%20(52).png)
choice Magazine
choice Magazine
Episode #70 ~ Changing Healthcare Through Coaching: A Journey from Burnout to Brilliance with guests, DJ Mitsch, Dr. Bryant Murphy, & Dr. Stephen Bogdewic
Are you feeling the weight of physician burnout? Wondering if there's a better way? Join us as we delve into a game-changing discussion with three remarkable guests:
DJ Mitsch, MCC, the visionary CEO of Pyramid Resource Group, and the Healthcare Coaching Institute.
Dr. Bryant Murphy, a distinguished Professor of Anesthesiology and the Associate Dean for Leadership Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.
Dr. Stephen Bogdewic, a Professor of Family Medicine, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Leadership Development at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and a seasoned educator with a PhD in Adult Education & Organizational Development and an M.A. in Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling.
These co-authors of the article, "Changing Healthcare Through Coaching ~ The journey map for creating a coaching Culture," unveil the incredible potential of coaching to combat physician exhaustion and catalyze a collaborative environment that enhances patient care and organization advancement.
In this enlightening episode, we unpack the pioneering coaching culture established at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Imagine a place where coaching isn't just another corporate buzzword, but a transformative practice that helps individuals excel in patient care, education, and research. Our three esteemed guests walk us through their journey of embedding this culture, right from their first interaction to the impactful results they've witnessed.
Lastly, we explore the tangible and intangible benefits of coaching, measured through factors like burnout, and how these findings can serve as a blueprint for other organizations. We also highlight the relevance of staying updated with the current trends in health and medicine through Choice Magazine. So, are you ready to challenge the status quo and rethink healthcare with us? Tune in for an episode brimming with fresh insights, inspiring stories, and the powerful potential of coaching in healthcare.
Watch the full interview by clicking here
Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/BTP-DJBS
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with DJ Mitch, Dr. Bryant Murphy, and Dr. Steve Bodgwick about their article published in our September 2023 issue.
Welcome to the choice Magazine podcast, Beyond the Page. choice, the magazine of professional coaching, is your go-to source for expert insights and in-depth features from the world of professional coaching. I'm your host Garry Schleifer, and I'm thrilled to have you join us today. In each episode, we literally go beyond the page of the article's published in choice Magazine and dive deeper into some of the most recent and relevant topics impacting the world of professional coaching, exploring the content, interviewing the talented minds behind the articles and uncovering the stories that make an impact. choice is more than a magazine. For over 21 years, we have built a community of like-minded people who create, use and share coaching tools, tips and techniques to add value to their business and, of course, to impact their clients. In today's episode, I'm speaking with DJ Mitch, Dr. Bryant Murphy and Dr. Stephen Bodewic. Did I get it right?
Stephen Bogdewic:You got it right.
Garry Schleifer:Yay, who the co-author of an article on our latest issue. If you're on video there is the cover ¨Humanizing Healthcare Courageous Coaching at a Crossroads.¨ The article is entitled Changing Healthcare Through Coaching The journey map for creating a coaching culture. Our authors, DJ Mitch, is an MCC, and the CEO of Pyramid Resource Group and the Health Care Coaching Institute.
Garry Schleifer:DJ stands as a visionary and trailblazing leader of transformational coaching and coach training, with an impressive 30-year trajectory, no kidding, and I think I've been there for about, oh I don't know, 20 of those years.
Garry Schleifer:Alongside her husband, the wonderful Barry Mitch, she co-founded the Pyramid Resource Group in 1994 and Health Care Coaching Institute in 2013 to fulfill their shared calling enhancing the leadership acumen of leaders. One of their hallmarks is team advantage, which I think you've written about before. A revolutionary approach celebrating her lifting engagement and culture change. Her works are a treasure trove of insights, with notable publications such as Coaching for Extraordinary Results and the captivating and my favorite title Zombies to Zealots - Reawaken the Human Spirit at Work. DJ embodies the essence of exceptional coaching, and her innovative programs and teams of accomplished coaches have sent ripples through the world of organizational coaching through widespread implementation and recognition by client organizations. That was a mouthful, and on top of that, I want to publicly thank you, DJ, for helping me co-create this important issue. Without your help, it wouldn't be what it is, and I just want to say thank you for this and everything you do for the coaching profession.
