Strategies for Success for New Physicians in Outpatient Care

If you’re just getting started in practice, or starting over in a new job, it’s important to set yourself up for success right from the start.  This is true whether your career path is in academics or the private sector. 

Starting out on the right foot is not as difficult or mysterious as it might seem, but it can make all the difference to both your professional trajectory and your personal fulfillment.

In this article, we’ll focus on five key areas that will help you provide the best care while managing the demands of a growing practice. Developing these strategies early on can improve both patient outcomes and your own well-being.

1. Master Time Management and Efficiency

Let’s be honest. Managing a busy outpatient schedule without sacrificing the quality of care can seem daunting. Physicians often find themselves juggling patient visits, charting, and administrative duties without a definite plan. This can easily lead to inefficiencies.

If your position includes hospital work, supervising, or teaching responsibilities, these added challenges can snowball very quickly. But taking shortcuts only leads to more complications and frustration for both you and your patients.

Your strategy for success: Developing effective time management skills is crucial. Prioritizing tasks, utilizing electronic health record (EHR) templates, and implementing workflows that streamline documentation can save you valuable time.  

Task-batching and time blocking are crucial skills that will serve you well. Try to limit the amount of time you spend returning to unfinished tasks by getting them completed as soon as possible.  

Think about putting in a few hours up front to set up your chart management systems, including smart phrases and, where feasible, appropriate AI integration. Don’t be afraid to create a workflow to delegate simple tasks when it’s appropriate. When you organize your day efficiently, you will not only reduce after-hours work, but you’ll also improve patient care and satisfaction.

2. Cultivate Work-Life Balance

It’s become normal and sometimes even expected that your working day will bleed into your personal time. In the current environment, this often morphs from a slow drip to a frank hemorrhage.  This lack of control not only impacts you and your family, but ultimately can have a negative impact on your patient care.

Maintaining clear boundaries between your professional world and your personal life is essential to avoid burnout. The importance of your own well-being cannot be overstated. When you’re burned out, you’re more likely to make mistakes that impact your patients’ lives

Your strategy for success: Consider setting aside specific times for charting and answering messages, so you can limit after-hours communication. This is a technique known as task batching. By grouping a chunk of similar tasks together, you’ll achieve greater focus and get more done.

Don’t overlook your own well-being.  Scheduling time for self-care activities such as exercise or relaxation can help you recharge and maintain a sustainable work-life balance.

If there is a hobby or activity that you’ve been yearning to try, simply get started. Don’t expect perfection or even competency. Just do it for the joy of trying something new.

3. Build Strong Patient Communication and Relationships

Building strong relationships with your patients is key to delivering effective care. When patients trust you, you will deliver your care more efficiently, and you’re likely to see fewer after-hours messages and questions.

Your patients want to feel seen, heard, and cared for. However, developing this rapport can be challenging when time is limited, and managing patient expectations or difficult conversations can often feel overwhelming, especially for new physicians.

Your strategy for success: First, keep your charts current. When you go into the office visit armed with accurate and up-to-date information, your patients will feel more confident that they are in good hands.

Setting expectations early is important when managing difficult situations, especially when dealing with complex diagnoses or treatment plans. But having the data at hand and a plan in place is not always enough.

Of equal importance, your communication style matters. Listening actively, showing empathy, and offering clear explanations can improve the experience for your patient and inspire greater confidence in your care.

4. Sharpen Your Clinical Decision-Making Skills

As a physician, making sound clinical decisions quickly and confidently is part of the job. Dealing with the more complex cases can be challenging, especially when you’re still building your clinical experience.

In training, you’re continuously learning, but it’s important to remember that you’re never done. To be a doctor is to be a perpetual student. For optimal patient care as well as your own professional fulfillment, it’s critical to stay up to date.

Your strategy for success:  Staying current with evidence-based guidelines and refining your decision-making process will help you feel more confident when faced with uncertainty. Using decision support tools, collaborating with colleagues, having an excellent referral network, and continually educating yourself on new developments will ensure that you make informed decisions efficiently and wisely.

In addition to maintaining your CME requirements, consider subscribing to a service like JournalWatch, which sends out regular emails summarizing important research from multiple medical journals. Stay curious and engaged.

