[00:00:08] Speaker A: You're listening to faith in healthcare, the cmda matters podcast. Here's your host, Dr. Mike chubb.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Welcome, friends, to Faith in Healthcare. I'm joined today by Dr. Ann Senior for a conversation that I believe many of you might just be able to identify with right now in your career, and that is all about job satisfaction.
Maybe you're doing the work that you once felt clearly called to, but something just feels off and the joy isn't there like it used to be.
Maybe you're feeling burned out and not sure where to turn.
Well, in this episode today, Dr. Ann Sen and I are going to talk about what's really going on in those moments and how to begin rediscovering your joy and purpose in Christ in the midst of all of it. So let's dive in.
Well, today on Faith in Healthcare. I just want to start off by saying that many physicians, dentists and other healthcare professionals, well, for them, dissatisfaction with work is only framed sometimes in terms of burnout or workload or an administrative burden they've been given. And while those pressures certainly are real, Scripture invites us to ask deeper questions about our calling, our stewardship, and our faithfulness in our work. And from the beginning, of course, medicine has been more than a career for many believers. It's been a vocation, a way of loving our neighbor and serving Christ through the care of the sick and vulnerable. At the same time, the Apostle Paul reminds us in Colossians that whatever we do, we are ultimately working as unto our Lord.
And that means our professional lives are not separate from our spiritual lives. They are one arena where our discipleship is lived out.
I have the wonderful opportunity to talk with the director of our CMDA executive coaching ministry, Dr. Ann Sen, to explore the issue of physician job satisfaction. But we have to say there will be some principles that will apply to dentists and other Christian healthcare professionals out there listening. We are going to be talking about alignment between our work, our gifts, our faith, and the calling that God has placed on our lives. But first, let me just introduce tell you a little bit about Dr. Ann Sen. She's a physician, a certified physician coach, and co founder of our CMDA Coaching and Coach training program. She provides individual coaching, especially for women physicians around a variety of issues that include burnout, leadership development and various career transitions, helping those women renew their joy, clarity and calling both inside and outside of medicine. She's also a licensed coaching trainer. I have sat through at least a couple of Ann's courses that she's taught, coordinating that coaching and coaching training program. Also, she's been working with our Women Physicians and Dentists in Christ Ministry on their advisory team and speaks at a number of conferences for CMDA as well as outside cmda. She's married to Andy, a physician husband, and they've both served together as CMDA campus advisors and they have two adult children. And you're going to hear today she's passionate about helping healthcare professionals thrive in our personal, professional and spiritual lives through her speaking, coaching and training.
So with all of that as an intro, Dr. Anson, welcome to Faith and Healthcare Today. I've been looking forward to this for weeks.
[00:03:55] Speaker C: Yeah, thank you so much for asking, Mike. I'm looking forward to the conversation too.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Well, thank you for responding to my invite to join me today specifically to focus on job satisfaction or dissatisfaction. And for our listeners, I want to give a shout out to our producer, Ms. Kat Denton, and she's always on the lookout for topics that might be of interest for our listeners. And she came across an article from late 2025 from Reuters that said over the next year a survey, over half of healthcare professionals planned on leaving their current jobs. And she thought that would be a great topic, Mike, for us to talk about. And granted, that survey, Ann, I think, was of all kinds of healthcare professionals. And so let's start off. Does that represent physicians, do you think, or is that maybe more of nursing and other associate healthcare professionals?
[00:04:46] Speaker C: That's a great question, and I don't have the actual hard data to answer that.
I will say that it's a very common question that comes with the people that our team coaches.
Things aren't quite right. And does that mean that I need to leave, get a different job, or do I need to leave medicine, or am I just failing?
Those are common questions that at least the people who seek out coaching tend to bring in.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Well, I just thought you would be an appropriate person to talk about job satisfaction because I would assume that a number of your clients who come to you, your coachees, are going through a period of time, whether it's burnout or losing joy, and they're just seeking your help. Is that right? What percentage of your clients, just a guess, are in that place, in that space?
[00:05:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say that while coaching is also highly effective for people who are doing okay, but they want to do much better.
They just want help moving forward with some goals, some leadership development.
There's a truth we teach in one of our coaching courses that we tend to be willing to change when the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of changing so it's usually pain of some sort or frustration or dissonance of some sort that causes people to reach out for coaching. So I would say it's definitely the majority of people have something that's not right, that they've been trying to make it better.
