Coaching for doctors navigating change You've spent years looking after everyone else. This is the part where someone looks after you.
I've prepared doctors for OET for three years now, and sooner or later the conversation stops being about the exam. Very often it becomes about the move: the parents who don't really want them to go, even when they're proud of them; the partner who's giving something up to come; the new hospital where years of experience suddenly have to be proved all over again.
But not every conversation is about moving country. Sometimes it's about a job that no longer fits quite as well as it once did, a specialty they're beginning to question, habits that disappeared somewhere during training, or a relationship with work that has gradually taken up more of life than they ever intended. Sometimes it's simply the uncomfortable realisation that they've spent years becoming a doctor without having much time to think about what they want the rest of their life to look like.
Medicine gives you an extraordinary amount of responsibility quite early. It also makes postponing things remarkably easy. Sleep can wait until the rota settles down. The gym can wait until the exam is over. Friends can wait until work becomes less demanding. The idea you've wanted to pursue can wait until there's more time. And sometimes, years later, you look around and realise that the temporary arrangement has quietly become the way you live.
That is the part I want to talk about here. I work privately with doctors who are at some point of change, whether that means moving to another country, settling into a new professional life, reconsidering where their career is going, rebuilding parts of life that medicine pushed aside, or simply trying to work out what they want next.
The work is structured and evidence-based, but it is still a real conversation. At the beginning, we decide what actually matters in your particular situation and what would count as meaningful progress. Then we keep looking at those things together as the weeks go by, so neither of us has to rely on vague impressions about whether anything is changing.
You probably don't need another person telling you what matters.
Most doctors I speak to already know that sleep matters, that work can quietly take over more of life than intended, and that the things postponed until “things calm down” have a habit of staying postponed.
The gym. The book. The relationship that needs attention. The friendships that were supposed to happen once training became less demanding.
Sometimes you look up a few years later and realise that you have colleagues, people you know, perhaps even a busy social life on paper, but very few people you would actually call when you need someone. Loneliness does not always look like being alone.
Knowing what matters and managing to make room for it are two different things.
That is where I see coaching being useful: a private, structured hour in which your own life is the thing we are paying attention to, and enough continuity between those hours that decisions do not disappear under the next rota, exam, application or difficult week.
And because I do not particularly like vague coaching either, we keep track of what is actually changing. Not everything needs a number, but there should be something you can point to: a decision made, a conversation finally had, a routine that has lasted, a friendship given some attention, an evening that belongs to you again.
It is not about turning your life into a spreadsheet. It is about noticing whether your life is beginning to look more like the one you actually want.
Three doctors. Often the same person, at different points.
The one who can feel something needs to change.
Maybe you're considering a move. Maybe you're questioning a job, a specialty, or simply the way work has gradually taken up more of life than you intended. Nothing may be wrong enough to force a decision. But something keeps bringing the question back.
The one in the middle of it.
You've moved, changed jobs, taken the exam, started the new post, or finally made a decision you had been postponing. Now comes the less visible part: finding your footing, keeping hold of the habits and relationships that matter, and making sure the next chapter becomes a life rather than simply another period of getting through the week.
The one whose life looks fine from the outside.
The job works. You function well. People probably assume you're doing well too. But perhaps friendships have thinned, your life outside medicine feels smaller than you expected, or you have reached a point where you cannot quite answer what you want next. You don't have to be in crisis for that question to deserve some attention.
Because sometimes being outside the system is useful.
I'm not a physician, and I won't pretend to know what it feels like to carry clinical responsibility. If you need advice about medicine, I'm the wrong person.
What I do know is what happens around the work. I've spent years working closely with doctors, initially through exam preparation, and the conversations rarely stay confined to the exam. Eventually we talk about the move, the new job, the decision they keep postponing, the habits that disappeared, the friendships that became harder to maintain, or the uncomfortable sense that medicine has gradually become almost the whole of life.
Being outside the hierarchy changes the conversation. I'm not your consultant, colleague, supervisor or appraiser. You don't need to prove that you're competent to me, and we can give proper attention to things that don't fit neatly into a professional review: relationships, loneliness, health, confidence, boundaries, career direction, or simply whether the life you're building still feels like yours.