5. Cultivate Emotional Resilience and Stress Management

Outpatient care can be emotionally demanding, and it’s common for physicians to experience stress or compassion fatigue. To be clear, the role of healthcare systems cannot be overstated. If your situation seems toxic, it might be reasonable to look for other opportunities that are a better fit.  But often there are constructive and sustainable ways to improve the status quo.

Burnout continues to impact nearly half of all physicians. Those in outpatient care are disproportionately affected. Burnout and compassion fatigue are not your fault, but if you find yourself falling into a funk, it’s important to seek help.

More and more healthcare systems are offering coaching and other resources. When possible, take full advantage of those opportunities, or find your own. To ensure long-term success, it’s essential to build resilience and develop ways to manage the pressures of the profession. 

Your strategy for success: Incorporating stress-reducing strategies into your daily routine—such as good nutrition, mindfulness meditation, and regular physical activity—can help you manage the emotional demands of the job.

Building a support system of colleagues, friends, and family can also provide an outlet for discussing challenges and staying emotionally balanced.

Take advantage of coaching and other services that might be offered through your institution or professional groups. Or seek out a coach that specializes in physician burnout and related issues. If you are experiencing depression or other mental health challenges, contact a mental health professional. You deserve to feel well, happy, and invigorated.

Conclusion

Starting and maintaining your career in outpatient care comes with its own set of challenges, but by focusing on these five key strategies, you can build a strong foundation for success.

Mastering time management, improving patient communication, and developing emotional resilience will not only enhance your professional satisfaction but also improve the quality of care you provide.

By investing in your personal growth and well-being, you can thrive as a physician while maintaining a balanced and rewarding lifestyle.

If you’ve enjoyed this article and would like to stay in the loop for more insights on creating a sustainable, fulfilling, and happy life as a physician, sign up for my newsletter or reach out on my website. I’d love to hear from you.

If you’d like to learn more about my coaching practice, you can schedule a complimentary introductory meeting by clicking the link below.

How to Manage Interruptions and Limit Attention Residue: A Guide for Physicians

It’s not just your imagination. It’s more challenging than ever to maintain your mental focus at work.

💉 EHR alerts

💉 Phone notifications

💉 Interruptions from staff

💉 Attention sapping apps

💉 Email

All of these and more conspire to make focus more difficult than ever before.

These constant interruptions and the lingering effects of shifting attention, known as attention residue, can severely hamper not only your effectiveness and productivity, but also your own well-being.

Resolving the current state of disorder in healthcare will require systemic change, including a fundamental shift in the functionality of many EHRs.

But protecting your headspace is a critical skill that can help you stay above the fray.

In this article, we’ll explore strategies that you can use to retake control of your mental focus, manage interruptions, and minimize attention residue in your daily life and practice.

Understanding Attention Residue

Attention residue happens when you switch tasks, but a part of your mind remains stuck on the previous task.

The little breadcrumbs that remain can jumble up your thoughts and make it harder to focus. And once you’re interrupted, no matter whether the issue was urgent or trivial, it’s easy to switch over into another unrelated brain drain, such as checking your email or social media, rather than returning to the task at hand.

Realistically, interruptions are a part of life in most medical settings. Apart from a few innovative healthcare systems, the current state of affairs creates the perfect setup for attention residue.

Each interruption requires a mental reset, which can take a considerable amount of time and effort. Ultimately this leads not only to decreased productivity and lost focus, but also to increased stress.

This isn’t just theoretical. Research looking at Emergency Department physicians and nurses has found that interruptions from a broad range of sources can seriously degrade the ability to remain focused and aware. What’s more, the disruptions in this study occurred on average about 11 times every hour.

Strategies to Regain Mental Focus

Ideally, our healthcare system leaders will realize the importance of creating pathways that will minimize interruptions. This process is underway in a number of medical systems. But even under the best of circumstances, interruptions are going to happen. Here are a few ways that you can limit the mental drain.

Prioritize and Plan

This can be a difficult step for physicians, since we don’t always have control over the way the day might go. But simply outlining your top priorities can help by giving you a focus and a “north star” for the day,

Start your day by outlining your top priorities. Whenever possible, highlight high-impact tasks when your mental energy is at its peak. For many people, that is the first thing in the morning.

Use tools like the Eisenhower Matrix (also known as the Time-Priority Matrix) to distinguish between urgent and important tasks, and mitigate those less important time-wasters.

