Stephanie Wellington is a physician, certified professional coach, and founder of Nurturing MDs, dedicated to guiding physicians from stress and overwhelm to ease and flow in the demanding medical field. She empowers clinicians to infuse new energy into their careers and reconnect with their identities beyond the stethoscope. She can also be reached on Facebook and LinkedIn.
When Dr. Wellington integrated life coaching principles into her medical practice, her clinical experiences transformed. While she still faces long shifts, critical patients, and systemic challenges, she chooses to be solution-focused, prioritizing the best outcomes for her patients, her team, and herself. For over a decade, she has been teaching physicians the life strategies needed to transform their medical careers and optimize their well-being.
She is a speaker, author, and recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award. If stress and overwhelm are part of your practice, get started with the free guide: "15 Ways to Infuse New Energy."
Lately, I ask myself, “Where is my focus?”
Is it on what’s in my inbox, where I receive daily emails about COVID-19, the vaccine, what’s working, and what’s not?
Is it on the news, the trial, the verdict, police shootings, and the state of unrest in our country?
And if my focus is on what’s outside of me, then who is focused on me?
Focusing on me is my job. It’s the most important …
Even during a pandemic, I focus on living
Physicians know what success looks like on paper. We spend a large part of our journey in medicine taking action to be competitive for medical school, the top-ranking residency training program, and the prestigious attending position.
Then the reality of a medical career sets in.
The focus on patient volume to generate revenue, the precise documentation needed to justify coding, and the micromanagement of the team to ensure patient satisfaction is a …
What is physician success? Your CV does not tell the entire story.
It’s easy to get distracted by the demands of the journey in medicine. Today physicians now see patients in person and virtually. Technology allows docs to bring work home and complete documentation remotely, which can blur the lines between work and home life.
It’s completely natural that physicians experience more stress and less success, as the demands seem never-ending.
Success is right where you are in this very moment. But success becomes …
3 steps to track your success in medicine
Abundance is defined as “the state or condition of having a copious quantity of something” or “plentifulness of the good things of life: prosperity.”
The massive havoc of the pandemic causes us to shrink in the face of human frailty, morbidity, and mortality rather than feel expansive and abundant. Even the vaccine efforts are enveloped in distrust and scarcity.
As I sit to write this article, I dance between medicine’s possibilities and …
As the world creates a new normal, we must do the same in medicine
When my medical career was in its infancy, providing for my family after divorce meant moonlighting in addition to working full-time hours. Although it was my decision, I was torn between my children and my work. Time in the hospital meant missing out on watching them grow, change, and develop their own little personalities.
Although it was 21 years ago, I still remember it like it was yesterday, where I was …
Medicine’s contribution to my family
Every physician has had the experience. The moment you ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?”
It could be when you look into the waiting room where there are more patients to be seen and know if you take a break, it will set you back even further.
It could be on the final stretch of the 24-hour shift that redefined the meaning of the word “nonstop.”
It could be the third time …
3 steps for physicians to shift from stuck to unstoppable
My energy has been bottled up. It’s not just over the past few weeks during this pandemic. It has been bottled up and backlogged in some areas of my life for decades.
The recent turn of life events has just made it even more glaring and evident to me. It forced and demanded that I do something about it.
The traffic jam of my energy manifested itself in procrastination and putting things …
If we return to normal in medicine, have we lost the lesson of the pandemic?
The world is impacted by coronavirus. The same advancements in civilization that allow us to travel and experience new cultures are the very thing that has blurred our borders and made everyone susceptible to the virus. We are observers and participants at the same time.
Schools are closed and shifting to long-distance learning models. Conferences are canceled. Sporting events are shutting the stadiums to fans. We are social beings now being …
3 tips for inner peace in this COVID-19 world
If you follow me for any time, you know that I’m about physicians owning their value, recognizing their strengths, and balancing their lives. I was doing that before it became popular to talk about.
While it has a catchy ring to it, what you don’t know is that it was not always that way for me. And no one knew. It was one of the ways that I struggled in medicine.
