us here!

 

Are you a physician who would like to tell your story? Please email Amanda, our producer at Amanda@docworking.com to apply.

 

And if you like our podcast and would like to subscribe and leave us a 5 star review, we would be extremely grateful!

 

We’re everywhere you like to get your podcasts! Apple iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google, Pandora, PlayerFM, ListenNotes, Amazon, YouTube, Podbean

 

Some links in our blogs and show notes are affiliate links, and purchases made via those links may result in small payments to DW. These help toward our production costs. Thank you for supporting DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast!

 

Occasionally, we discuss financial and legal topics. We are not financial or legal professionals. Please consult a licensed professional for financial or legal advice regarding your specific situation.

 

Podcast produced by: Amanda Taran

41: How To Grow Your Practice & Increase Your Impact with Social Media with Dr. Marissa Tenenbaum

“We all know what a deep hole the Internet can be. A tremendous amount of misinformation, especially with medicine. So I personally think that the more physicians are out there really putting true evidence-based medicine, regardless of your field, it really does all of us a service.” - Dr. Marissa Tenenbaum

In today’s episode, Coach Jill Farmer talks with Dr. Marissa Tenenbaum about social media. Social media can be a great way to build your brand, build your practice and also educate. But for doctors, it can be tricky. How much do you share? Does your employer place parameters around how you use social media? Is it worth the trouble? Dr. Tenenbaum walks us through how she uses social media, how she makes time for it, what saves her time and the benefits she has seen and more! Tune in to hear how she aces social media and don’t forget to follow DocWorking! 

Dr. Marissa Tenenbaum is a board-certified plastic surgeon. She is an associate professor at Washington University School of Medicine. She is the program director of the Plastic Surgery Residency at Washington University. She is currently working at West County Plastic Surgeons. 

 

Follow Dr. Marissa Tenenbaum here!

DocWorking Podcast episode mentioned in the show: Episode 26 Physician Burnout: Proactive Steps You Can Take Today

Excerpts from the show:

 

“Marissa, the reason I wanted to chat with you today is you do an excellent job of getting out in the world with social media. I really love following you to see what you're doing in work and life. I know from my own clients that I talk to all over the country that there can be a love-hate relationship with social media. So, I just want to talk to you a little bit about why you decided to use social media in your work and life and what it's doing for you.” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“So, this is a great question and it's such a hot topic. As a plastic surgeon I do think that in my particular field it really does lend itself to social media pretty well. Plastic surgery is very visual. So when you think about all the different channels of social media, I think Instagram is probably the most popular for us. For me, I certainly wasn't an early adopter. I had a lot of colleagues around the country that were using social media really really well and I was intrigued. I was on social media, but more of a private account, really just more the typical share with your friends kind of social media. I made a conscious effort about a year ago actually to flip the switch and try to incorporate a lot more of my professional life and I think there's a lot of different ways that you can do that in medicine. I'll just tell you what I did, and we can talk about some of the different ways if you want to. But what I did was try to have a sort of combination of some professional advice with specific regard to plastic surgery. So surgery, non-surgical kind of aesthetics like skin care, and injections and Botox and lasers and things like that. As well as wellness, and I did that because I think it is a particular passion of mine. Wellness, fitness, health, nutritional eating, etc. That's a particular passion of mine that I love sharing. But I also think it lends itself really well to plastic surgery and a plastic surgery audience and what they may be interested in. But then I also choose to share my personal life and my family. Not everybody does that. I think there are pros and cons to that. But the reason I chose to do that is because I think that one of the elements of social media for me and branding is for my patients or potential patients to get to know me as a person. I think in my field of plastic surgery that is a really important piece of it. You know, patients kind of feeling like they may have a connection with you, they kind of like your style, if you will. I think that can be really important, maybe less important in certain fields, but really important in plastic surgery. So that's sort of why I did it and a small piece of how I do it.” - Dr. Marissa Tenenbaum

 

“Any downsides that either you've experienced or that you've seen colleagues experience that we need to chat about?” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

