Categories for

November 28, 2024 7:00 am

Reflecting on the research and practice of coaching doctors

by Sharee Johnson

Academic Research seeks evidence by asking very specific questions that reduce the variables in a situation. In order to get at specific evidence, we can begin with a general enquiry like- Does coaching help doctors improve their performance? Does coaching reduce doctor burnout? And gradually we can think our way to something specific that we can […]

A doctor, nurse , and medical student assisting a patient in an operating theatre
August 28, 2024 12:01 pm

To be a patient is to be rendered vulnerable.

by Sharee Johnson

To be To be a patient is to be rendered vulnerable.The trust required to give consent to anaesthesia, surgery, pharmacological treatment on someone’s, a stranger’s, advice might be an act of desperationBlind faith… To be a medical student is to live up to expectation.The persistent commitment to academic learning, to sacrificing a social life, to […]

July 26, 2024 9:45 am

Prevention is so much better than a cure

by Sharee Johnson

Prevention is so much better than a cure every day of the week. Proactive action can help you be well, no matter where you work or what you do. Including working in healthcare. Healthcare workers have so much opportunity to shift the focus to prevention, to generate more health and wellbeing in our communities.  When […]

Woman walking in park
November 20, 2023 12:49 pm

Personal Agency is Key to Individual Wellbeing and to Organisational Change

by Sharee Johnson

According to the Stanford WellMD model of healthcare, healthcare worker well being1 is achieved from 20% personal resilience and 80% organisational responsibility (changing systems and structures in the workplace). The Stanford research is impressive and guides a great deal of our work. It’s impact in helping healthcare organisations to get serious about their responsibilities to […]

September 30, 2023 4:28 pm

Medicine is an inexact science.

by Sharee Johnson

Researchers and clinicians work hard to bring evidence to the table, to notice and measure patterns, to share information in the service of everyone. And medicine has done an extraordinary job of this. For example:   🌱Average global life expectancy has more than doubled   🌱Child mortality and maternal mortality rates are lower  🌱We are […]

September 26, 2023 11:19 am

Why doctors and coaches need to retreat for balance

by Sharee Johnson

In retreat, in the quiet, we can listen for our true selves and reconnect to our own meaning. The world is incredibly noisy. There is so much junk to sift through. I find it tricky to work out what to attend to, what to read, listen to, watch. Is it just me? Doctors in the […]

2 pair hands holding a red heart shape
September 14, 2023 2:53 pm

Compassionate Care Competencies need our attention

by Sharee Johnson

Bedside manner and communication skills are the ‘tip of the compassion iceberg’ according to Dominic O. Vachon. In the big machine that is modern day healthcare, we have prioritised throughput, technical wizardry and the financial bottom line. In other words, we still talk a lot about compassion, but we are not walking the talk often […]

August 31, 2023 7:46 am

I see you, tell me what you truly need

by Sharee Johnson

  Being seen is the foundation of wellbeing AND therefore the foundation of high performance. Before 2011 I said things like ‘as long as the surgeon is skilled and competent, we don’t care about the rest’. Let me be clear I was talking about his technical, surgical skills. I was wrong in two important ways. […]

Wooden Wheel cogs
June 13, 2023 2:04 pm

It’s the system you say…

by Sharee Johnson

Systemic and structural changes are required within healthcare.   It’s the system you say. I agree there are systemic and structural changes required within healthcare. Who is in charge of these systems? Who can orchestrate the changes? Who has the power and capacity to change them so that doctors’ lives can be enhanced by their […]

yellow background, wooden statue thinking
May 29, 2023 3:29 pm

Coaching is often described as counter-cutural

by Sharee Johnson

It is designed to create new thinking, to widen the field of vision we are working in. The work I do in medicine coaching, facilitating workshops and speaking, is sometimes described as counter-cultural. I am curious about the doctor’s experience of our conversation or what they are hearing from me. I often ask medics to […]

Woman laying on couch. big open window behind
April 1, 2023 11:15 am

It’s meaningful because I choose it

by Sharee Johnson

The Joy of missing out… Recently I was in the slow lane, immersed in nature and gentle silence for five days – such luxury!There is no accident in such an arrangement. I chose to prioritise and organise so that I could step out of my habituated life, out of the hustle and bustle. In order […]

Dirt road in a state forest
February 27, 2023 11:37 am

An Integrated Life

by Sharee Johnson

Finding the right balance. An integrated life is one that finds the right balance, that includes the right amounts of all the things that are important to you.  Even better if all of those parts nourish and feed each other.  I have been working since I was 12 years old. First in my parent’s orchard sorting and packing fruit […]