You've already tried the advice.
Physicians are resourceful. We've tried the dot phrases, the EHR hacks, the resilience lectures, the shelf of books, maybe even a side hustle. Most offer a shred of something useful. Few solve the problem, because they were designed for someone else's life. If there were one simple fix, there wouldn't be tens of thousands of publications on burnout alone.
You already know more than you think.
Most of us know far more than we realize about what we want. Those answers just need time and space to surface. That takes three things medicine has trained us not to do:
Slow down.
Ask what YOU really want, not what you think you should want or what someone else would like you to do.
Actually listen to the answers. This may take a while, because we're trained to shut down ideas that don't seem realistic or "right."
Coaching is structured time to do exactly that, with someone trained to ask the questions you haven't been asking yourself.
The evidence is real.
Physician coaching has been shown in multiple randomized controlled trials to reduce burnout and improve well-being.
22 percentage points: the gap in burnout between physicians who had one-on-one coaching and those who didn't, in a Mayo Clinic randomized trial, after about 3.5 hours of coaching. The share of physicians with burnout fell by 17 percentage points with coaching and rose by 5 without it.
Nearly 30%: the drop in burnout with small-group coaching in a 2025 UCLA randomized trial.
1,000+ trainees: in an online group coaching program across 26 institutions, burnout dropped and self-compassion and flourishing rose.
Physicians deserve the same support.
Outside medicine, the best leaders already work with coaches. Physicians are leaders by definition. I believe that someday every physician will have a coach. The evidence is already here; it may take the healthcare system twenty years to catch up. You don't have to wait.