“Absolutely. The downsides are that you're putting yourself out there a bit, you're making yourself vulnerable. Now if you do choose to (you can) really just focus on patient education, which just as a side note, I think is almost like a public service to all of us in medicine. I don't want to get too far off on a tangent on this, but we all know what a deep hole the Internet can be. A tremendous amount of misinformation, especially with medicine. So I personally think that the more physicians are out there really putting true evidence-based medicine, regardless of your field, it really does all of us a service, not just the patients. Starting with that I think it’s a bit safer. But once you do start kind of going into the world of, ‘Ok, I'm going to show a little bit more of my personal life,’ obviously you're making yourself a little more vulnerable. You're putting yourself a little bit more at risk of trolls and different people maybe some more negative, that can be challenging. And then you do have to be incredibly careful about HIPPA, obviously. So if you're discussing any patient issues, or again in plastic surgery we're very visual, and so we do have some patients who consent very specifically to allowing us to use their images on a website or social media. But of course, you have to be incredibly careful about that. And I certainly do know colleagues who have been burned in that regard, where maybe they haven't had the appropriate consent or something along those lines. That's really really not a place any of us want to be. The biggest thing though, I think, is those trolls. I think the more followers people gain or I’ve seen colleagues have to deal with some tremendous negativity especially as they get more followers. And trying to handle that professionally can be really challenging.”  -Dr. Marissa Tenenbaum

 

“All of my physician clients are perfectionists, so a lot of times I have to remind them that this is not surgery where we need to have a really perfect outcome.”  -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

“Right, you can delete the post if you don't like it. I think the other thing that is challenging for a lot of us in medicine is obviously a lot of our personalities aren't necessarily personalities where we want to be on camera or we want to show off. It can feel really inauthentic to get on live stories or something. That does just take practice. Personally, if I'm being honest, I hate taking pictures of myself. I hate seeing myself on camera, I hate it. So I'm not as good at that part. I'm not good at going on stories every single day and walking you through my day. I see other people do that and I go, ‘Oh I wish I was better at that.’ But the more you do it, you get more comfortable just like anything, right? It’s practice.” -Dr. Marissa Tenenbaum 

 

Get One-on-One Coaching with Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

Get One-on-One Coaching with Master-Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

DocWorking believes the time has come to prioritize the health and wellness of physicians.

Professional coaching is transformational. Elite athletes, award-winning actors and top-performing executives all know this, which is why they embrace coaching to achieve such extraordinary success. Leading corporations also know this, which is why they encourage coaching for employees at every level. Smart leaders leverage the power of coaching to achieve outcomes that are meaningful, measurable, and attainable. Our Coaches Will Show You How!

 

We have exciting news! Our live course, STAT: Quick Wins to Get Your Life Back is coming soon! Life is too short to be stretched so thin. Do you want more time to focus on what matters most to you? Our power packed plan fits easily into your busy day! Coaches Gabriella and Jill have taken all their best strategies from coaching hundreds of physicians over multiple years and folded them into one efficient course. You can easily practice these bite-sized strategies on your timeline: anytime, anywhere. Are you ready to invest in yourself, reclaim your time and minimize stress? Click here! 

 

To learn more about DocWorking, visit us here!

 

Are you a physician who would like to tell your story? Please email Amanda, our producer at Amanda@docworking.com to apply.

 

And if you like our podcast and would like to subscribe and leave us a 5 star review, we would be extremely grateful!

 

We’re everywhere you like to get your podcasts! Apple iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google, Pandora, PlayerFM, ListenNotes, Amazon, YouTube, Podbean

 

Some links in our blogs and show notes are affiliate links, and purchases made via those links may result in small payments to DW. These help toward our production costs. Thank you for supporting DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast!

 

Occasionally, we discuss financial and legal topics. We are not financial or legal professionals. Please consult a licensed professional for financial or legal advice regarding your specific situation.

 

Podcast produced by: Amanda Taran

40: Three Common Communication Mistakes Physicians Make with Lisa Kuzman

Lisa Kuzman’s DocWorking courses on Diagnosing Your Leadership Style and Communication For The Win are coming soon to DocWorking.com! Please click here to let us know you’re interested and we’ll keep you updated on the go-live dates!

“So the little bit of time to build that connection, is definitely going to serve you in the long run” -Lisa Kuzman

Today’s episode is all about communication! Coach Jill Farmer talks with Lisa Kuzman about how we can improve our communication skills in order to improve our work and home life. Do you ever feel as though what you said wasn’t heard or that what you said was taken differently than you intended? If so, tune in to find out how to be heard and be understood and also how to hear and understand others. 