DJ Mitsch:No, my pleasure. It was great and I'm so proud of the magazine for you. All the articles are really well done.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, thank you. Well, they're really well done because we have Dr. Bryant Murphy, who serves as professor of anesthesiology and the Associate Dean for Leadership Development at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. So, basically, the client, Dr. Murphy combines his roles and as academic leader and practicing clinician to offer invaluable insights into healthcare leadership and specializes in crafting comprehensive strategies that consider the complexities and unique challenges of healthcare settings. No kidding, his adaptable and effective approach has consistently elevated both leadership skills and organizational performance. Central to his work is the cultivation of a collaborative culture that enables physicians to excel in patient care while propelling organizational advancement. That's not easy. In collaboration with the Healthcare Coaching Institute, he has pioneered the incorporation of executive coaching into organizational frameworks, underlying its crucial role in developing resilient and impactful leaders. And finally, last but not least, Dr. Stephen Bogdewic. I didn't type the phonetic wrong serves as Stephen.
Garry Schleifer:Dr. Stephen, let's just call him back. Serves as Professor of Family Medicine and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Leadership Development at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, aka the client. A seasoned educator with a PhD in adult education and organizational development and an MA in marriage, family and child counseling. He's also a licensed therapist with an active practice. Some of Dr. Stephen many notable accomplishments, including serving as president of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and earning the association of American Medical Colleges Carol Bland-Fronesis, I hope I pronounced that correctly, Award. He's an expert, an educator and coach with over 40 academic healthcare organizations.
Garry Schleifer:Wow, and here's the cute part. He was a US Navy pilot for seven years prior to his career in academic medicine. I don't know how that fits in, but his work is committed to fostering collaboration and growth within healthcare leadership. And I want to say thank you first of all to all of you for joining and I felt it was important to read all of those because the background I could have just said you work over there and you work over there and that but the background of how you arrived, who you are and what you, what the background was for you contributing to this article, was very important. So I want to thank you, gentlemen and DJ, for putting this together. It is a very, very rich article. I don't even have to ask why did you decide to write it? And if anybody wants to comment and how they felt they must contribute to this article, I'll take any takers on that topic.
DJ Mitsch:Well, obviously, I felt like I needed to have their voices. Be front and center, Garry, because this is, you know, everything that we do to make tangible the things that we work with right, our competencies, and the work of coaching is important. The face and the voice and the recipients of the coaching are represented here, and so I'd love to hear why they wanted to write or co-authored this article.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah.
Bryant Murphy :The way the article started and with the description of the physician, was so typical of what we were seeing physicians were tired, we were stressed out, we were burned out and really looking for a solution, and so just the typical or the way that that person is just described really just sums up the way we're all feeling. So coaching, once it came online for us, really helped and we just thought it was really important to get that story and that message out.
Stephen Bogdewic:The situation we're facing in healthcare today is beyond most people's imagination. And it's a national issue. So my thinking was if one's medical school latches onto this article and decides they want to contact us and find out more about what we've done and how we might encourage it, it would be a victory for us, because this is a national challenge and coaching is an answer in part to that challenge.
Garry Schleifer:Well, and I would add to that's an international challenge. Being here in Canada, we're not without our own medical healthcare issues different than yours. I've been working with some clients and they're in industries in the healthcare industry and other countries and they share their experiences. So thank you very much for doing this again and I hope that happens. That'd be awesome, and feel free to ask for the article as a separate PDF too. We always say that if anybody wants to use it, maybe want to use it in teaching DJ. Any of the articles authors have given permission to allow us to further serve your client and potential healthcare facilities. So let's get to the basis of the background of the article. What was the driving factor for the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, further to be known as UNC SOM, to build a culture of coaching? What brought it into the forefront?
Stephen Bogdewic:Well, faculty are the single greatest resource that you have in a medical school and the office that Bryant and I are attached to Faculty Affairs and Leadership Development. It exists to support and develop faculty.
Bryant Murphy :Well, that challenge has become formidable.
