Scouting a career coach: When it's time for a change

Physicians are turning to advisers to help them decide where to go in their professional life. But with so many coaches -- and with charges at $130 per hour -- physicians need to tread carefully before hiring one.

By Robert Kazel, AMNews staff. Dec. 20, 2004.

A few months ago, Lee Slavin, MD, MPH, wondered why he'd gone into clinical medicine -- and if he should find an exit. "I thought I could do more," says the Cleveland trauma surgeon. "I thought I wasn't performing [to potential] and I didn't understand why."

Dr. Slavin was finishing his MBA and thought vaguely about venturing into business. After hearing that some physicians use career coaches to clarify goals, he met with a Washington-based coach. For nearly six months he's had telephone coaching sessions -- each costing a few hundred dollars -- about once every two weeks, an hour to 90 minutes each. Dr. Slavin talks with his coach about his personal and professional strengths and weaknesses, and about options he might have inside and outside of medicine.

Physicians, in apparently growing numbers, are seeking advice from career coaches who can offer services from job-hunting guidance to improving life skills.

Career coaching as an industry has mushroomed over the past five years, and for some coaches, physicians disgruntled over declining reimbursements, climbing liability insurance premiums, and other hassles of medicine have become a lucrative clientele.

But although many physicians say they've benefited from being coached, it's a wholly unregulated field. That's why experts say physicians need to check out carefully any coach they consider retaining.

Some doctors hire career coaches because they're unhappy with professional relationships in their practices and want to hone interpersonal skills. Others are curious about other fields within medicine. Some are dismayed with health care and want to leave it, but aren't sure how. Others long to chase a lifelong dream.