 

Lisa Kuzman is a clinical social worker turned Leadership Coach for Women of Influence, who helps her clients understand how to create massive change without re-traumatizing themselves. She also provides trauma-sensitive certification and supervision for coaches in the personal development industry. 

 

By blending her 15 years of mental health experience in healthcare, learnings from entrepreneurship, and personal trauma survivorship, she supports her clients with understanding how the high-risk threshold of running a business and showing up as a leader can trigger old stuff that needs to be attended to rather than ignored so it doesn't block one’s ability to create change. 

 

While physicians earn a great wage and hold positions of power, medical training doesn’t adequately prepare one for the leadership acumen required to manage their multifaceted roles. Lisa’s approach to leadership, her background in healthcare, and her understanding of trauma offer unique insights that physicians can apply to every area of their lives. 

Excerpts from the show:

 

“Lisa, why do you think that physicians might want to take a closer look at the way they communicate in their work or in the world?” - Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“Part of the reason why this is so important is because it is the most critical element of clearly helping people understand the task at hand, getting people on board and being able to move forward smoothly. Physicians are highly skilled at all the things that they do and communication is one of those elements that is really, really helpful for pulling it all together.” -Lisa Kuzman

“The first mistake we're going to be talking about here that you've identified is underestimating the big picture. What do you mean by that?” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“What I mean by that is in any given situation you have your environment, right? So you have all the people in the environment including you and your patient or the nursing staff or other auxiliary staff around you outside of the environment. You have the task at hand, you have however much sleep you got or didn't get, whatever may or may not be going on for the other parties involved, right? Everybody comes with a different perspective when it comes to communication and it can be really easy to arrive in a conversation and only think about it through your own lens. That is the way that most of us do approach communication. But there can be a lot of cues in the environment if you just expand your lens out a little further to look at the whole big picture. Including aspects for yourself and other parties involved and then even the environment. And it doesn't have to be a super in-depth thing. It can take 20 seconds of consideration. It doesn't have to be a huge extra task. But that can be an extremely helpful component for being able to shift and maneuver your way into or through communication to make it go more smoothly.” - Lisa Kuzman

“So an example might be somebody who is in a hurry and is backed up, they might run in just to deliver information and it can backfire because people will tell them later that they didn't hear or understand what they said. So would you say the technique for being able to help avoid this mistake as you said is just sort of just taking in the bigger picture? Just pause, and for instance look everybody in the room in the eye for a second? Is that a good way to take the temperature so to speak, of what the environment is, to help you calculate a better way for you to say what it is you need to say to get the outcome that you think is going to deliver the most help in the given situation?” - Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“Yeah, I think a quick pause is super helpful. I think the other thing is even just slowing down a touch, right? When moving really fast and juggling many balls in the air, sometimes what happens is that we're not really taking much time to breathe and we're kind of rushing around so we just simply missed something. Even just slowing down, taking a couple deep breaths before you step into a room, allowing yourself 30 seconds to kind of collect yourself or even just to make a little eye contact.” -Lisa Kuzman

“Yeah, eye contact is one of those things I sometimes share with my coaching clients. If they’re really highly cerebral and they're used to thinking about things, they often are looking up and out to the left as their brains are kind of spinning and people will say, ‘You weren't talking to me’ and they're like, ‘Who else was I talking to? You're the only person in the room.’ But it's something that doesn't always come naturally to people. So I think that's interesting. So the second thing I want to talk about is that mistake that you have identified based on your experience in this realm, is physicians don't always think about positioning themselves in communication. What does that mean?” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“Yeah, so I come to my approach around this from social work. Social workers often use what's called a strengths-based perspective. Essentially what I mean when I say this is, to know yourself well enough to know what it is that you might need to be a little more successful in communication. So that people hear you. So that your thoughts are collected. So that the point gets across. When we know it's going to go well for us or when it's going to go poorly for us we can adjust accordingly so that we can position ourselves for success.” -Lisa Kuzman

“What might be a specific example of that? Or can you think of one that would help people put that into a practical example?” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“Yeah, one of the things that always works for me is to really take the time to slow down. The eye contact we already mentioned. But being collected. I am somebody that can really ramble and go off on a tangent. I like to be chitty chatty and sometimes when there's not a lot of time, that's not really productive or helpful. Or if tensions are high, it's also not helpful. So one of the things I do is look at What is the number one thing I want someone to hear me say, that I want to get across? Because what I say versus what someone hears might be very different. So I come up with one to three things that I hope that people have as a take away from our communication. Then that helps me not ramble around with my words.” -Lisa Kuzman

Check out Lisa's self-paced course called Communication For The Win which is specifically for physicians. If you want to dive deeper to find out how you can be a more effective communicator to deliver meaningful results this course is for you. Click here for more info and to get updates on when it goes live! 