Time Blocking

Whenever possible, consider setting aside specific time blocks for different types of tasks. For example, set aside uninterrupted time to study for your boards, or for administrative work. If you have some control over your schedule at work, scheduling similar patient visits may be helpful, so that your mental flow is less likely to be interrupted.

Communicate your schedule and your plan to create these focused blocks of time to your team (or your family) to minimize unnecessary interruptions. Getting buy-in from your schedulers and administrative staff can help to make time blocking work for you.

Mindfulness and Meditation

Consider incorporating mindfulness practices into your daily routine. Techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, or yoga can help improve focus and reduce stress.

Meditation in particular has been found to be helpful in improving attention, focus, and memory and reducing stress. Just like medication or physical therapy, it’s important to be consistent. In one study, it took 8 weeks of regular practice before the impact of meditation was clear.

Taking a mindful pause before and after each patient, study, or procedure is a great way to mentally reset. In many cases, even this very  brief break can improve your efficiency.

Meditation might sound intimidating, but it’s really quite simple. This article shows you how you can easily get started. Don’t just think of meditation as something that you can investigate when you have the time. There is good evidence that engaging in a regular meditation practice can enhance your attention and mental efficiency.

Limit Multitasking

Multitasking used to be considered a superpower. But now we know that when people multitask, they often make more mistakes. And because of inefficiency, it may actually take longer to get tasks done than if each one was done separately. That’s especially likely if both tasks require mental energy, rather than rote memory.  

By focusing on one task at a time, you may improve the quality of your work, reduce the cognitive load, and actually save time.

If you have tasks that are time-consuming and not realistically amenable to completion in one sitting, break them down into smaller, more manageable steps. That way you can think of each step as a separate and achievable task. It can be helpful to write each of these sub-tasks out and check it off the list when it’s completed.

As you knock out these smaller to-dos, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment. That can reduce the attention residue that builds up when you stress about unfinished work.

Set Boundaries

It’s not surprising that research has found that interruptions increase the likelihood of errors, which may put your patients at risk.

What’s more, these unwanted intrusions also impact your own mental well-being, provoking measurably high levels of anxiety and annoyance.

Ideally, set clear boundaries with colleagues, staff, and patients regarding when you are available for interruptions.

When practical, limit social and nonessential chatter when you’re focused on something that requires deep thought or careful consideration. Reading studies, creating notes, reviewing charts, and developing treatment plans all fall into this category.

Use simple visual cues, like a closed door or a "Do Not Disturb Unless Urgent" sign. Distractions can’t all be eliminated, but taking these and other attention-preserving actions will likely build awareness and respect for your focused time.

It can also be helpful to set expectations with patients and staff that non-urgent in-box messages will only be addressed during or after certain hours of the day.

Conclusion

Maintaining mental focus requires practical, intentional strategies and consistent effort. By experimenting with some or all of the steps I’ve listed above, you will enhance your ability to concentrate, manage interruptions, and reduce attention residue.

Developing these practices will not only improve your productivity but also contribute to better patient care and support your own vital well-being.

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If you’ve enjoyed this article and would like to stay in the loop for more insights on creating a sustainable, fulfilling, and happy life as a physician, sign up for my newsletter or reach out on my website. I’d love to hear from you.

If you’d like to learn more about my coaching practice, you can schedule a complimentary introductory meeting by clicking the link below.

Overcoming Your Roadblocks: A Physician's Guide to Navigating Change

Not too many years ago, most physicians in the private sector expected to settle into a medical practice straight out of training and to stay put until retirement decades into the future. The idea of moving, changing practices in the same town, or leaving before a ripe old age was almost unheard of. While change has often been part of the career path of academicians, physicians in all sectors are increasingly finding themselves dissatisfied, frustrated, or simply seeking something new.

In fact, a recent Mayo clinic survey reported that one in five physicians plan to leave their practices within the next two years, and one in three expect to reduce work hours. Burnout and perceived lack of appreciation by their organizations were the two primary issues cited in the study.

If you’re considering a move, this change can feel daunting. Physicians are often motivated by loyalty and compassion. But we are also creatures of habit.

For many of us, the roadmap was clearly defined: college, medical school, residency, maybe fellowship. As long as you followed this straight and narrow path, and nothing unexpected knocked you off course, you would make it down the road.

The promise at the end of the trail was a satisfying and gratifying professional life, with a high probability of a happy and fulfilling home life as well.   