Stephen Bogdewic:In 2002, Peter Drucker, the sort of management guru, made this statement the hospital is the most complex human organization ever devised. He wasn't even talking about academic medical centers, he was talking about hospitals.
Garry Schleifer:Oh right.
Stephen Bogdewic:When you add the academic medical center to it, the complexity is astounding. Our growth in size and complexity in the two decades since Drucker made that statement is hard for many people to envision. Within that complexity and size, individual faculty try to advance their own career, facing tremendous challenges and odds, and we felt that coaching represented an effective way to help individuals because individual situations are quite unique, dependent to someone upon what your specialty is which of our practice sites you happen to be working in, and so those individuals are still expected to excel in patient care, education and research, and doing that in an ever expanding system.
Stephen Bogdewic:So we saw it as a sound investment, not just in support and retention, but those individuals on the front line have the answers to the things we need solved.
Garry Schleifer:Don't they always right?
Stephen Bogdewic:And to get to that collective wisdom they need some margin mental margin and coaching gives us that. Coaching helps us to bring things to a level where we can find out what their thoughts really are, and it was to us an investment that didn't take much convincing.
Garry Schleifer:Wow. So I'm sure DJ had something to do with this. But what was the like? What did you see that had you say, oh, this is it, like this is going to make a huge difference, like case studies, was it? She coached you.
DJ Mitsch:Yes, I mean let Steve handle that one. Yeah.
Stephen Bogdewic:I had taught in a leadership development program for chief residents for 16 or 17 years and in my second or third year running that I hired a young family physician from Virginia who turned I turned the program over to him when I left that he was a star and he became very interested in coaching and got certified and does a great and I asked him one day to tell me more about it, since we have a very close relationship, and he happened to mention that he got his training in my own backyard.
Stephen Bogdewic:I was a part of the DJ and her team and his endorsement and a great deal because I've known him for a long time. Another piece of it to is I've been a therapist for 50 years now, I think and I see the difference that you can make in an individual's life with that one-on-one interaction. And when I talked to my colleague Mark, they just came together and I thought this is what we need things. We do a lot of mentoring, which is different. The coaching is tailored development and it was mainly through my involvement with Mark and his knowledge of DJ and her operation.
DJ Mitsch:Mark is now faculty with us too. Mark and I actually pinned one of the original. We've done now two editions of healthcare that have helped you curate, and Mark and I co-authored an article about that and sort of the chaos, complexity to creative edge and what's going on there. So it was a natural conversation transfer.
Garry Schleifer:And Bryant. What about you? How did you get converted?
Bryant Murphy :So I mentioned that during the pandemic and we were going through and being on the front lines and really kind of just dealing with all the things that Stephen and DJ mentioned, I started to get some coaching myself and so through getting some coaching and realizing that, as Steve said, that was the thing that could help. So not only was his approach revolutionary, it was also visionary for to be able to say this is what physicians need and to put the support behind it. So now when I go out and talk to clients and do some of my own instruction, I can say I understand it, not because I've trained in it, but because I've also had a coach, and I think that is a great testimonial for the work we're doing.
Garry Schleifer:Wow, great testimonial, for sure. So, okay, when did this whole journey start and what did it look like before it started?
DJ Mitsch:So I'm going to let Steve handle that one too, because he really wrote a case for the university to approve and get behind in sponsorship, which I think it's really important for anybody who's listening to this who might want to move in your system, and one of the things we hear often is there's no money, there's no money for anything like this, and there's always money. Go to a football game and look at the stadium there's always money. So but I think it's really important that when Steve was hired, he was hired with a mandate around this, around really developing the faculty in new ways. And so, Steve, why don't you tell the audience a little bit about what you did to create the case?
Garry Schleifer:Please.
Stephen Bogdewic:We saw right at the well pre-pandemic, the rate of burnout amongst physicians across the country was 54% one marker of burnout. Half the physicians had one marker burnout. Well, that only went up significantly as the pandemic.
Garry Schleifer:I can only imagine.