And they read the books, they listened to the podcasts, they tried harder, and they're not getting the movement that they wanted. And maybe a coach could help me.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Well, Ann, we as Christians, we don't have exclusive claim on this word calling or vocation. I said in the intro.
So how does a Christian physician's understanding of calling shape their experience of overall job satisfaction? And what happens when that sense of calling begins to become foggy? And maybe they feel like they've lost their way and gotten away from their calling?
[00:06:56] Speaker C: It's true that it's not exclusive to Christians. It's very common in health care to feel a sense of calling, like, I was made to do this, at least to start out that way, right?
And then things can change.
The stories we hear, you know, over 10 years of coaching physicians, it's very common to have some sense of where, when they knew, they at least knew as best they could that God was calling them into medicine. Of course, we know the classic stories that are. It's not the majority of people that were, you know, 7 years old or 10 years old, and clearly God said, you know, they just. They knew they were going to become a doctor. Not all of us had that. And some people, some Christians go into medicine because it seems like the best choice. And they may not have as clear a call. But one thing that's true is the clarity of that calling helps when things get hard.
Especially, you know, I think missionaries have been studied on that degree. And when life is hard, knowing that, you know, but God called me to do this helps you stick it out during the harder seasons.
Where it begins to get fuzzy is when the hard just keeps going and begins to exceed our capacity to adjust and adapt. And then things like, you know, the beginnings of burnout or just chronic exhaustion set in. And I think for a believer, some of the things that we can hear it kind of how you see God and how you're used to hearing from him and what you believe about that calling and how he speaks to you can have a significant effect in how you process that.
Some people may think, oh, wow, let's examine what needs. What's going on here, and with a curiosity, what needs to change? But other people may immediately assume this is what we hear most often.
That Somehow I'm failing. Or am I failing God because I don't love this?
And so I think it begins to kind of create some doubt and questions when that calling gets fuzzy.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: And then I wonder, Ann, if I've been there, but did I really hear his voice?
[00:09:21] Speaker C: I heard that question.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Did I really distinctly hear that correctly, or did I just put too much of my own perspective and did I not listen?
[00:09:31] Speaker C: Well, yeah. And it's always a great question to ask. And I think another assumption that worms its way in sometimes is that God's calling is a one and done thing.
And the more I think about, you know, what Jesus talks about, us abiding in him, you know, our walk with God is an ongoing daily relationship. And so are we still asking him, lord, what is it you want me to be doing now? Rather than kicking ourselves? Because somehow what we heard at age 17 or 27 or whatever age it was seems not to be working out.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: The question is, is my job aligned with that calling or is the calling shifting in this season of life? What is it that God is calling me to right now and not making assumptions, asking great questions of yourself and him?
[00:10:29] Speaker B: And this may seem a little bit rhetorical, but is it ever spiritually okay to feel pretty grumbly and dissatisfied with medicine if you did feel once clearly called to it? And how should Christian physicians think about that place when they're like, I'm really pretty unhappy with medicine in my life right now?
[00:10:50] Speaker C: That's one of those questions where, as a coach, I'm not inclined to actually answer it.
I want to ask more questions of the person who's asking me that.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Yes, like what? What kind of questions follow then?
[00:11:04] Speaker C: Well, like, what would my answer do for you? Like, what are you looking for here?
[00:11:10] Speaker B: I'm looking for an out, Ann. I'm looking for an out of this terrible life I've chosen.
[00:11:15] Speaker C: Yeah, well, you know, the word curiosity is such.
We talk in our coach training about we want to redeem the concept of curiosity. We're not talking about the curiosity of the person who just wants to get the goods on you so they can gossip about you.
We're talking about a curiosity that's very open and explorative.
And I would think when you feel dissatisfied with medicine, once you felt clearly called to it, that's a huge invitation to curiosity, and it's an invitation to go to God.
And if you find that hard, then find kind, curious, godly people, which could be a coach. It might be just, you know, that great friend that listens really well to talk through things and help you ask the questions of God and yourself of what's going on, what's causing this dissatisfaction.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: So as you take a deep dive with your clients, the person being coached. Is that right? PBCs, is that you refer to it?