Check out Lisa Kuzman’s podcast, Serving it Hot, a podcast about Women in Leadership. You can find her website here or follow her on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Get One-on-One Coaching with Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

Get One-on-One Coaching with Master-Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

DocWorking believes the time has come to prioritize the health and wellness of physicians.

Professional coaching is transformational. Elite athletes, award-winning actors and top-performing executives all know this, which is why they embrace coaching to achieve such extraordinary success. Leading corporations also know this, which is why they encourage coaching for employees at every level. Smart leaders leverage the power of coaching to achieve outcomes that are meaningful, measurable, and attainable.

Our Coaches Will Show You How!

 

We have exciting news! Our live course, STAT: Quick Wins to Get Your Life Back is coming soon! Life is too short to be stretched so thin. Do you want more time to focus on what matters most to you? Our power packed plan fits easily into your busy day! Coaches Gabriella and Jill have taken all their best strategies from coaching hundreds of physicians over multiple years and folded them into one efficient course. You can easily practice these bite-sized strategies on your timeline: anytime, anywhere. Are you ready to invest in yourself, reclaim your time and minimize stress? Click here! 

 

To learn more about DocWorking, visit us here!

 

Are you a physician who would like to tell your story? Please email Amanda, our producer at Amanda@docworking.com to apply.

 

And if you like our podcast and would like to subscribe and leave us a 5 star review, we would be extremely grateful!

 

We’re everywhere you like to get your podcasts! Apple iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google, Pandora, PlayerFM, ListenNotes, Amazon, YouTube, Podbean

 

Some links in our blogs and show notes are affiliate links, and purchases made via those links may result in small payments to DW. These help toward our production costs. Thank you for supporting DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast!

 

Occasionally, we discuss financial and legal topics. We are not financial or legal professionals. Please consult a licensed professional for financial or legal advice regarding your specific situation.

 

Podcast produced by: Amanda Taran

39: A Work-Life Integration Subspecialty Solution, with Dr. Paula Marfia

“As women, we’re told that we can have it all, but we still have to make a sacrifice. There may be a time when you’re sacrificing for your family and your career is on hold. But there’s always going to be that time to go back to your career. You can do it before, you can do it after, you can do it any way that works for you, you don’t have to be like anybody else. You don’t have to worry about what anyone else is doing.” -Dr. Paula Marfia 

In today’s episode, Dr. Jen Barna talks with Dr. Paula Marfia. You’ll get the real take on what it’s like to be a nocturnist, wife and mother. You’ll hear how Dr. Marfia makes it work and also get insight into being a nocturnist. It turns out that being a nocturnist is an amazing way to have your career and have time for family. That’s not to say that Dr. Marfia didn’t make sacrifices, because she did. Tune in to hear how she makes it all work. 

Dr. Marfia earned her Bachelor’s of Science in Biology from Bradley University. She earned her Master’s degree from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in Food Science and Human Nutrition. She attended medical school at Saint Louis University, then transferred to Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine which is where she earned her MD. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at Loyola and she is on staff at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, IL. 

Excerpts from the show:

 

“Let’s dive right in. I'm curious to hear about your experience as a woman physician and a mom and how you made the choice to become a nocturnist.”

 

“Sure, I kind of always knew that I wanted to be a doctor. I had this idea of service to others and I just remember when I was a little kid I had trouble learning to read. I didn't learn to read till I was in second grade and this idea of being smart really got to me. I felt like, when I went to the doctor, the doctor knew what was going on. They had the answers to everything. And so, that really appealed to me growing up. And then, at least I kind of learned what medicine was. As I found that I excelled in school, I thought that was the path for me. I liked the idea of getting some respect. What I found out is, medicine is a totally different world than what I thought it was going to be, especially being a mom. I only thought about being a doctor. I never thought that I was going to be a mom and get married. I'm not sure why I never thought about that, but I found myself in medical school and I found the love of my life, and so we got married and then it was just like, ‘Ok, well, now my road is going to be a little bit different.’ ”  -Dr Paula Marfia