Over the past decade, that promise has frayed. Burnout due to lack of autonomy, higher patient demands, a sicker and older population, falling reimbursements, the endless clicks and messages on the EHR: all have contributed. This new perspective means that physicians are more likely to seek change, or at least to consider it.

But the decision to embark on a new professional journey can often feel like traversing uncharted territory.

And the process of choosing a new path can be riddled with mental roadblocks. As a physician coach, I have found that guiding individuals through these challenges can be transformative, bringing new and unexpected possibilities to light.

Getting started can be the hardest part of the process, but once you begin, you’ll notice that the momentum will slowly build. In this article, we will explore actionable steps that can help you to overcome some of the mental barriers that may stand in your way.

1. Self-Reflection

Before embarking on a new professional path, it's essential to engage in deep self-reflection. Journaling for a few minutes every day can really help.

You don’t have to have a clear endpoint in mind to get started, but you do need to know what matters to you, and why. Consider the specific skills, interests, and passions you want to prioritize, and how you want your personal life to look. Take time to identify your values, strengths, passions, and personal goals.

Ask yourself:

• What are my core values and priorities in life?

• What aspects of my current role do I find most fulfilling and unfulfilling?

• What are my unique skills and talents?

• What are my long-term career and life aspirations?

By understanding yourself on this deeper level, you can better align your career choices with your values and objectives. For more prompts and tips to help you with this process, see my recent article about finding your “why”.

  2. Recognize Your Triggers and Limiting Beliefs:

As you work through self-reflection, you might encounter triggers and limiting beliefs that hold you back. If so, don’t be afraid to ask yourself probing questions such as:

• What specific thoughts or patterns arise when considering a new direction?

• Have you or someone else created any self-defeating narratives about your capabilities or limitations that might be influencing your mindset?

• What might these limiting beliefs be trying to protect you from?

• And how might they be proven wrong?

• If there are meaningful limitations that are keeping you from moving forward, how might you close gaps in your knowledge or skills?

When you pinpoint these mental roadblocks, you’ll take the first step towards disarming their power. Often a coach can be helpful when working through this process.

 3. Seek Guidance

Don't hesitate to seek guidance from mentors, career counselors, and trusted colleagues who have gone through similar transitions.

There can be great value in networking and connecting with others who have found fulfillment in their medical practice or who have ventured into alternative career paths. Their insights and experiences can provide valuable perspectives and inspire you to take bold steps in your own professional journey. Of course, you will want to be discerning about who you confide in, especially if you are leaving your current practice.

 4. Set Achievable Goals

Break your career change into smaller, manageable goals. This not only makes the process less intimidating but also allows you to track your progress. Create a timeline with milestones. These might include

• Gaining specific qualifications or licensure

• Attending relevant conferences,

• Researching places you might want to live

• Reaching out to potential employers or colleagues in your desired field.

Setting specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals can provide you with a clear roadmap and motivate you to move forward despite any mental hurdles.

 5. Embrace Setbacks as a Learning Opportunity

Rejection can sting. It's important to acknowledge that setbacks are part of any professional journey. Instead of seeing them as failures, view them as valuable learning experiences.

Approach unexpected challenges as opportunities for personal and professional growth. Be flexible and willing to pivot, if necessary, but don’t lose sight of your values and your “why”. The key is to use these uncomfortable experiences as opportunities to learn, adapt, and refine your approach.

 6. Get Comfortable with the Unknown

Fear of the unknown is a common mental roadblock for anyone making a career change. This may be especially true for physicians, since so much of our life has been neatly defined for us. Counteract this fear by engaging in thorough research into your desired path.

If you’re looking into a nonclinical job, understand the industry, its trends, and the challenges you might face.

And if you’re changing focus or practice, get to know more about the system, individuals, and culture you may be working with. Will you need new skills or certifications? If so, how and when can you achieve them? This knowledge will help you feel more prepared and confident as you take the leap.

 7. Keep an Open Mind

Maintaining an open mind is crucial during a career transition. Your initial path may evolve as you gain more insights and experiences. Embracing change and adaptation opens the door to broader opportunities. There may be something you may not have considered, but which may turn out to be a perfect fit.

Conclusion

Choosing a new professional path as a physician takes courage, contemplation, and perseverance. Know that you almost surely will need to step outside of your comfort zone to get somewhere new and more fulfilling.