Stephen Bogdewic:People taking their clothes off in the garage before they could go into the house and see their family, because we weren't certain at all. Just, you know how this virus worked, and what my team and I did is we started doing a large number of focus groups because everybody kept saying well, the faculty are stressed and it's like you know, well, I don't understand exactly what you mean. So I'm going to ask them. And we were holding focus groups by assistant professors, associate professors, every few weeks, and what we gathered from that is that people were resilient, they were showing up, they were doing the patient care, but it was taking a toll and we had to ask ourselves well, do we have any programs or efforts underway to address that? And the answer was no.
Stephen Bogdewic:We help people get promoted, we help people become better teachers, we help them learn more about leadership.
Stephen Bogdewic:We're not sure how you'd help individuals and the word individual was the key that triggered the notion of coaching because as we talk to people, their situations varied greatly and we didn't see a one size fits all, and so the institution was very concerned. This institution understands how critical the faculty are to everything they do the teaching, they do the research, they do the patient care, and so what I was able to do is help the leaders of this school appreciate the fact that we could intervene with a program around coaching, but it was going to be a significant issue. I mean, we really did put a tremendous amount of resources and effort into it, and I think it was driven mostly by the fact that leaders here understood that the colleagues we're depending on day to day need help, and we were able to really show them the results of our focus groups, shared that data with them and said this is what we're finding out and this is what we're going to address yeah well, thank you for that.
Garry Schleifer:And when year did this all start? When did you start this initiative?
Stephen Bogdewic:That's a good question, I mean I think we're in year three. Brian might know, yeah, so pandemic yeah, it was about 2019, 2020, when things started to kick off.
Garry Schleifer:Yes, Wow, good timing. Maybe yeah, well and thank you very much. In the article there's the Journey Map that you've created out of that. So for those that are watching and those are listening, page 24 of the June issue of the choice Magazine what are you measuring? How's it working?
Stephen Bogdewic:You know that's a great question and to fully address that, I have a position description and a hiring process for a research and evaluation expert. Fortunately we've had remarkable people apply. So we're interviewing right now because we can probably show some association. We can't argue any causality right now, but I do think that we've gathered information from the individuals who have been coached and those testimonials are sort of one level of evaluation. But we are hoping to get beyond that and we, since it's a relatively new initiative, we didn't have the in-house expertise to really measure it, but we will very soon.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah.
DJ Mitsch:Well, Garry, that's a big thing for us, right, and ensuring the results of our initiative and scaling large initiatives since dirt.
DJ Mitsch:But as I back up and look at this one, you know we wanted to look.
DJ Mitsch:There are five levels typically in any kind of ROI study, right? So we are with the first level. If you will see or picture a funnel, if you're just listening to this, you know, starting with leaders coach, which is everybody who leads has access to a 15 hour program where they are initiated in coaching skills and they practice coaching skills so that they never need to refer to a book or anything. You know, they just they get into a deep practice of just four key skills and the anecdotal feedback on that and the application of it has been significant and just. We've, we have trained now three cohorts of 20 people, so 60 people. So we're on our way in the top of the funnel, and then we have a host of people who are moving into. I want to be a certified coach and part of the faculty for coaching in this initiative. So so, if you follow the Journey Map, we are measuring and researching things along the way, but right now it's at that level, is there
DJ Mitsch:an application of what I'm learning in real-time. That's meaningful, Bryant, anything you want to say about that, and maybe you have some quotes from some of the folks.
Bryant Murphy :Well, yeah, I was going to mention both you and Steve mentioned some of the anecdotes and just some of that qualitative comments that people made, and if you look at some of the things that the people who did that leaders, coach training said and some of those are listed in the article it's just amazing results. People use words like transformative and just new and they're creative, and so I think that, while that doesn't get to some of the quantitative data we're looking for, it definitely shows that this is having an impact and it's becoming kind of that. You know, water cooler conversation. That will that I'll hear from my colleagues. Hey, when is the coaching program starting? Hey, I had a coach. Can you tell me more? So I think we're slowly permeating throughout the institution and creating that culture that we desire.
Stephen Bogdewic:I would add one more thing, and that is the demand for coaches within the school far exceeds now our capacity to deliver exactly or as we're doing word is out, the word is out.
Garry Schleifer:Word is out.