[00:12:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: How do you help them discern whether dissatisfaction is coming specifically from just a real time of being stretched and crispy with burnout or it's external pressures, misalignment, and probably that word means different things to different people or something deeper in their very identity and in their faith walk right now.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: So many times in what I've learned through being a coach is we so often ask either or questions in life and usually not always necessarily medicine because it's either heart disease or it's not, but oftentimes it's both. And so maybe a different question would be rather than whether it's burnout, external pressures or misalignment, to what degree is my dissatisfaction related to burnout, external pressures, misalignment and. Or something deeper in identity and faith. And it's probably some amount of all of those potentially.
So how do we help them? Well, there's not a quick and easy answer to that. It's helping people sort of listen to their life, listen to what's going on, listen to, you know, so often when we ask someone, you know, what is it you really want? That's like a shocking question because they haven't considered that. They were like, what do you mean? No one asks me that.
You know, the question is, what are you going to do next? And here's your next requirement that you have to fulfill. Helping them listen to themselves, listen to God. Teasing out their assessments to kind of tease out what degree of this is burnout. I think by now, hopefully most of our listeners are, you know, what I call burnout literate and know the three key signs of burnout. But I'll just list them in case not.
Yeah, I won't put you on the spot and ask you to list them, but I could.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:14:30] Speaker C: Emotional E, you know, E for emotional exhaustion. It helps to remember. It's, you know, erd.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: I remember the color red. Right. I mean, I do remember red.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: If you.
Yeah, I. But I'm going to describe them in the order that they tend to show up in your life. So first is E for emotional exhaustion are for reduced sense of efficacy and sort of meaning and accomplishment in your work, which can then actually turn into more errors, actually reduced, not just a sense of accomplishment, but maybe you're starting to slip. And then D is for depersonalization, where you stop caring about the things that you really cared about before. And that is distressing in itself to notice that you don't care. And then it just sort of snowballs. So ask yourself, do I have any of that? If you're not sure, there are different assessments. You can do the well being index. There's a way to, if you Google to do it yourself, if your organization's not administering it regularly, there's the Maslach burnout inventory.
And then I think, just beginning to sort of gather data. Like I said, listen to your life, listen to your. Your day and how it flows, and ask yourself, what am I noticing in my internal and external, which I think is your next question. So I won't jump into that.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: So how often is it external since you've gone there, as you're interacting and you are curious and you're causing me, as the person being coached to be curious. And we explore my schedule, the leaders around me. And I've heard it said, people join organizations, they leave supervisors or leaders or bosses, the electronic medical record.
And then how much is just internal narratives?
I'll just tell you this. The internal narrative makes me think, Anne, of a recent small group couples study that I was a part of, which was I didn't know what. My wife and I have been through many Bible studies together in various places, ministry places, we've been.
And this one in particular was talking about the voices, the internal voices that we hear.
And the leader, the video, short video series, said he named his voice and he wanted to encourage us to name the voice that we most commonly hear in our lives. And it was, you know, you say in coaching, aha moment. You know, in 2 Timothy, we hear about Demas who forsook Paul because he loved this present world. And I have to admit, as I looked over my career, the voice that I was hearing was an internal voice. And I started naming him Demas because Demas would whisper, it's not going well. You need to leave. You need to leave. And so there was this internal sense of dissatisfaction. And so it was very freeing for me, Ann, to say, demas, just go away. I'm not going to give you any hearing today.
So those internal narratives are external. So talk to us about those two extremes.
[00:17:36] Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up and for normalizing that. I think for our listeners, oftentimes it creates a little levity when in a coaching conversation, I'll ask someone, you know, whose voices are you hearing behind all of that, what are the voice, you know, what are the messages you're hearing? And like who's, who told you that? That's one of Ken's favorite questions. Who told you that about yourself? And sometimes it's, it's. Yeah, I mean we all know the, the enemy is our accuser and uses shame as a primary tool. As an aside, I highly recommend Dr. Maryland Kurt Thompson's book the Soul of Shame to just absolutely life changing in identifying that voice in us. But it, but sometimes I find that the voice that people are hearing that drives this perfectionism or this over responsibility is someone from their childhood or even their medical training. It can be a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, a particular attending.
And in experience I've had people where we've had to kind of untangle a message they internalized and they realized it had their attending's voice attached to it or their grandparents or whatever and, or their dad, their dad who is a big driver. And they never felt like they were enough and so they didn't realize that voice was still driving them. So yes, internal factors can have a huge impact.