By facing your roadblocks head on, you will build the skills and resilience you need to embark on this new journey. Remember that your background as a physician has equipped you with valuable skills, fortitude, and experience that are needed both in clinical medicine and in a wide range of connected fields.

Embrace the opportunities that arise, trust in yourself, and move forward towards a more fulfilling professional future that aligns with your values and your strengths.

Rediscovering Your Why: A Road Map for Physicians

If you’re questioning whether you’ve chosen the right job, the right specialty, or even the right profession, you’re not alone.

Most physicians go through cycles of doubt, revisiting old decisions when things aren’t going well. That can be very normal, and over time the chances are good that these periods will become less frequent.

Dissatisfaction today doesn’t always mean that you need to make a drastic change tomorrow. Sometimes short-term pain and sacrifices are necessary to get you where you want to go.

But if this seems like a theme song that just won’t stop playing, then it might be time to rediscover your why.

Often when you feel unfulfilled or frustrated at work or in your personal life, it’s because you are not living a life that feels authentic to you.

• Perhaps you are trying to live up to someone else’s ideal

• Maybe your life has moved in a different direction since you first chose your current path

• It could be the job itself that has changed or not lived up to your expectations

• Perhaps you simply need to rediscover the reason that you chose to become a physician so many years ago

"Finding your why" is the process of discovering and understanding the deeper purpose or meaning behind your actions, goals, and choices. It's about identifying the core values and beliefs that drive you and give your life a sense of meaning and fulfillment.

This concept is often associated with personal development and leadership, and it's a key element in the philosophy of Simon Sinek, an author who has been hugely influential in the business world. Sinek argues that successful individuals and organizations are those who are able to articulate and align their actions with a clear sense of purpose or "why." In fact, one of Sinek’s most popular books is called Find Your Why.

The idea is that when you have a clear understanding of why you do what you do, it can serve as a powerful motivator and guide for decision-making. It can help you stay focused, overcome challenges, and find a greater sense of satisfaction at work and in your personal life as well.

As Sinek puts it

• Your why is your driving force

• Your how is the actions that you take to bring your why to life

• Your what is the manifestation of your why—the actual work that you do

Once you understand your why, everything else starts to make sense. Your decisions will become clearer and your actions more purposeful and meaningful.

Knowing your why is so integral to being a physician that it’s surprising this concept is not routinely taught in medical schools. Discovering your why is not a “one and done”, check-it-off-the-list sort of thing, but it’s logical and easy to understand.

The process involves introspection and reflection on your values, passions, and the impact you want to make on the world. It means going beyond your surface-level goals and digging deeper into the fundamental reasons that drive your choices and actions.

To help you find your why, get a piece of paper or a journal and start writing. You could do this on your computer or your tablet, but writing by hand tends to engage the brain more fully than typing on a keyboard, encouraging a deeper connection with the words and ideas and improving later recall. Most importantly, choose a method and a time that works for you.

Consider taking a few minutes every morning or evening to discover the patterns and thoughts that arise. Here are some questions to get you started:

• What do I find fulfilling about my current job?

• What do I not like about my current job?

• What values do I seek to honor in my work and in my life?

• What other goals and aspirations, professional and personal, do I have?

• What are my strengths, my natural talents, my soft skills?

• What strengths and talents would I like to develop further?

• What are the common ideas and threads that run through my life over the years?

• What makes me happy at work, at home, and in my private life?

• What do people thank me for?

• What do I enjoy teaching?

• What do I enjoy learning?

• What keeps me up at night?

• What moves me to take action?

• What is my ideal day?

After spending a few weeks letting these ideas gain traction, create a mission statement that will encapsulate your why in a single sentence. To get started, ask yourself what contribution you wish to make, and what impact you hope to have. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and it doesn’t have to answer to anyone else’s expectations. Your statement can be a work in progress, but it’s a great way to begin to align your goals with a purpose that is genuine and fulfilling. Over time, knowing your why can become a transformative force.  

 P.S. If you want to learn more about defining your values, click here to sign up for my free Values Workbook.

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If you’ve enjoyed this article and would like to stay in the loop for more insights on creating a sustainable, fulfilling, and happy life as a physician, sign up for my newsletter or reach out on my website. I’d love to hear from you.

And if you’d like to schedule a complimentary introductory meeting with me, click the link below.