“My husband was in the military, so we were in St. Louis and we ended up going up to Great Lakes Naval Base. My family is up here, so we were like, ‘Ok, fine.’ I got into Loyola, which was kind of a dream of mine. So I'm (accepted) here at Loyola and then we move. It was a big whirlwind and then all the sudden, ‘Well, I'm sorry. I need some time off, I’m gonna have a baby.’ So I was worried, but it was very enlightening and very nice that at Loyola, the first thing the dean said to me was not, ‘We just let you in and now you're going to need maternity leave?’ It was, ‘Well, would you like to take an extra year off? You could finish if you want, but what do you want to do? What do you want?’ So that was a really good experience. As I went through and finished medical school, I had extra time. My focus was, how am I going to raise my kids and be a doctor? I wanted to have another kid and I didn't want to have a child in residency, so I decided I would have a baby as soon as I was done with residency. I was like, ‘How am I going to have a job?’ So I would be asking was there any kind of part-time work? And they were like, ‘No, not really.’ That wasn't an option back in 2008 or so. But they said they were looking to hire people to work nights part-time and so I was like, ‘Ok.’ They said you have to admit three patients and just answer the nurses phone calls. I was like, ‘Heck that's nothing, residency was ten times worse than that.’ So I kind of just took it as an easy way to be able to work and keep up my skills and concentrate on my family. It ended up, that position flourished and it changed over time, and now it's just a much bigger position. So it allowed me to have that flexibility that I want, and be there for my children.” -Dr. Paula Marfia

“How did you work your schedule so that you could actually work all night and then still be present for your kids during the day?” -Dr. Jen Barna

“So the one key thing was just planning and scheduling appropriately. The nice part about being a nocturnist was I get to make my schedule. So there's three of us, and the three of us have to cover all the nights. It's ten nights a month, so there are lots of days that I'm home. The days that I'm home I'm free to do all the activities that I need to do with my kids. So then I just need to plan the days that I'm working. I was very lucky that my dad retired from teaching right around the time I needed him to start watching the kids. My mom started going to work and my dad stayed home. They helped me watch my kids. So I would come home, I would take the kids to my parents house and they would let me sleep at their house. I would get five or six hours of solid sleep and then I was able to get up and do things for a few hours and then go to work.” -Dr. Paula Marfia

“We all only have a finite amount of time. So I started thinking about time. Really, there's 168 hours in a week. When you say it that way, it's like, ‘Ok, if I sleep eight hours a night that's still 112 hours left to do things. So, ok, what are the things that I have to do?’ I just took an assessment of what I'm spending my time on. What am I spending my time on that I don't want to spend my time on? How can I maximize the hours of the day that I do have so that I can do what I want to do? So really sitting down and actually planning. Having a planner, having an organizational system. You just have to find a few different things that work for you.” -Dr Paula Marfia

Get One-on-One Coaching with Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

Get One-on-One Coaching with Master-Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

DocWorking believes the time has come to prioritize the health and wellness of physicians.

Professional coaching is transformational. Elite athletes, award-winning actors and top-performing executives all know this, which is why they embrace coaching to achieve such extraordinary success. Leading corporations also know this, which is why they encourage coaching for employees at every level. Smart leaders leverage the power of coaching to achieve outcomes that are meaningful, measurable, and attainable. Our Coaches Will Show You How!

 

We have exciting news! Our live course, STAT: Quick Wins to Get Your Life Back is coming soon! Life is too short to be stretched so thin. Do you want more time to focus on what matters most to you? Our power packed plan fits easily into your busy day! Coaches Gabriella and Jill have taken all their best strategies from coaching hundreds of physicians over multiple years and folded them into one efficient course. You can easily practice these bite-sized strategies on your timeline: anytime, anywhere. Are you ready to invest in yourself, reclaim your time and minimize stress? Click here! 

 

To learn more about DocWorking, visit us here!

 

Are you a physician who would like to tell your story? Please email Amanda, our producer at Amanda@docworking.com to apply.

 

And if you like our podcast and would like to subscribe and leave us a 5 star review, we would be extremely grateful!

 

We’re everywhere you like to get your podcasts! Apple iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google, Pandora, PlayerFM, ListenNotes, Amazon, YouTube, Podbean

 

Some links in our blogs and show notes are affiliate links, and purchases made via those links may result in small payments to DW. These help toward our production costs. Thank you for supporting DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast!