You asked me how much is it external versus internal? I would say it just really depends on the person, but I think for our listeners to recognize it can be both and either or more or less, but there's probably some combination of both. But what I find so powerful is when like you said, you feel more free just being able to recognize and name that sort of degrading interior voice that causes doubt and you know, questioning and all of that. Once we do that, it's that self awareness and clarity that gives us the freedom and the power and honestly more courage to change things externally, to then begin to challenge assumptions that we have about what can and can't be changed. And one of the things, I just love it when just asking a good question to a client, they all of a sudden realize, wow, well how do I know that can't be changed? I mean, what evidence do I have? I just assume it can't be changed or I just assume it's my job to do all these things.
And on cross examination we realize, wait, that's not my job. Actually it's not even in my job description. And in fact I'm taking away the work from that other person who that thing actually is in their job description.
So I love when the healthcare professional gets freed up internally to a more truer, healthier voices to have the courage then to examine and make the external changes or ask for the external changes that they need. And they show up different in their environment too, which has this ripple effect too, of how people even respond to you.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I appreciate you shared with me over the weekend a Medscape article, I think, from late last year about why physicians leave in their first job. First three years.
[00:21:28] Speaker C: Oh, their first job.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: First job.
We all think, well, it's because they weren't getting paid well enough. Well, it's certainly on the list. But at the top is the issue of leadership or administration issues. In fact, almost half of the respondents, they could tick a number of boxes. More than one reason. But at the top was leadership.
Clearly that has to be a common thread with those you coach.
And so what are the sorts of questions that you ask of physicians?
When it's my boss, it's my department head, it's this administration that's really leading me to be so unhappy. What do you walk them through at this point in time for your clients? And you don't have to spend the next 45 minutes because then you'd have to charge me and all of our listeners, but just kind of give us some ideas on how you advise people or walk them through asking those questions to deal with poor leadership.
[00:22:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I actually have a client who has become a chief well being officer after going through her whole journey of burnout and actually semi retiring. I got a little input from her before this podcast because she's an expert in these things.
She's done amazing things with her organization.
But she reminded me that the key factors relating to physician job satisfaction are first that sense of autonomy and power to some degree. Obviously you can't have full power over your schedule, whether it's your work hours or how your schedule is organized. But right there behind that is the support you feel from your immediate next supervisor.
So whoever that is in your organizational structure. So that is the most powerful influencer if you have a really supportive next level person.
But then there's a bit of a mess above that in the hierarchy that can help pad that it helps you feel supported. But if you're immediate, immediate next person up isn't supportive, it can really affect people.
However, one thing that can creep in is this sense of victimhood or this sense. Yeah, that, that of powerlessness that I don't. This person's making life miserable for me or I'm afraid to bring things up because of how they're going to respond and make me feel. And I think, you know, we teach in our 503 course this idea of your circle of control and your circle of what I like to call only possible influence, because if it was guaranteed influence, then it would be basically control. So it's only possible influence. It requires the other person to respond in whatever way they want.
So it turns out our circle of control is really quite small.
And we can. It's just like what Viktor Frankl said, you know, we are in control of our response regardless of what the stimulus is and some people can't take that away from us.
Feeling powerless and feeling like a victim are really toxic to our ability to see what's really true and to actually take action. So if we can help someone examine and ask, you know, how am I feeling in terms of, you know, victim or versus power and what actually do I have control of and really help them gather more energy and focus there, then they can begin to see, wow. And then I can invite them sometimes to get behind the eyes of that leader and think about what is it, what are the pressures that leader is feeling from above them and what is important to that leader in terms of when you bring your concerns or complaints, what is going to motivate them to act and how do you want them to feel as you interact? There's so much we could talk about when it comes to sort of, some people call it managing up. I don't know that that word applies here, but changing how you think about and how you interact with the immediate person above you, kind of regaining your own sense of agency, even if, even if they continue to act in a way that's really difficult.
Where's my circle of control? What can I change? That can be very empowering and clarifying for people.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's fantastic.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Before we continue with this week's episode, here's a special announcement for you.
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[00:27:58] Speaker B: So I interviewed just a couple months ago, maybe three or four months ago, actually, Dr. Mark Topazian on his book Healing Purpose, and during the interview he pointed out something that I hadn't really thought very deeply about before. We talk in medicine a lot about achievement and make our identity often surrounding the achievements that we have.
But let's just say be successful general surgeon and you become really good at doing laparoscopic cholecystectomies. But after a while that doesn't give you a buzz anymore. That's sort of becoming really good. It's like you need to add more.
