AMWA PROFESSIONAL PHYSICIAN COACHING
Experience the Benefits of Coaching
About Professional Physician Coaching
The American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) offers group and one-to-one coaching as an invaluable member benefit to support your professional growth, achieve work/life satisfaction, and career advancement. Unlike therapy, effective professional coaching does not have a predetermined agenda or make any assumptions about your needs. Physician coaching focuses on helping you to accelerate your professional development. It helps you to gain insights and forge pathways to attain your desired goals, fulfill your career aims, or arrive at a satisfying work/life balance.
Coaching allows you to focus on bringing out the best qualities of yourself personally and professionally. Whether you want to reassess your career choice, find greater professional fulfillment, tackle signs of burnout, gain confidence in returning to work, or address an issue that has you stalled, working with a physician coach is a wonderful way to allow yourself to move forward.
Ready to Give Coaching a Try? SCHEDULE a Complimentary 1:1 Session
A Member Benefit for Physician Members: June 8 and 11
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Advantages of Working with a Professional Coach
Since you have chosen to pursue a career in medicine or healthcare—clinical, academic, research, or management—embracing continual development will assure that you are advancing as desired, achieving full career satisfaction, and receiving the credit you deserve.
Coaching is recognized and valued in many professions as an effective tool for people to align themselves with their strengths and passions, learn new skills, and develop plans to achieve career goals. By deciding to work with a coach, you are affirming that you are worth investing in yourself, that your dreams and goals are valid and important, and you have a guide to attain your intentions so you don’t have to figure it out alone. You may want to work with your coach on reconnecting with who you are and what’s most important to you, or in discovering new and effective ways of getting what you want, having more impact, and living a more fulfilling life.
Refining and improving your professional skills is just as beneficial as you launch your career as for those who are striving for senior leadership roles. Consider professional coaching an integral tool wherever you are along your professional path, including the opportunity to avoid or recover from burnout, and build resilience.
The corporate world has estimated that the ROI (return on investment) of 1:1 professional coaching is up to 700%.
—Matt Symonds Forbes.com
Working with an AMWA Physician Coach, you are assured both the understanding and confidentiality essential to address any issue you are facing or finding a challenge in your life — be it personal or professional. This type of “safe space” allows you to share your thoughts, fears, concerns, hopes, and dreams, and to have the assurance that your aspirations will be met with curiosity, encouragement, and a spirit of discovery.
We can all agree that women physicians invest a lot of time, effort, and finances to become knowledgeable, capable practitioners. AMWA champions professional coaching as a wise, even essential, investment that will pay off through a satisfying and fulfilling career, and a more gratifying work/life balance. What do you have to lose? We’ve made it very easy to give coaching a try so enjoy this member benefit so you can see for yourself how this may work for you.
AMWA Physician Coaching Directory
Now that You are Ready to Invest in Yourself,
Review the bios and videos to guide your coach in who you would like to consider working with individually.
Schedule a consult with up to 3 coaches. Once you’ve settled on the coach you want to work with,
contact them to arrange your next session.
Are you interested in Joining the AMWA Coaching Community?
Meet AMWA’s Professional Coaches
AMWA Physician Coaches must, at minimum, hold certification through the International Coaching Federation (ICF) or the equivalent in professional coach training.
Tracy Asamoah, MD
Child and adolescent psychiatrist and medical writer
I am a certified physician coach with additional training in Embodied Awareness and Leadership Through Emotional Awareness. After nearly 10 years of practice, I opened a private practice in psychiatric and coaching practices in addition to writing for health professionals. As a coach, I partner with women physicians who are feeling stuck, helping you to clarify your personal and professional identity. Together, we will design an action plan to grow towards the life you envision. My approach is to support you in clarifying your strengths and values, using this increased awareness to develop a learning agenda and create an action plan to take full advantage of your internal and external resources.
Dr. Asamoah completed medical school at the University of California at San Francisco and did both a general psychiatry residency and a child and adolescent fellowship at the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine. She was an assistant professor at both the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and the Texas School of Medicine and she worked in a variety of treatment settings including outpatient community-based clinics, and inpatient and residential treatment settings.
Karen Barnard MBBCh, MPH, CPCC, ACC
Founder and Principal of Dr. Karen Barnard LLC
As a physician career transition coach, I lead you through a process that starts with helping you determine what you want (and what’s possible) and leads to guiding you to create a roadmap with action steps. I also love the nuts and bolts of the career transition process. I earned my coaching certification at the Co-Active Coaches Training Institute and I am an associate certified coach through ICF. I aim to help you connect to your courageous self and will listen for your dormant dreams, reconnect you to your inner courage, and help you shed old beliefs that may be standing in the way of your success.
Dr. Barnard is an adjunct assistant professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, and board-certified in internal medicine and in endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism.
Elisabeth Fontaine, MD, Dip. ABLM, FACLM, ACC
Telehealth lifestyle medicine physician
I am board certified in both obstetrics/gynecology and lifestyle medicine. After practicing as an Ob/Gyn, I founded a lifestyle medicine clinic in Vermont in order to improve the health of the population. My passion is to “coach a village to health” so I am committed to helping healthcare practitioners thrive in the moment, find balance in self-care to prevent burnout, and explore how you might become your best self. As a leader in women’s health and wellbeing, my goal is for you to build confidence, take control of your leadership presence and define your career direction. I aim to stretch you to think differently so you can find balance between work and life. The future is uniquely complex, requiring us to lead and act differently.
Dr. Fontaine completed a medical degree and training in obstetrics and gynecology in Canada. She completed a fellowship in Business Leadership and Integrative Health at Duke University.