 

Occasionally, we discuss financial and legal topics. We are not financial or legal professionals. Please consult a licensed professional for financial or legal advice regarding your specific situation.

 

Podcast produced by: Amanda Taran

38: Procrastination: The Self Defense Mechanism We Can Do Without

“Procrastination is often not just about laziness and people who don’t care and don’t give a darn and aren’t willing to do something. It’s actually a variation of a fear response.” -Master Certified Coach, Jill Farmer

In today’s episode, Coaches Gabriella and Jill tackle procrastination. Who of us hasn’t dealt with procrastination at one time or another? Does it leave you calling yourself lazy or not good enough? You’re not alone. But it turns out that is simply not the case. Procrastination is often a variation to a fear response and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a natural way of your brain trying to protect itself from something it may find threatening. Tune in to hear ways to move through and overcome procrastination.    

 

Get One-on-One Coaching with Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

Get One-on-One Coaching with Master-Certified Coach Jill Farmer

 

Excerpts from the show:

 

“Jill, in your work with clients what have you found is the reason for putting things off?” -Coach Gabriella Dennery

 

“Well, that was an interesting thing that I discovered because I had the tendency to be a procrastinator myself and my secret deep dark, inner critic voice around that, was that I was lazy and just not as smart as everybody else because I couldn't get my act together. When I started trying to help other people with procrastination, I decided to sort of dive into the psychology of it and figure out why, as humans, do we procrastinate? It turns out that procrastination is often not about just laziness and people who don't care and don't give a darn and aren't willing to do something, it's actually a variation of a fear response. So when we get agitated and are in the activated fear response, we tend to fight, flee or freeze. So procrastination is really a version of fleeing away from something that feels like a threat to us. That was so fascinating for me because I thought about how I tried to motivate myself to do something that was feeling overwhelming, that I was putting off, the big project, whether it was in school and it was the big paper I was writing or it was a big project that was due at work, my way to try to get myself excited about doing those things was to beat myself up and talk about how hard it was and how much time I needed in order to do it right. And I just needed to buckle down with this inner dictator voice, and of course, I would find anything else to do other than that because I was trying to use an inner voice that was threatening me in order to deal with something that I was already perceiving as a threat. It felt hard to me, it felt threatening. So I was subconsciously moving away from it. So that was kind of eye-opening for me to think about, that procrastination does not mean that we are evil or lazy. Often it just means that we've got the subconscious perceived threat about it, we're worried about doing it, we're worried about doing it right. Perfectionism often gets mixed in there and so we avoid it because it feels scary.” -Master Certified Coach, Jill Farmer

“A lot of time it has to do with the overwhelm. Especially for doctors and for medical students, for people going through all of that craziness of hours of studying and sleeplessness and trying to jam all this information into a very short period of time. Then it's like, ‘You know what, I just want to zone out for a minute.’ And you want to gravitate to something that feels a little better in that moment. If there's some kind of instant gratification, so, you know, let me look at a cat video on YouTube so that I can feel a little more sane, rather than trying to push myself. And then you're right, I think the point about the inner critic being able to say, ‘Look, let me try to beat myself into submission,’ as opposed to, ‘I’m being lazy or I'm not good enough,’ and all of these kind of stories we tell ourselves. When the focus is on that, and then that creates a kind of vicious cycle of more procrastination and more delay and more, ‘I know I have a deadline but hey, etc. etc.’ - Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

“So what have you found in your coaching experience and in your personal experience that kind of beats that little devil down and is able to get that procrastination, I don’t know if I want to say ‘under control,’ but really, to know how to work with it and move past it?” -Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

 

 