So what happens when our identity as docs becomes so fused with achievement and how does that affect long term satisfaction and joy? And so how do you work with clients through this? That they're very accomplished, they're sought after for what they do, but they just don't seem satisfied anymore because they've reached a plateau.
[00:28:51] Speaker C: It's really common in medicine and even in US believers, this whole performative achievement thing can, you know, work its way into our identity and our spiritual life in a way that eventually, like you said, you sort of run out of things to feed that. And that's when you kind of have to do a reckoning of that, that approach to life, that mindset, that way of operating your life. And it's a gift. Even though it may seem like a crisis or a time of doubt and questioning, it's a gift to be able to see it. You've probably heard one of us talk before about this idea of the cycle of grace and the cycle of works. And there's a great book you can find on Amazon called the Cycle of Grace by Trevor Hudson.
That whole model was built out of a theologian and a Christian psychiatrist being asked to study why so many missionaries were leaving the mission field early.
And they built this model out of looking at Jesus life and decided that how Jesus lived his life was the cycle of grace and how we well meaning and earnest Christians often flip it backwards into the cycle of works. And the idea is that Jesus knew who he was, whose he was. He started with this base level of I know who I am, I know who I belong to. I know my purpose.
And because of that, God holds my my purpose regardless. And he knew all that. And God said, I'm well pleased with you. Even before he started racking up sort of ministry accomplishments, it was at the beginning of his ministry and out of that confidence and trust and abundance and the time he pulled away to be with God he served.
But we tend to flip it and we think that we, in order to hear well done, good and faithful servant, and you know, deep down somewhere we're actually seeking God's acceptance that we need to produce, you know, we gotta achieve. And then we have to keep doing it again because the dopamine from doing that only lasts so long.
And then when we can't achieve anymore, say we get illness, disability, life gets in the way, then that shatters that whole thing. And so it's just good to be aware of how do I keep flipping myself back into the cycle of grace, be serving through my calling in medicine, out of grace. But I do want to answer your question about what do you do when doing lap colies? Doesn't give you a buzz anymore.
Again, I'll take you back to curiosity.
What really is it about my calling, my career that really fills me up, that brings me joy and meaning and you have to kind of keep adjusting and asking God, where are you calling me to go next?
Maybe this is the place to bring in that idea. That study that we both are aware of and many people have heard of from many years ago, Tate Shanafelt was part of where they discovered that when academic physicians, but we've sort of extrapolated it to all are doing between 10 and 20% of their time is spent on the aspect of their work that they find most meaningful and or enjoyable.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: The sweet spot.
[00:32:28] Speaker C: Yeah, the sweet spot. It doesn't need to be all of your work 10 to 20% that reduces your risk for burnout.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Thank you. So can job satisfaction be rebuilt without changing jobs?
I assume that from time to time you help your client come to the realization, whether it's over multiple episodes or even multiple conversations or maybe it's the only one that they really need to get out, that this is not. This is a toxic environment and they need to think about something else. And actually, even on this program a few years ago, I actually interviewed one of your coaching as a faculty, one of your clients who did just that and found a different practice where she as a surgeon could find just greater joy and peace because of a change in schedule.
[00:33:18] Speaker C: Yes. So I, you know, I just for the listeners, I just want them to know, you know, there's no formula. And that's where it just really comes back to, you know, discerning and listening well and doing your. You're running your experiments, gathering your own data like it. Is it possible? The question that. So I have a recent client who came to me several months ago, in her words, she was crispy and fried. And the question she was asking is, is it possible to change something about this job or me that could make this job sustainable, or do I need a different job or is this a sign that I just need to leave medicine?
And those were deep and very pressing questions for her because she was crispy and fried.
And the joy it has been for me to watch her, you know, we, we just started slowly by, you know, a lot of listening, helping her listen to her life, and discovered there were both a very sort of an equal balance of internal assumptions, namely over responsibility, feeling like she needed to be the one to do everything, and some perfectionism. But hers, you know, everyone has a different flavor of things. Hers was more of the over responsibility and assuming she had a message in her head that if she asked the MA or the nurse or whatever to do that thing, she would be burdening them, she would be a burden.
And things really flipped when she changed, realized, wait a minute, I'm not a burden. This job is a burden.
The work is the burden. And it's a burden to me because I'm doing what isn't in my job. I'm doing what's in their job description.
