“It’s Nice to Know I’m Not Alone”

Purpose: Physician trainees, especially those who identify as female, are disproportionately affected by burnout compared with their nonphysician age-matched peers. Physicians experience tremendous clinical growth in training; however, little time is dedicated to metacognition, which is necessary to process their experiences, form professional identities, and create individualized definitions of values and success. A 6-month, web-based group coaching program, Better Together Physician Coaching (“Better Together”), was developed and facilitated by trained life coaches and physicians (T.F. and A.M.) to decrease burnout. Here, we aim to understand the effectiveness and impact of Better Together. Method: The Better Together intervention was piloted from January to June 2021. Better Together is a coaching program that is self-paced and asynchronous with multiple domains including live coaching calls, unlimited written coaching, and weekly self-study webinars and worksheets. Seventeen semistructured interviews of participants who had completed the Better Together coaching program were conducted from May to June of 2021. Both inductive and deductive methods were used in collecting and analyzing the data. Rapid domain analysis was used to analyze the data as it was collected. Results: Three major themes emerged from the data: (1) Trainees benefitted from practicing metacognition used in coaching specifically around the subthemes of burnout, self-compassion, imposter syndrome, and managing interpersonal relationships; (2) the sense of community and normalized experiences created among the coaching participants built rapport, trust, and a sense of belonging; and (3) participants enjoyed the multiple modalities available for coaching. These options made the experience customizable to individual schedules, needs, personalities, and learning styles. Discussion: Female identifying trainees in graduate medical education experience burnout, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome. Participants found the Better Together coaching program improved well-being by using metacognition as a coping tool, and also because of the vulnerable shared experiences they navigated together, which combated isolation and burnout. Significance: A physician-led group coaching program based in metacognition may represent a highly scalable intervention for medical trainee well-being. Our program led participants to reflect on and reframe beliefs around their experience of their work and professional lives for healthier coping. Additionally, the community created by the program allowed for normalization, empathy, and self-compassion around the challenges of training. Having a customizable experience with multiple modalities for participation allowed participants with complex and irregular schedules and varying learning and communication preferences to benefit from the program. Group coaching may offer a meaningful strategy to mitigate burnout, foster community, and serve trainees and physicians.

Burnout · Coaching · Medical education · Psychotherapist · Qualitative property · Applied Psychology · Clinical Psychology · Computer Science · Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout · Innovations in Medical Education · Medicine · Perfectionism, Procrastination, Anxiety Studies · Psychology