“I love the way you framed that at the end perfectly, ‘How do you work with it and how do you move past it?’ We don't have to beat it down, right? It's a part of us that's trying to protect us from something that feels like a threat. A couple of things you said I think are really powerful. One is that sometimes we don't do it because we’re bored with it. A really helpful way to get motivated or get some fuel in the engine when we're feeling stalled or putting something off is to remember why it matters to us. When we're bored with something it's either because we’ve forgotten or aren't really paying attention to why it matters to us. Sometimes it just matters to us because it's a condition of employment and we like our work, and we want to continue to be able to do it. Sometimes it's deeper than that, ‘This matters to me because I identify my value system as somebody who shows up and does things and completes them and is reliable.’ There's a big spectrum of what Matters with capital M. That can be an effective way when we're feeling stalled or putting something off, is to recognize that sometimes we’ll say, ‘Oh, I’m just really tired and I wanna take a break.’ But avoidance is often not rest. I am all for taking breaks. And I think a lot of times what will help me with procrastination is if I break it down into ridiculously easy steps and you have heard me talk about that before. Like, if we think about what my mentor, Martha Beck, would call turtle steps, because a turtle can only move in ridiculously easy steps in relation to its body. But they cover a whole lot of ground over the course of their lifetime by taking ridiculously easy steps.” -Master Certified Coach, Jill Farmer

“One of my clients, for example, said that one way she beats procrastination, or again

 works with it, recognizes it, and moves past it, which is what you said. You recognize that you're now in procrastination mode when you're trying to avoid what's in front of you, and put it in a larger context, ‘Why am I doing this? What are my values around it and what's the bigger picture? What's the vision around it?’ And that becomes important as well. But one of my clients mentioned that one of the things she does when she knows she's in procrastination mode is to call somebody, connect with somebody, collaborate, brainstorm. It helps get that motivation going again. Especially if it's too overwhelming, there's too much to do. How to break it down into simpler steps or if it's kind of boring and stiff or you're in that judgment place. But you know, it's like I'm judging myself for not getting it done, right? So to break the pattern by calling somebody who has a certain expertise. So she was working on a big budget for her not-for-profit and budgeting is not her thing, and so it just kept dragging on and on and everybody's waiting for this information. So she started working with people who know something about budgeting for not-for-profit. And just having a regular weekly call where they would brainstorm, shoot the breeze, check on her progress, etc. etc. Having that kind of support also helped a lot on getting it done. Because part of it is, ‘Ok, I have to get it done,’ which is kind of where my procrastination is. ‘If I don't get it done, somebody's going to say something to me and I'm going to feel badly about myself.’ That somehow I'm not good enough or I'm not competent enough to take care of it or it's too much, etc., whatever I tell myself about a situation. But to be able to break out of that, often times as a physician, I mean I don't know if it's every physician and I don't want to generalize, but it's easy to get into that mode of, ‘I have to figure it out myself,’ which can also perpetuate the cycle of procrastination… so to break that part of the cycle it's like, ‘Let me call somebody. Let me reach out to somebody. Let me ask for their thoughts and opinion. Let me talk to somebody who knows more about this than I do.’  And that also gets that motivation going.  And it's fun to connect with someone, to have that conversation. So to allow that kind of outside creative input can also get things moving.”  -Coach Gabriella Dennery MD

 

DocWorking believes the time has come to prioritize the health and wellness of physicians.

Professional coaching is transformational. Elite athletes, award-winning actors and top-performing executives all know this, which is why they embrace coaching to achieve such extraordinary success. Leading corporations also know this, which is why they encourage coaching for employees at every level. Smart leaders leverage the power of coaching to achieve outcomes that are meaningful, measurable, and attainable. Our Coaches Will Show You How!

 

We have exciting news! Our live course, STAT: Quick Wins to Get Your Life Back is coming soon! Life is too short to be stretched so thin. Do you want more time to focus on what matters most to you? Our power packed plan fits easily into your busy day! Coaches Gabriella and Jill have taken all their best strategies from coaching hundreds of physicians over multiple years and folded them into one efficient course. You can easily practice these bite-sized strategies on your timeline: anytime, anywhere. Are you ready to invest in yourself, reclaim your time and minimize stress? Click here! 

 

To learn more about DocWorking, visit us here!

 

Are you a physician who would like to tell your story? Please email Amanda, our producer at Amanda@docworking.com to apply.

 

And if you like our podcast and would like to subscribe and leave us a 5 star review, we would be extremely grateful!

 

We’re everywhere you like to get your podcasts! Apple iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google, Pandora, PlayerFM, ListenNotes, Amazon, YouTube, Podbean

 

Some links in our blogs and show notes are affiliate links, and purchases made via those links may result in small payments to DW. These help toward our production costs. Thank you for supporting DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast!

 

Occasionally, we discuss financial and legal topics. We are not financial or legal professionals. Please consult a licensed professional for financial or legal advice regarding your specific situation.

 

Podcast produced by: Amanda Taran