Bryant Murphy :Well, you know, I'll also say too it didn't get mentioned earlier, but I also have a coaching role on the health care system side, and so have really been working on both sides. More so with the health care system, and can echo Steve's sentiments, that even within our much larger health care system, both here on campus and our outside organizations, the demand far outstrips the coaches that we have available. So the word is out and people want coaches, yeah.
Garry Schleifer:Well, okay, so now I have the ROI obvious questions. Stephen, you mentioned the markers. The burnout was 54% pre COVID. Are we measuring that? Is there any update on and change on that?
Stephen Bogdewic:You know the that data is more national data. So what we're doing is we're using internal surveys and we just have contracted with the Association of American Medical Colleges because they'll do a survey of our faculty's well being and they have benchmarks nationally. They can tell you what other public medical schools around the country are doing in terms of their. So we'll have more data soon. But again, that's another part of the whole evaluation initiative is looking at how do we target the right questions to the right people.
Garry Schleifer:Well, you know, and there's standard things that are already in organizations, like engagement and retention, measurements of turnover of staff, but for the time being, I just love the anecdotal, including the one that you put in the article. Was was quite revealing, shocking, like brought me to the moment right away. So thank you for starting off with that. We mentioned something else earlier and that is the hopes that other organizations would pick up on this initiative and contact you. What would you want to say to them now if they were listening to this recording?
DJ Mitsch:Yeah, I would say to organizations where they feel there's a lack of hope. In fact, you know, we've coached in a lot of different health care systems now and one of the things that was said by another system leader was you know, when the pandemic's over? And this was like in 2020. And they started claiming the pandemic was over. We can get back to having our surgeons do what they do and you know, more of the elective surgery and the profits will go up and we can spend more money on on health care development for individuals and leaders. And I was like pandemic is not over.
DJ Mitsch:You know, intuitively, I keep thinking the pandemic is not over, because every time I fly somewhere, it's like, or people fly somewhere, we're in a global conversation unlike anything we've been in before, and burnout before the pandemic was great, but, as Steve pointed out and now Bryant, this is something we're going to reckon with for a long time and the turnover of a physician, the people who are coming through our school outside of this system, outside of the UNC system, but a lot of them are individual players and they are coming because they want to retool for a next phase career. My hope is that we're getting people who want to retool and go back in as coaches and mentors, that we're not losing this talent in these organizations. So if our small role is just to get folks through our coach training programs so that they can feed back talent, we were losing.
DJ Mitsch:You know, every time you have a physician turnover, I think Stephen and I talked about this early on in building a case, it's over a million dollars in replacement cost or salary. So every turnover is a million dollars. So it's not just the burnout of not being able to show up fully, you know. So what I will say is, when this becomes the tone of the narrative, then we have we have a sense of urgency around getting this done right, and healthcare is the latest adapting industry to coaching as a profession.
DJ Mitsch:It took a while for us to make inroads there because it is so complex. So you know. So it's time and, as as these gentlemen have so beautifully said, there is now a waitlist for coaching, and so you know, if we are asking me about the call to action, this is a long way around. To get to that, it is for all of you who work in this environment to really take a step back and make a request of those who can say yes, not just bump up against a no and go away. Make a request of the sponsors who can get their hands around the impact this will have and, if you have to pull it down to the numbers of people who have left their jobs because they were burned out. Do it, do that as the cost savings piece, you know, save some of these people.
Stephen Bogdewic:It's important Right, and I participated in a national forum with two other schools who are trying to advance coaching and I'll steal the title that one of them use for their presentation everybody deserves a coach.
Garry Schleifer:From your lips to everybody's ears, yes, and saying that haven't we DJ? Since we were got involved in this profession? Everybody deserves a coach.
Stephen Bogdewic:The statement we use in my office here is that if our job is to support the people who fundamentally carry the missions on their shoulders, can we do too much to support them?
DJ Mitsch:I want to point out, Garry, is you know that you have two people here who are charismatic, who can carry the torch and who can make sense and make meaning in these conversations for the people, who can say yes, and that's not always the case. And so I think the more we can have them elevated, have the have them present, have them published right, the better we're all going to be in this space, because they have something to say and it's very clear that it's not a mandate for them, it's a mission and a vision that it's possible.
