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We sit down with psychiatrist Lind Grant-Oyeye to explore the transformative power of integrated coaching in physician residency training. We delve into the nuances of integrated coaching, its structured approach to continuous growth, and its significant impact on cultivating confident and resilient medical professionals. Join us as we discuss how integrated coaching fosters a nurturing culture, combats burnout, and ultimately shapes the future of health care training.

Lind Grant-Oyeye is a psychiatrist.

She discusses the KevinMD article, “Integrated coaching for medical residents.”

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Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast, and get CME for this episode by clicking on the CME link in the show notes. Today we welcome Lind Grant-Oyeye. She’s a psychiatrist, and today’s KevinMD article is “Integrated coaching for medical residents.” Lind, welcome to the show.

Lind Grant-Oyeye: Thank you, Kevin, pleasure to be here.

Kevin Pho: So before getting into your article, just briefly share your story and journey.

Lind Grant-Oyeye: My journey has taken me through three continents actually. I was born in Africa, then immigrated to Europe, and now I’m in North America, Canada. So I’ve been exposed to medical work and training in all three continents, and for me it’s an enriching journey in the sense that I have experience with emerging economies and with well established economies like Canada. So it’s been a very inspiring journey in that way.

At the moment I work as a psychiatrist in Canada, but in addition to that, throughout my medical career I’ve always been interested in leadership. I did a bit of residency training, training residents in the past as well, but currently my main focus would be leadership.

As part of my quest to not only be practically involved in leadership, I have undertaken formal training, one of which was a postgraduate training through the Harvard Medical School in safety, quality, and leadership. I also hold a master’s in health management in the domain of public health management, and currently I’m pursuing doctoral studies in clinical leadership.

Kevin Pho: All right, so in your KevinMD article you talk about some leadership qualities that you want to instill in physician residency training. Your title is “Integrated coaching for medical residents.” Now, for those who didn’t get a chance to read your article, just tell us what it’s about.

Lind Grant-Oyeye: Yes. So coaching has taken off in the last few years, but there is also a struggle in really defining what coaching is, or understanding what coaching is. Because in the past, when coaching became popular, it was seen as a remedial kind of approach, whereby, if there was, for example, take the case of the medical industry, if a physician was in trouble in terms of interacting with peers, then they would be referred to a coach. That’s a typical scenario.

But current studies, current practice, would indicate that coaching should be seen as developmental. It’s not just for those who need a single issue fixed, but it’s to help in developing competencies in various areas.

So when I started looking deeper into coaching and what it really means, I came across the concept of integrated coaching. Integrated coaching is an approach that understands that individuals need to develop from one point to the other, and also looks at how coaching can meet the needs of the organization. In that way it has to be more or less part of the workflow. And there is also the encouragement to develop internal coaches, rather than just rely on external coaches coming in to fix a problem.

Kevin Pho: Now tell us what the difference is between integrated coaching and more traditional methods of, say, mentorship or professional development, that you often see in medical residency programs.

Lind Grant-Oyeye: Yes, I think that’s a very good question. Because in the past the approach to mentorship was more or less that the mentee wanted to be modeled toward becoming like their mentor. So mentorship would seem slightly more mentor focused, the traditional approach.

But the integrated coaching approach still brings in a bit of mentorship, but it’s all encompassing, in the sense that it also looks at the needs of the organization and the needs of the coachee. And it’s mainly coachee focused, where they’re at and where they need to go. But it’s more realistic from the point of view that it’s more practical, it’s more applicable, and more focused.

Kevin Pho: Now walk us through what you envision to have that integrated coaching session in medical residency. What exactly would that look like?

Lind Grant-Oyeye: OK. So that would first of all look at what’s the current scenario, in terms of what are the needs of the medical profession. For example, it’s dynamic, dynamic from the point of view that at some point it might be more diversity, sometimes it’s about environmental sustainability. So things are changing from just being the surgeon or the anesthesiologist who just goes into the hospital and operates and leaves, because now we’re talking about the impact of anesthetic agents on the environment. So being aware in that aspect, seeing what those specific needs are.

And then setting up an ecosystem where established coaches then support the internal preceptors, or identify coaches by training them. So it’s more like a robust system, with accountability, with the metrics to see what’s working and what’s not working.

So that would include stakeholders like residents identifying where they feel the focus is, preceptors, residency directors, and even patients, because these days the voice of the patient has become important in any form of development, any form of project. So bringing stakeholders together to identify needs, and then ensuring that, the key is being able to train internal coaches. Because what happens sometimes, when we have concepts such as this, is anyone could come up and say, I’m a coach, or I’m a personal development coach. But is the activity being done based on best practices? So that’s where individuals who are well trained in that particular concept can then train internal coaches to be able to deliver what is best practice.

Kevin Pho: So I want to talk about physician burnout, and that has of course been very relevant for medical trainees as well, burnout is very prevalent there. Tell us how integrated coaching models can address the phenomenon of burnout in residents.

Lind Grant-Oyeye: OK. Just like any phenomenon, its complexity in terms of burnout would include contributive factors. That would include the environment, which would be like workload, and then there’s the personal aspect.

And so, whereas integrated coaching might not bring in more health professionals to boost the capacity in terms of human resources, it would help residency programs and residents to identify their strengths and their weaknesses in terms of prioritizing and setting goals. So it would be more from that approach. Whereas we know that some other aspects are beyond the power of the residents, which would be like being able to recruit or not recruit health professionals.

Kevin Pho: So tell us a success story where a program instituted integrated coaching and really moved the needle for their medical residents.

Lind Grant-Oyeye: So at this point my advocacy is for residency programs to consider it, but most of the success stories are not coming from medicine, they’re coming from other industries, whereby individuals have been able to move forward and organizations have been able to move forward by taking an approach that coaching can not only help the individuals, because before it was mainly seen as an individual, remedial focused approach.

But what’s happening is that organizations are beginning to realize that spending money on coaching, or creating facilities for coaching, is moving these organizations forward. So there will be more mainstream businesses that have that.

Kevin Pho: All right, so what do you envision as the next steps? How can more medical residencies consider integrated coaching?

Lind Grant-Oyeye: So the next steps, first of all, everything starts with education. I invite resident program directors to educate themselves on what integrated coaching really means versus the traditional mentorship. Also, to meet with stakeholders like residency chief residents and other stakeholders, to see how they can develop a program that’s relevant to their residency.

I think this becomes relevant especially in the health care landscape in Canada. One is the new Competence by Design approach, where the residents do not follow the traditional development in terms of their career. That’s a good way to also bring something unique, like integrated coaching, to support residents in that personalized journey.

Another area would be, Canada is becoming more diverse in terms of recruitment and the need for physicians from outside of Canada. In that light, integrated coaching can help support physicians new to the system in settling into the system, and can also help in building the understanding of diversity and cultural sensitivity among residents or physicians.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Lind Grant-Oyeye. She’s a psychiatrist, and today’s KevinMD article is “Integrated coaching for medical residents.” Lind, we’ll end with some of your take-home messages that you’d like to leave with the KevinMD audience.

Lind Grant-Oyeye: Yes. So the take-home message is, in the past physicians were seen as not people for leadership, but that concept has changed. Physicians are leaders, whether they hold a formal leadership position or not, because leaders are influencers who move the narrative, who develop the medical system.

So my take-home message is, every physician or resident should see themselves as a leader who needs to educate themselves and also to contribute to the development of health care.

Kevin Pho: Lind, thank you so much for sharing your perspective and insight, and thanks again for coming on the show.

Lind Grant-Oyeye: Thank you.