There …
Physicians need to step into their calling, even if it’s not directly in medicine
Maybe you think it’s too early to consider the next stage in your career.
Medical school graduation is just months away. Newly graduated doctors will be making their way to their first rotations in July. Senior residents and senior fellows are thinking and dreaming about their next position as new attendings.
This got me thinking.
Are you truly considering and factoring in your well-being as you look for the next position where you …
Incorporate physician well-being into your job search criteria
In the neonatal ICU, a baby dies from necrotizing enterocolitis or NEC. It’s not the first nor the last time I’ll experience death during my medical career. Doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, surgeons, and the rest of the team spent the days prior to his death implementing medical interventions and procedures, hoping to arrest the process. Two surgeries, multiple blood transfusions, antibiotics, drips to support the blood pressure, intubation, and ventilator …
The right support system makes all the difference for physicians
The journey in medicine is a journey of goal setting. Doctors set goals all the time. We set the goal to become a doctor and then strive to achieve it. Once we decide on the chosen specialty, we set the goal for the residency training program we hope to match into, and we strive to achieve that. Match Day can be a day of great celebration for some, while it’s …
What can a doctor do to build confidence?
A successful career in medicine means learning how to forge ahead with feedback and not allow it to stop you in your tracks. For some doctors, this is a challenge. The feedback feels bad. It’s perceived as negative, not being good enough. We’re exposed to it and its negative impact quite early on the journey as medical students. Medical school rankings are feedback that begs the question, “Am I doing …
Learn to forge ahead with feedback in medicine
Medical school prepares doctors for patient care: perform a history and physical, and based on the findings, consider the next diagnostic tests to order, review all data, and develop a treatment plan. By graduating from medical school, you are skilled to perform those duties with a certain level of competency and confidence.
Success in the next phase of this journey and the rest of your life depends on honing those skills …
Many doctors decide to pursue a career in medicine in their youth. They have experience that points them in this direction. Once the decision is followed by a firm commitment, we seldom change the course. Medicine, here I come! At that age and with such limited life experience, it’s impossible to truly grasp the depth of the commitment to this career.
Becoming a doctor is not a career decision; it’s a …
Why physicians should have courageous conversations
This time last year, I took the podium at conferences as far away as Dubai to deliver my keynote speech entitled, “On The Cusp Of Life And Death, Choose Life.” My talk highlighted the professional and personal development opportunities that show up as doctors, nurses, and parents navigate the challenges in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) caring for preterm and term newborns on the cusp of viability due to …
3 lessons physicians can learn from adversity
There are times in our journey as doctors when life gets in the way. Well, life got in the way, and I had to go back to the basics and deepen my understanding and connection to myself and my source to easily navigate the curves and the bumps in the road.
I had to figure out a way to move through the tears that came with the diagnosis and poor prognosis …
What physicians should do when life gets in the way
Physician wellness and work-life balance are hot topics in today’s medical arena. It is on the minds of medical students, residents, and physicians in practice. While the concepts and methods to achieve it are enticing, the question remains: how does the individual physician achieve it? Some believe that system-wide changes in medicine will get doctors closer to these goals. Then there are the supporters of strategies that physicians can implement …
10 telltale signs that you’re ready for a mindset shift
Over the past few summers, I’ve noticed that I’m fearful of swimming in the deep end of the pool. Gone is the fearlessness of my youth, when I’d venture out, take risks, and somehow just know I’d make it back to the shallow end, where I could firmly stand on a solid foundation.
Somewhere along the way, I had replaced my fearlessness with what-ifs.
What if I get a cramp in my …
3 lessons learned from the deep end of the pool
I meet doctors in different arenas: clinical settings, conferences, and referrals. I am noticing a trend. We are keenly aware of what we do not want in medicine. We talk about physician burnout and its impact on doctors’ lives. We know firsthand the effect the EMR has on the doctor-patient relationship as doctors spend less and less time in direct patient care activities. And we are learning how to navigate …
It’s time for physicians to bring clarity to their lives
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