So actually I'm giving them a gift by handing off, offering up, passing off to them what is rightly and appropriately their job. And it's inappropriate. All these key words that just change the internal for her.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: And those staff may rejoice. Finally she did it. Finally she let me, yeah, she's letting me do what I'm here to do. And so it was win, win, win, win in this situation.
[00:35:44] Speaker C: Totally.
And then she, you know, continued. She said, I don't really have good boundaries. Okay, well let's, let's find the assumptions that are getting in the way and making it hard to set boundaries. And she ran, started to run experiments and realized, and she realized her greatest fear is that if she had boundaries, somebody was going to die.
And we kept examining that and cross examining it and realized she realized, wait a minute, there's all these stopgaps to keep that, that's really unlikely. And even if it happens, maybe they were going to die anyway and it wasn't my fault, you know. And so she began to run experiments with boundaries and found that nobody died and in fact it was better for everybody.
And so this is several months in now and she has changed many things externally and a lot internally. And she said, I am just feeling so much more free.
So yes, it's possible to change your job. But I will say the question she's asking now is, and there's because there's been a little change in leadership at her work is okay.
So these changes are making it more sustainable for me.
Will my employer accept this new normal and how I'm doing things?
So really is it sustainable for them?
So I could possibly stay here if they'll let me keep doing this.
And so far, so good. But she's still in this running experiments, curiosity mode or is God leading me some other way? And she's just open and listening. You know, on the flip side, as you mentioned, we've had many, you know, plenty of people where they changed all the things internally. They grew and the external continued to be just too untenable. And the courageous thing was to give notice.
And that opened up all kinds of new possibilities and opportunities for this one gal who's a chief well being officer now. She had no idea God was going to actually cause the organization to come to her and say, would you come and be our chief well being officer after she left her job. So you never know what God might be opening up when you do take that courageous step to leave if, if that's the right thing.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: It fills me with a little bit of sadness, Ann, to think about our colleagues who don't have faith at those junctures. I mean, we as followers of Christ know that he's got this, that he's, as you said, he's pleased with us. We're his sons and daughters and okay, God, this is not healthy for me. It's time with advice, counsel, I'm walking away from this and that he's got it and we can have shalom in that. I mean, amazing, amazing the hope that Peter talks about that we have and be a testimony.
What patterns do you see over and over again in physicians who regain joy in their work? And what seems to be different about what they think or how they live when they regain joy? That joy?
[00:39:02] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I like to just share some of the words that, that and. And word pictures that people share with me. I had this one gal last summer who we Coached, she started out also crispy were her words.
And one week she got on the phone and she said, I just need to tell you I feel like I've got floaties on my arms.
She said, I feel this sense of buoyancy. I don't feel so heavy anymore.
And I think that sense of lightness and buoyancy and freedom and I think a greater confidence in who they uniquely are and how God designed them and how to organize and design their work around that, to ask for the help that they need to compensate for the areas that aren't, like you said, in the sweet spot for them and a lack of fear about asking for what they need and just a recognition, okay, I'm not like that physician that works next to me here who loves the EMR and loves clicking things and is really efficient. My brain doesn't work that way. So here's what I need to make EMRs work for me. I think that's EMR is probably the biggest contributor to self criticism of physicians. And not everybody's brain is geared toward what EMR demands of you. What drew you to be a good physician isn't necessarily what makes you good at the emr.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Clicking all the right boxes all the time.
[00:40:46] Speaker C: Oh my gosh. But anyway, what I see, I think is this courage to self examine, courage to look deep, courage to ask the questions of yourself and of God and even of those around you and above you at work about, hey, you know, why couldn't this change? What if we did this? What if we tried this? Is it possible to get this? Just don't assume that you can't ask, you know, and then I see clarity on boundaries. Boundaries, you know, for yourself, can be really powerful. And boundaries what you about, what you say yes to and what you say no to, what you will agree to and what you will accept.
Getting really clear on what drains your energy and what fills up your energy and trying to realign around the filler upper stuff so that you have the energy for the things that drain you that we just have to do sometimes in life. Getting clear on what's in your control and what's not. I love to take people, Dr. Falk and I and Ken Jones love helping people understand their own unique strengths and how to align their work more with that and how to align with your core values and getting clear on what practicing medicine in the way that feels like really good medicine to you.
