An Intensive Physician Coaching-as-Communication Curriculum to Promote a Culture of Coaching: A Pilot Program to...

Coaching is a creative process of inquiry and feedback that helps individuals increase self-awareness and build on strengths. Although individualized executive-style coaching has become popular among physicians, empowering physicians to adopt coach-like communications skills in medical education and clinical encounters could extend the benefits of coaching across medicine. However, professional coaches undergo lengthy training, and most physicians do not have the time, inclination, or need to become certified coaches. Therefore, we created an intensive, streamlined "physician coaching-as-communication" (PCC) curriculum to train physicians in a select subset of essential coach-like communication skills to use during spontaneous encounters with colleagues, medical trainees, and patients. Our goal was not to prepare physicians to provide formal coaching; rather, our aim was to help them cultivate a coaching mindset, identify everyday situations that could benefit from coach-like conversations, and apply some key coach-like communication skills during appropriate interactions. Here we describe the 2-phase development of the PCC curriculum, highlight the coach-like skills that support effective communication, and outline the key curriculum features that situate training into a clinically relevant and feasible framework for practicing physicians. We also present findings from a quality improvement evaluation that assessed acceptability and feasibility of the coaching curriculum for medical faculty and resident trainees. Lastly, we outline the key elements needed for a successful intensive program to help clinicians become skilled with using coach-like communication behaviors in appropriate clinical situations.