My job isn't to understand your specialty better than you do. It's to listen carefully, notice patterns, ask useful questions, help turn thinking into action, and keep looking with you at what is actually changing.
Twelve weeks, with enough structure to keep moving and enough flexibility to deal with real life.
The work usually moves through three areas. Not always in a perfectly straight line, because lives rarely do.
Direction
We start by getting clear about what is actually changing and what you want to be different at the end of the work. A move, a career decision, a relationship with work that needs to change, a life outside medicine that needs rebuilding, or something harder to name. We agree what matters and what progress would actually look like.
Foundation
Then we look at what has to hold underneath it. Sleep around a rota. Training that survives a difficult week. Attention that is not permanently owned by the phone. Time for friendships, relationships, or simply being somewhere that is not work. We only work on the parts that are relevant to you.
Action
Then we make things happen. The conversation you have been postponing. The application. The interview. The boundary. The new routine. The first evening out. The project that has existed in your head for three years. You do not leave with a beautifully written plan that sits in a folder. Something should be different in your actual week.
We meet privately on Zoom, usually once a week. Between sessions there is a short written check-in, and from the beginning we keep track of a small number of things that matter in your situation.
Some will be numbers. Some will simply be observable: the decision made, the conversation had, the routine held, the friend contacted, the application sent.
So you know what you're walking into.
If what you're dealing with needs a clinician, I'll say so plainly.
Burnout may come up, but the work is broader than helping you cope with medicine. The question is usually closer to: what needs to change, and what do you want your life to look like instead?
I won't tell you how to practise medicine, find you a job, or handle your paperwork.
Twelve weeks won't magically fix everything, and nobody honest can promise you an outcome.
Coaching for physicians has been studied. Your life is not a clinical trial.
Professional coaching for physicians has been evaluated in randomized clinical trials and systematic reviews. The findings are encouraging, particularly around well-being, burnout, professional fulfilment and resilience.
Mayo Clinic · 88 physicians
Six sessions of professional coaching over five months were associated with lower emotional exhaustion and overall burnout, together with modest improvements in quality of life and resilience compared with a control group. Job satisfaction and engagement did not differ significantly.
Academic medical centre · 138 physicians
Three months of coaching by professionally trained physician peers led to statistically significant reductions in burnout and interpersonal disengagement, alongside improvements in professional fulfilment and work engagement compared with usual institutional resources.
14 studies · 1,099 physicians
A 2023 systematic review found that all quantitative studies reported improvement in at least one wellness-related outcome. Evidence from randomized trials suggested that coaching can improve physician well-being and reduce distress and burnout.
That distinction matters. The research gives us a reasonable basis for saying that structured coaching can produce measurable change for physicians. It does not tell us in advance what meaningful change will look like for you.
The same work can support the doctors you recruit.
Recruiting a doctor and helping them arrive are not quite the same thing as helping them settle.
For international doctors especially, some of the hardest parts begin after the offer has been accepted: adjusting to a new hospital, finding their footing outside work, rebuilding routines and relationships, and making the transition sustainable once the practical relocation work is finished.
I can adapt the coaching into individual support or small-group programmes for doctors before departure or during their first months in a new system.
If you're placing, recruiting or supporting doctors and think this would fill a gap in what you already provide, we can talk about what would actually be useful rather than fitting your doctors into a standard package.
free
Start with half an hour.
Thirty minutes, free, on Zoom, at a time that can work around a rota.
We talk about where you are, what has been taking up more space than you want it to, what you would like to be different, and whether this kind of work actually fits.
You don't need to arrive with a perfectly formed goal. Sometimes the first useful thing is simply getting clearer about what the problem really is.
If I don't think coaching with me is the right fit, I'll say so. If it is, I'll explain what I think we could work on and you can decide from there.
- 01 Where are you at the moment?
- 02 What has been hardest lately?
- 03 What made you book today?
Either way, the conversation should leave you with something clearer than when you arrived.