What does that look like and how can I align my work with that? Because when we're not doing that, there's a real dissonance. I think like, you know, I just can't practice the way I don't feel like I'm doing the best medicine. That's not a good place to be. So yeah, I think there's just this confidence, openness, curiosity and courage.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: I'm guessing that a few of you listening out there would love to find out how can I get in touch with one of these coaches, whether it's Ann, you or Ken or Daralyn. So tell our listeners about how they can find out more about this process of possibility of being coached, walking through coaching and or resources that you'd recommend for specifically related to them pursuing and finding greater job satisfaction. Just tell our listeners it's easy to
[00:43:07] Speaker C: get a hold of us. We're very accessible. We have a spot in the CMDA website CMDA.org coaching so you can even just google cmdacoaching and that will take you to our website and you'll be able to learn a little bit more about coaching and you'll see the profile of email each of CMDA's coaching team and you'll actually be able to read about each of them and what their focus is and check out our own websites. We have links there and you can either fill out we have a contact form on the CMDA coaching site where just tell us what you're looking for and what you're curious about and we'll have one of our coaches reach out to you or you can reach out directly to one of the coaches and set up a time to talk with them. A key part of what we do is what we call a free exploratory call or discovery call where we'll hear your story and ask you a few questions and help you figure out does coaching seem like a good fit and help you understand what that could do and if it's not coaching. Sometimes people come to us and what they really need to say start with is some mental health therapy, but we can even help coach you through what your next steps might be if, if that's, you know, if, if coaching isn't it or maybe it's coach training that you know, maybe that's your next career step to enhance your job satisfaction is to have coaching skills and be able to ask better questions of your patients and help them take ownership of their own health care journey. So it's easy to get a hold of us. We'd love to connect with you.
I don't have a specific resource on how you could increase your job satisfaction. I do think There's a lot of resources on the National Academy of Medicine website under their Clinician well Being tab. Or just reach out to us and we'll help point you to resources if you have specific things you're looking for. We have lots of specific resources we can point you to.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: Thank you Anne. Been very helpful. I've really enjoyed this conversation and I hope our listeners have been given a lot to think about and to pray about and to meditate their time with the Lord, especially if they're going through a time right now in which it's not a good time in the fog. And I've been there and been amazed at where God took me because he does care. He cares about our outcomes. He's made us in his image and wants us to be full of joy. I mean I love that concept by John Piper that the Christian hedonist that he made us to have joy. So thank you for giving us some arrows in our quiver, some questions in our quiver to be asking ourselves.
And I hope that a few of our listeners will reach out to you and or Ken or Darlin. So thank you for investing this time with me this afternoon.
[00:46:09] Speaker C: It was a privilege. Thanks so much.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: As Ann reminded us, seasons of dissatisfaction don't necessarily mean that we have failed or that God has abandoned our calling.
Sometimes they're just an invitation to pause, to listen more carefully, to examine what's shaping us, and to ask where God may be leading us in this particular season.
For those of you who are walking through doubt or burnout or questioning whether your work is still aligned with your calling, I hope that this conversation has given you not only practical insight but also real hope.
If today's episode encouraged you, please share it with a colleague, friend or fellow healthcare professional. And if you're looking for support in your calling, CMDA's coaching ministry offers personalized faith based coaching to help you heal from burnout, to grow professionally, and to reconnect with God in the midst of your work.
If you'd like to learn more or take the next step toward renewed clarity and sustainable impact, just visit CMDA.org coaching or email coachingmda.org hey, next week I'm going to be joined by Rebecca Layman and Lindsay Ilgenfritz of CMDA's side by side Ministry. It's a ministry dedicated to encouraging and supporting medical wives. We're going to have a conversation about strengthening marriages, building Christ centered community, and why no couple in healthcare should have to walk this journey alone.
I want to thank you for listening to Faith and Healthcare where our mission is to bring the hope and healing of Christ to the world through committed Christ followers in healthcare. We'll see you next time, Lord willing.
[00:48:21] Speaker A: Thanks thanks for listening to Faith in Health Care. The CMDA Matters Podcast.
If you would like to suggest a future guest or share a comment with us, please email cmdamatterscmda.org and if you like the podcast, be sure to give us a five star rating and share it on your favorite social media platform.
This podcast has been a production of Christian Medical and Dental Associations.
The opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are not necessarily endorsed by Christian Medical and Dental Associations.
CMDA is a non partisan organization that does not endorse political parties or candidates for public office.
The views expressed on this podcast reflect judgments regarding principles and values held by CMDA and its members and are not intended to imply endorsement of any political party or candidate.