Garry Schleifer:Well, thank you.
Bryant Murphy :I would say from the provider's perspective, it works. You know, that is the biggest evidence in my mind because, as Steve mentioned earlier, there were not the interventions that really focused on the individual person and that's what's needed. So the biggest testimonial is that coaching works and it has helped where other interventions didn't.
DJ Mitsch:You know, you have to feed these two before you got on the call. This is great.
Garry Schleifer:We just sit back and these two can talk for us as right. Speak.
DJ Mitsch:You know, I want to go back to 2001, when I was the president of the International Coach Federation and I remember saying that I imagine a day when everybody who wants to coach has a coach and where we are now, relative to that space, which is just so significant, right that that people can find coaches and they're. You know, there's just so many points of entry for coaching in this type of organization especially. It's 25% of the GDP in the US healthcare and it touches everything.
DJ Mitsch:We're all patients and we're all in the conversation about getting it right and so or complaining about it right, and I prefer not to complain, I prefer to be a part of solutions. So for me, this is a mission, and we change healthcare one person, one conversation, one team and one organization at a time, and I think this is just a brilliant display of how it can look, and I am thrilled to be in partnership with Steve and Bryant and the people that you don't see behind them. Yeah, incredible team.
Garry Schleifer:Hundreds, soon to be thousands, soon to be millions. And also, before we go, what would you like our audience to do as a result of this article? In this conversation, DJ you alluded to hey, think about being a coach in the health care field, anything else?
DJ Mitsch:Let's see what these guys have to say, Bryant, Steve.
Stephen Bogdewic:What I would like people to understand is that in academics, people trust colleagues. You know that if you want to learn about something, you talk to a colleague who's doing it or has done it, and I would say our door is wide open for that. We've put a lot of thought and effort into this and I'm willing to talk to anyone who's interested in putting their toe in the water to find out or getting even more involved than they already are, because I think the more collaborative things go, the more we can do the research that will really demonstrate things.
Garry Schleifer:We've always said that in coaching, we're not competitors, we're collaborators. Yes, Bryant, what would you like to add?
Bryant Murphy :Yeah, and I would echo everything that Steve just said. Health care is complicated, but coaching works, and so whatever we can do to help spread the word, help push things out, share our experiences and help other people collaborate with us, then we are all for that.
Garry Schleifer:Awesome. Thank you very much. I want to thank all of you for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode. A little secret it's the first time I've had the recipients or clients of coaches on a call. I want to thank you very much for sharing your perspective, sharing your contribution, and I wish that you do get. My hope is and my wish is that you do get contacted by other people, DJ, by other coaches, to bring this work that you've so lovingly developed, this plan, and to have a conversation. So I'm going to ask you what's the best way to reach you so that people listening or reading can get in touch. Take the first step.
Stephen Bogdewic:And the way to get a hold of either one of us is just to go to the University of North Carolina School of Medicine website and type in our name, and it'll take you straight to our bio, our logo, and from there it's a matter of pressing a few keys.
Garry Schleifer:And is it something? Is the URL simple or is it like UNCSOM. com or ORG?
Stephen Bogdewic:If you just put UNCSOM, the School of Medicine, website shows up.
Garry Schleifer:Awesome.
DJ Mitsch:www. pyramidresource. com, and I'm always happy to hear from colleagues. I was so happy about this magazine and all the colleagues over the years that I met through conferences or who've been in the leadership roles, and they're writing. I could call out a few, but you know just the thought and the fact that science is now supporting what we initially held as art right, and it's just really well done. So not to you, Garry, thank you for it through the tough times in the early stages to get it to this place, and I imagine we'll be bringing more clients your way to be the voice of these initiatives, because it's important that we all do this together, hand in hand, and I am thrilled with the results of this one.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, me too.
DJ Mitsch:Yay.
Garry Schleifer:And for this recording. Thank you so much for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode. Everyone. Thank you. Thank you, like we really took this a step further. So that's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. If you're not a subscriber, you can sign up for a free digital issue of choice Magazine by going to choice-onlinecom and clicking the sign up now button. Garry Schleifer, enjoy the journey of mastery.