Melinda (Mindy) Gillis McManus, MEd, PCC
Assistant Professor at the Mayo Clinic and CEO of Mindy’s Executive Coaching LLC
I am a professional certified coach (PCC) with the International Coach Federation and a certified executive coach through MentorCoach. I have more than 10 years developing physician leaders through courses and coaching in an academic healthcare system as an Advisor in the Leadership and Organization Development group. My passion is to coach physicians/physician leaders by developing a creative partnership with you to capitalize on igniting your creativity, leadership, passion, and drive. I aim to help you improve your leadership capabilities to achieve professional, team, organizational, and personal goals. It’s all about assisting you to harness your greatness and discover unrealized talents.
Mindy Gillis earned a master’s degree in education, specializing in leadership and organizational development
Amie Langbein, DO, PCC, CDWF
Executive and Leadership Coach
I am an executive and leadership coach, board-certified family physician, consultant, educator, and respected speaker who specializes in transformational coaching to create insight-driven, meaningful change. I received certification through The Coaches Training Institute and I am a certified Brené Brown Daring Way™ facilitator, a certified Conscious Business Coach, and a graduate of the Great Story Coaching program. Additionally, I have completed extensive training in mindfulness-based stress reduction and self-compassion. I coach physicians on stress reduction, resiliency strategies, and skill-building to mitigate burnout, through enhancing self-awareness, self-care, and self-compassion. My approach is to be empowering, empathetic, and inspirational and I will believe in you wholeheartedly, even when you are challenged to believe in yourself.
Dr. Langbein graduated from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, completed a psychiatry internship at Hahnemann University Medical Center, and a family practice residency at Delaware Valley Medical Center.
Deborah Munhoz, MS
Certified Physician Development Coach™
For more than 15 years I have committed myself to helping physician leaders develop the skills to lead with influence and impact. I have guided hundreds of experienced female physicians in elevating their leadership skills. Their successes have built my reputation
as a national authority on healthcare leadership. My signature coaching program the Resilient Leader Way™ gives female physicians the leadership skills they need to become change agents who break down barriers that once looked insurmountable, and forge transformative solutions, all while remaining true to themselves. My clients say the program helps them recognize their blind spots and turn obstacles into opportunities, so they become the leaders others want to follow. Effective coaching helps you, as a physician leader, step more fully into any leadership changes this healthcare system urgently needs.
After receiving a master’s degree in health sciences administration, Deborah Munhoz owned a successful home infusion pharmacy, developing high-performing interdisciplinary clinical teams.
Asha Padmanabhan, MD, FASA
Master Certified Physician Development Coach
Medical Director of Anesthesia at Bethesda West Hospital in Florida
I am a board-certified anesthesiologist who has held multiple leadership positions including Chief of Department. I coach women physicians in leadership skills, career growth and transformation, and
career resilience by helping you to gain clarity as to your career goals and work-life balance. I
aim to work with you to develop effective leadership skills so you can feel fulfilled in your career
and actually look forward to going to work every morning. Having personally dealt with the many
challenges that come with being a women leader in medicine, I offer my insights when coaching women who are either thrust into leadership unprepared or are seeking leadership but unsure how and where to start. My coaching style derives not only from the basic principles of coaching but also is informed by training with several leadership academies like the Physician Leadership Academy (South Florida), and The Envision Chiefs Leadership Training; I am a graduate of the Physician Coaching Institute.
Ami Shah MD, FACS, FAAP
Associate Professor of Medicine at Rush Medical Center
My mission is to help physicians find the best versions of themselves. We often feel as if we are trapped by others and choices we have made but by taking back the control of our lives we can design the lives we want.
Karen Tindall, BDS (Hons), WPCC, ACC
Founder, Balanced Doctor
I am an internationally certified professional life coach in private practice. For AMWA, I am co-chair of the Coaching Community as well as program lead for the Physicians with Young Families coaching groups—helping busy physicians who are combining the demands of a career with the full-time responsibility of parenting. My intention is to lighten your heavy mental load and relieve you of the burden of mom guilt so you can create the life you want and the career you deserve. I am equally passionate about preventing burnout before it takes hold. I am invested in my clients wanting you to feel calm, confident, and in control. I define my superpower as an exceptional ability to listen, understand, and have great empathy.
Coming from a family of physicians, Karen Kindall chose to break from tradition and earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in dental surgery from the University of Newcastle, UK, then I completed my postgraduate training at the University of Oxford.
Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH, ACC
ICF-Certified Mental Fitness Coach and Change Agent
I was a board-certified primary care physician but left my internal medicine practice due to burnout. I spent 20 plus years as a healthcare writer, focusing on patient safety, workforce wellbeing, and professional burnout, which I speak about at national meetings, having served on a national task force on burnout. I co-authored Preventing Physician Burnout: Curing the Chaos and Returning Joy to the Practice of Medicine. To expand on my personal mission to address physician burnout, I became an ICF-certified coach with specific training in Gestalt and mental fitness. I help women physicians who are stretched thin to create lives that work, so you can be your best self at home and at work. Most often, this involves addressing burnout, work-life balance issues, self-doubt and imposter syndrome, and time and energy management. If this sounds like you, let’s talk!
Susan J. Wilson, MD, CPC
Certified Physician Peer Coach
After retiring as an emergency medicine physician, I became a certified physician peer coach, now providing guidance and support to physicians. Having 25 years as a hospital-based, board-certified emergency medicine practitioner has afforded me great insight into the challenges you face. I view coaching as an important tool to address issues of job satisfaction, work/life balance, and burnout. I employ “mental fitness” as the framework for my coaching practice as it helps to shift one’s mindset from negative to positive. Also, I have a special interest in Clinician Distress Syndrome (or, Second Victim Syndrome), offering peer support for those suffering acute, traumatic events.
After attending Loyola-Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago, Dr; Wilson did her residency at The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
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